A recent Nike shoe commercial has four different LeBrons James characters in it.  Athlete LeBron, Kid LeBron, Business LeBron, and Wise LeBron are the four personalities of LeBron James. Nike has used the LeBron brands to sell millions of pairs of basketball shoes. Most basketball shoe advertisements use the same rhetorical appeal of ethos as Nike did with the LeBrons. Ethos uses the ethics or authority of a person to endorse a certain product or service an advertisement is directed at. For instance, Michael Jordan uses his own name to sell his shoes in excess of one hundred dollars a pair because he arguably the greatest basketball player that played the game. Everyone wants his shoes because they identify with his greatness and thus, his brand name. “Everyone wants to be like Mike.”            

On the other hand, Stephon Marbury came out with his Starbury shoes. They are sold at Steve and Barry’s, a discount clothing store. These shoes, instead of being expensive, are sold for only fifteen dollars a pair. This allows the basketball shoe to be bought by virtually everyone and opens the market as well. Also, this shoe represents Stephon’s personality of a young New York street baller and is using his rugged childhood to sell his shoe to kids that are growing up like him. He has used his greatness as a basketball player, in addition to his popularity, to brand his shoes in order to sell them to a mass audience.             

NBA super stars help boost shoe sales when they endorse these products.  They target the youth in our communities in purchasing these shoes because children are easily persuaded by celebrity-endorsed products. Kids are the easiest target market to provide for. So the shoe companies take advantage of them and promote the old saying of “it’s got to be the shoes” heavily towards them. You can go to any basketball court and everyone has the LeBron’s or Kobe’s and try to play basketball just like them. These athletes are looked as role models and many of them abuse or lose their star status by associating themselves with sex scandals, gambling, and dog fighting.     Scott Kanas