In 1987, sneaker manufacturer Nike had passed the $1 billion mark in corporate sales.  However, its chief competitor, Reebok, was then the world’s No. 1 sneaker company.  Nike was in the process of revamping its marketing and advertising strategy, and had already hooked up with a rising NBA basketball star named Michael Jordan.  The company had also come up with a tag line for promoting a new group of Nike Air shoes — “Revolution in Motion.”  But it needed some catchy music to use in its TV advertising to help launch the shoe.  That’s when Nike got the idea of using the Beatles’ classic 1960s’ song,  “Revolution” to help sell the shoes.

     Beatles’ music — at least in the original form sung by the Beatles themselves – had never been used in a commercial before.  In one case in 1985 the Beatles’ song “Help!” was performed by a sound-alike group for a Lincoln-Mercury car ad.  “We never considered sound-alikes,” said advertising executive Kelley Stoutt to Time magazine in May 1987, explaining Nike’s intentions for its “revolution” campaign.   Stoutt was an account executive at Nike’s ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy and helped create the campaign.  “In our minds,” said Stoutt, emphasizing the plan to use the original song, “it was the Beatles or no one.”

     In mid-1987, Nike made a deal to use the Beatles song in their ad campaign shelling out $500,000 to do so.  However, Nike didn’t make the deal with the Beatles, but rather, with pop star Michael Jackson and EMI-Capitol Records.  According to Time, Nike paid $250,000 to the record companies and a similar amount to Jackson to use the song for one year. Jackson had acquired “Revolution” and 200 other Beatles tunes in 1985 when he paid $47.5 million to an Australian group for a catalog of some 4,000 songs, including the Beatles’ songs.  The Beatles, however, along with their record label, Apple, had decided after  the earlier use of “Help!” in the 1985 Ford Lincoln-Mercury ad, that there would be no more use of Beatles music in advertising.  Yet the Beatles didn’t own the rights to “Revolution” any longer; and Nike had paid its fee to Jackson and Capitol Records for the right to use the song.  How the Beatles lost control of “Revolution” and other songs, and how Michael Jackson acquired them, is covered in part at “Michael & McCartney,” also at this website.  Music publishing rights in the early 1960s were valued somewhat differently, and the Beatles didn’t fully realize what they had.  They made their own mistakes along the way as well.  But they were also taken advantage of and/or served poorly by some of their business partners.  With the right advice at the time, the Beatles could have had clear and full control of “Revolution” and other songs early on, but there is more to this story that space permits here.  More recently, within the last few decades, there also appears to have been opportunity to buy some of their music publishing rights back.

     In any case, by early 1987, Nike believed it had the legal rights to use “Revolution,” and proceeded to make the ad with the original Beatles music.  The ad began running on television in mid-March 1987.  Then, in the summer of 1987, the three surviving Beatles along with their record label, Apple, filed a lawsuit objecting to Nike’s use of the song.  The suit was aimed at Nike, its ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy, and Capitol-EMI Records.  The TV ad with the music – and there were at least four versions – continued to run as the litigation proceeded.

 

Song History

     “Revolution” was written by John Lennon in the spring of 1968, then a tumultuous time in the U.S. and Europe.  Vietnam War protests and other civil unrest had occurred.  In Paris that May, about the time Lennon wrote the song, student demonstrations had reached a fevered pitch.  A massive strike there and resulting riots led to the collapse of the government of Charles DeGaulle.  Lennon aimed his song at the world’s young revolutionaries, agreeing with their basic beliefs but advocating non-violence.  The song, which became the Beatles first venture into political territory, was recorded by the Beatles at Abbey Road studios in London in July 1968.  It was released on B-side of the “Hey Jude” single in August that year.  The single reached No. 12 on the U.S. music charts.  The song was a product of the recording sessions for the Beatle’s White Album, and in fact, the original slower version of “Revolution,” sometimes called “Revolution 1,” appears on that album.

     The popular and more electric version of “Revolution,” and the one that became the subject of Nike’s advertising interest, was a hard-driving tune for the Beatles, one of the group’s loudest and most aggressive then to date.  It was a good bit different than a lot of their prior material.  In fact, for some, it presaged what would be called “heavy metal” music to come later.   “The Beatles position is that they don’t sing jingles to peddle sneakers, beer, pantyhose or anything else. …They wrote and recorded these songs as artists and not as pitch- men for any product.”
                          - Apple, July 18, 1987. Still, it was basic rock ‘n roll, opening with a loud electric guitar, followed by Beatle vocals: “You say you want a revolution…,” then more guitars, electric piano, Beatle vocals with some screaming by John Lennon at one point.  But by the mid-1980s, nearly twenty years after the first recording of the song, John Lennon was dead, and Michael Jackson had acquired the song’s rights.  Nevertheless, in court, the surviving Beatles moved to protect their music.

     “The Beatles position is that they don’t sing jingles to peddle sneakers, beer, pantyhose or anything else,”said Apple’s attorney in a statement of July 18, 1987.  “Their position is that they wrote and recorded these songs as artists and not as pitchmen for any product.”  Capitol-EMI countered by saying the lawsuit was “groundless” because Capitol had licensed the use of “Revolution” with the “active support and encouragement of Yoko Ono Lennon, a shareholder and director of Apple.”  In addition to the legal action, there was also a backlash from Beatles fans to Nike’s use of the song, many saying that John Lennon would have objected.

Revolution 1968 You say you want a revolution Well, you know We all want to change the world You tell me that it’s evolution Well, you know We all want to change the world But when you talk about destruction Don’t you know that you can count me out Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right all right, all right You say you got a real solution Well, you know We’d all love to see the plan You ask me for a contribution Well, you know We’re doing what we can But when you want money for people with minds that hate All I can tell is brother you have to wait Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right all right, all right Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah… You say you’ll change the constitution Well, you know We all want to change your head You tell me it’s the institution Well, you know You better free your mind instead But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right all right, all right all right, all right, all right all right, all right, all right

     “If it’s allowed to happen,” said former Beatle George Harrison of the Nike deal in November 1987, “every Beatles song ever recorded is going to be advertising women’s underwear and sausages.  We’ve got to put a stop to it in order to set a precedent.  Otherwise it’s going to be a free-for-all.  It’s one thing when you’re dead, but we’re still around!  They don’t have any respect for the fact that we wrote and recorded those songs, and it was our lives.”  By February 1988, as Nike continued to use the ad and its music while the court fight proceeded, Paul McCartney said:  “[T]he most difficult question is whether you should use songs for commercials.  I haven’t made up my mind.  Generally, I don’t like it, particularly with the Beatles stuff.  When twenty years have passed maybe we’ll move into the realm where it’s okay to do it.”

 

Upbeat & Energetic

     The Nike ads that ran using the “Revolution” music, however, were well received by many who saw them.  The ads — showing a collage of quick-cut sports scenes that fit well with the music –  were generally upbeat and energetic.  They were purposely crafted by their producers to have the look of a grainy black-and-white home movie.  The producers said they wanted the look of a “a kind of radical sports documentary,” and in 1987-88, the ads likely had that effect.  One showed a few quick clips of professional, well-known athletes — including very brief appear- ances of John McEnroe and Michael Jordan.  But there were also lots of shots of amateurs doing their own sports things – from joggers and tennis players, to toddlers, rope skippers, and air guitarists.  Some Madison Avenue managers at the time thought it was a coup for Nike to have had the Beatles’s original music in the spot, calling the music “a very, very powerful tool.”  Others weren’t so sure, pointing to the anti-war demonstrations of the Vietnam War era when the song was first aired, suggesting that association might be the more powerful one.

     In any case, the litigation over the use of music dragged on while Nike continued to air the ad, at least four versions of which were produced and run.  But finally, in March 1988, although still in court, Nike decided to discontinue airing the ads using the “Revolution” song.  More than a year later, in November 1989 the Los Angeles Daily News reported that the “tangle of lawsuits between the Beatles and their American and British record companies has been settled.”  One condition of the out-of-court settlement was that terms of the agreement would be kept secret.  The settlement was reached among the three groups of interests involved: the former surviving Beatles – George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr; John Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono; and the music businesses – Apple, EMI, and Capitol Records.  A spokesman for Yoko Ono noted of the lawsuit and settlement, however,  “It’s such a confusing myriad of issues that even people who have been close to the principals have a difficult time grasping it.  Attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic have probably put their children through college on this.”

 

Key Business Event

     Some years later, TheStreet.com, a business-oriented web site,  ran a piece commemorating the top 100 business events that shaped the 20th century.  Nike’s Revolution ad made the cut at No. 97.  The Street.com claimed the ad worthy of joining the 100 key events since it helped “commodify dissent,” as the editors put it, creating a new genre of advertising. The Street.com named Nike’s ad to its 100 key  business events of the century, saying it helped “commodify dissent”. “It’s not the first time the ideals of the 1960s – freedom, individuality, anti-materialism, dissent – are called upon to push product,” said the editors.  “But it may stand as the biggest co-optation….Now it’s almost impossible to escape ads that sell not just products, but breaking the rules, dude.”

     True, like the use of other rock tunes in advertising, Nike’s “Revolution” ad and the litigation that followed, further pushed the envelope on the use of popular music in advertising.  Still, there would be more legal battles to come.  What was once a valiant effort by artists to keep their music out of the commercial advertising arena appeared to be wearing down in the 1990s as more and more songs would be incorporated into advertising.  Stay tuned to this site for those stories and others related to the “music-and-advertising” issue.

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     See other Beatles story at “Beatles Closed-Circuit Gig, March 1964.”

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Date Posted:  27 September 2008
Last Update:  27 July 2009
Comments to: jdoyle@pophistorydig.com

Article Citation:
Jack Doyle, “Nike & The Beatles, 1987-1989,”
PopHistoryDig.com, September 27, 2008.

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Sources, Links & Additional Information

Jay Cocks,  Elizabeth L. Bland, New York, and Elaine Dutka, Los Angeles, “Wanna Buy a Revolution?,” Time,  Monday, May 18, 1987.

Associated Press, July 18, 1987.

Mark Potts, “Got to Get You Out of Our Life; Former Beatles Sue Over Use of Song in Nike Commercial,” Washington Post, July 29, 1987, p. F-1.

“EMI Calls Beatles Suit `Absurd’,” Washington Post, July 30, 1987, p. E-1.

Janice Kalmar, “Nike Vows to Continue Using Beatles Song in Ads,” United Press International (UPI), August 4, 1987.

Jon Pareles, “Nike Calls Beatles Suit Groundless,” New York Times, August 5, 1987.

Mark Potts, “It’s a Long and Winding Lawsuit; Beatles Seek $80 Million From EMI-Capitol, Also End to `Revolution’ Ad,” Washington Post, August 9, 1987, p. H-1.

Philip H. Dougherty, “Advertising; Nike Is Persisting In ‘Revolution’ Theme,” New York Times, February 25, 1988.

Los Angeles Daily News, November 9, 1989.

Robert Fontenot, “Revolution: The History of This Classic Beatles Song,” About.com.

David E. Long, “Nike Strikes Up A Revolution,” The Gavel (Cleveland-Marshall College of Law), September 1987.

“The Basics of Business History: 100 Events That Shaped a Century,” The Street.com, December 6, 1999.

Bernice Kanner, “100 Best TV Commercials,” The Chief Executive, June 1999.

“The Beatles Song” at “Nike, Inc.” profile, Wikipedia.com

“Beatles Buy-Out: How Nike Bought the Beatles’ ‘Revolution.”‘ Dispatch,  November 3, 1994.