Written by Anna Mueller.
Content in the “Blog Posts” folder is classwork completed for the PR524 Multimedia Content Creation course at the University of Southern California. This content is not designed to be actually representative of the companies listed here. This is purely for academic purposes. The author has no affiliation with the companies written about.
Nike’s latest campaign is a masterclass in not telling female athletes what to do.
On a Friday summer night in Paris, France, Sha’Carri Richardson won her first gold. A few years before that, she was fighting back against internet trolls and trackside referees after being ejected from the U.S. Olympic track and field team.
Sha’Carri Richardson is an athletics phenom, but she was not an overnight success. After blazing to the top of our newspaper headlines and social media timelines with collegiate victory after victory after victory at Louisiana State University, the world was ready for The Sha’Carri Show at Tokyo 2020. But, when accusations of drug usage stripped her of the ticket she’d earned to the Games at the 2020 Olympic Trials, The Sha’Carri Show got pulled off the air.
The backlash she got in the media would have been enough to make anyone quit. Never mind that her drug usage was merely CBD, a means of numbing pain in the wake of her mother’s untimely death, not a competitive performance enhancer or outright steroid. Sha’Carri was labeled a fraud. The track and field fans who should have been supporting her were casting her aside, determined that she would never forget how she “let America down.”
Sha’Carri Richardson is not a quitter, though. After losing her next few public races, out of practice and surrounded by those who had just attended the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games without her, Sha’Carri slowly started coming back. A win at Hayward Field. A win at the Diamond League. A win in Brussels. The momentum was building.
Race after race, Sha’Carri was proving to everyone – once again – that she was a superstar, an athlete to be remembered, an athlete worth investing in, and, of course, someone who could be an Olympic champion. And thus, an Olympic champion she became.
Nike’s latest advertisement, which saw its debut at the 2025 Super Bowl, features Richardson alongside fellow female Nike athletes like gymnast Jordan Chiles and basketball players Caitlin Clark, Sabrina Ionescu, and Juju Watkins.
The tagline for the campaign is, “You can’t win. So win.” The message is that, no matter what a female athlete does, she will always be met with backlash. It is the unfortunate reality of our modern world and our digital discourse habits.
These women and so many others are criticized and pulled apart for almost everything they do. From grieving a mother, to winning a bronze medal, to simply playing the sport of basketball well, these women are always doing something “wrong.” In other words, they can’t win in the public’s eyes.
So what should they do? They should win anyway.
Check out the campaign here.
“You can’t win. So win.” (AI Version)
Written by ChatGPT.
They said you couldn’t do it. They said the competition was too fierce, the odds stacked too high. They said you weren’t ready. That’s fine. Let them talk. Because we know something they don’t: Winning isn’t about proving them wrong. It’s about proving yourself right.
Nike’s latest campaign, “You Can’t Win. So Win.”, isn’t about the scoreboard. It’s about the moments no one sees—the sweat, the sacrifices, the relentless drive to show up, again and again. This isn’t about easy victories. It’s about the ones that hurt, the ones that break you down before they build you back up.
The Meaning Behind the Message
For every champion crowned, there are a thousand others pushing just as hard. For every finish line crossed, there are countless miles run in the dark, alone, with nothing but doubt to keep you company. This campaign is for them. For the ones who train without applause. For the ones who fight without a guarantee. For the ones who hear “you can’t win” and turn it into fuel.
Winning isn’t promised. It’s not handed out. It’s earned. And even then, it’s never just about standing on top of the podium. It’s about standing up at all. It’s about showing up when no one’s watching, when no one believes, when everything tells you to stop. That’s the win. That’s what this campaign is about.
More Than a Campaign—A Challenge
“You Can’t Win. So Win.” is more than a tagline. It’s a challenge. A mindset. A call to those who know that success isn’t about proving the world wrong—it’s about proving yourself right.
So lace up. Get back out there. Push past the doubt, past the pain, past the noise. And if they say you can’t win, smile—because that’s when the real work begins.
Nike. Just Do It.
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