Should I?
By Carrie Mclaren
Days before Nike's new
commercials aired, they were already playing on TV. NEWS FLASH: "New Nike Slogan I
CAN to Trump JUST DO IT." "Sources Say I CAN a Return to Focus on
Positive." Brilliant. Nike as the Little
Engine That Could. Ad agency Wieden & Kennedy does it again-lifting a
catchphrase ("Do it!" was a Yippies battle cry in the '60s) and
repositioning it. Talking heads may wonder, "Will I CAN be the next JUST DO
IT?" but the real news is that it already is: "Ever Talk Face to Face
From a Hundred Miles Away? You Can."-Intel. "Betcha Can!"Merit
cigarettes. "Why Do We Apply Mascara at 55 mph? Because We Can
"-Virginia Slims. "Why Fly Norwich, NY? Because You
Can!"-Norwich Weather. "Create Your Own Series of Dodge Ball Trading
Cards. Because You Can"-Sony. "Can" and
"do" work so well in unison, it seems, that "can" has
become its own reason for doing. Why do something? Because you can. Or as the
T-shirts and bumper stickers put it, "Why does a dog lick his balls?
Because he can." Why does Crazed Biology Man on X-Files make giant spider
legs grow out of eyes? "Because I can." Why does evil Chad from In
the Company of Men fuck over everyone possible? "Because I could." When there's no good reason, a
nonreason will do. Capability equals justification. That advertisers could turn this
into an incentive to buy comes as somewhat of a shock at first. Surely Sony and
the gang aren't limiting themselves to targeting evil, ball-licking bastards.
(At the very least, it's a pretty safe bet that someone who relies on
"because I can" would not make a good cop or babysitter.) And while Madison
Avenue likes to frame questions, asking "why?" opens up a whole bag
of worms. "Why create your own series of dodge ball trading cards?"
Stupidity? Boredom? Got no friends? As an answer, "because you can"
has plenty of competition; there is no shortage of bad reasons. In part, that is precisely the
point. Advertisers are fessing up with a familiar ironic wink, something akin
to saying, "If I'm going to be an asshole, I can at least be a rich
asshole. Har, har." Yet the "because I can" of ad slogans is oft
as earnest as it is ironic. The phrase has been bandied about so many times
that it's been transformed from a cheap punchline substituting for a reason to
a three-letter buzzword for choice, freedom, possibility, power. Of course, whether we need or
even want to apply mascara at 55 mph is another question entirely, one
advertisers can't afford to raise. Better to steer away from anything that
might provoke thinking. Don't think, just do it. As a 1993 CocaCola campaign
put it, "Some people live their life as an exclamation not an
explanation." In that fraction of a second it takes you to decide between
the Friction Free Grip or the Easy Pour Spout, millions are at stake. In
fact, the only need involved is the advertisers; who need to sell you not only
more than you need, but now also more than you want: "Just buy this
because you can." What's a little "anal leakage" and bloating
when you can eat a whole bag of fat-free chips? Assuming, of course, that you
have the money for all this stuff. Like "Just Do It;' "because you
can" assumes the audience has privilege, money, and ability in the first
place. To someone struggling to pay rent and put food on the table,
"because you can" and "just do it" would rightly sound like
a cruel joke. The ads aren't directed to those people, though. They're for middle-class
managers, teens, and soccer moms. It's as if advertisers are picking out those
who've reached the top part of the hierarchy of needs (past physical and
material and up toward emotional ones) and asking them to step back down. "Because I can" then,
caters to our desire for self-actualization at the same time it denies it. Any
10-year-old knows the proper response to "because I can":
"So?" Yes, you can buy 100 brands of
deodorant, yes, you can throw yourself off a cliff, but that doesn't mean you
should. And therein lies the kicker: the only "should" "because
I can" accommodates is the silent "should" the phrase itself
implies. "Because I can" symbolizes freedom of choice and possibility
(as the Levi's campaign says, "its wide open") while choking it. To
wit: "Why are you buying the
gold watch?" "Because I can" "Well, why aren't you
buying the silver watch? And why don't you buy me a watch? You can do that,
too." In other words, to do something
because you can hides the fact that choice, however retarded it may be, needs
"should". "Should" has gotten a
bad rep lately. "Should" isn't the path to purchase; it's the path
away, the barrier between buyer and product. "Should" is restraint,
abstinence, gray areas. "Should" is the anti-can, Bob Dole's
"Just Don't Do It." But should is where true choice and power lie;
shold is what separates us from chimps. Intel processors and Sony digital
cameras have no sense of should. Naturally, "should"
has its own ad campaign, playing the bad guy in PepsiCo's Josta commercials. In
one spot, an old man confides to a teen that he wasted his youth on
"shoulda coulda woulda" when he coulda been out drinking and chasing
women. "Shoulda coulda woulda... better do the good stuff,' the tag line
advises, the good stuff being rebellion and Josta. The message isn't lost on a
couple of Josta's biggest fans. Azure Reznor, a 17-year-old in Virginia, has
undertaken a consumer campaign to "save Josta." PepsiCo hasn't
necessarily indicated that there's anything to save-so why the effort? "I remember Crystal Pepsi
and how PepsiCo took it off the market,' says Reznor. "I'm not letting
that happen to Josta. I'm doing something." Meanwhile, John Blaylock, a psychology
graduate at Oklahoma State, has organized a Josta-themed scavenger hunt for his
residence hall, edited movies and TV pictures to include Josta, and made a
Josta clock and Web site, among other projects, as a tribute to the drink. Via e-mail, I asked him what he
thinks of the commercials. "Damn cool" writes Blaylock, then
explains, "If your conscience gets in the way most of the time, take the
steel rod out of your ass and live a little. I mean, if you feel like dancing
in class, do it, or if you feel like yelling in the middle of Wal-Mart, just do
it." Why? Because you can.
"Can" is why we have technology to clone humans, why socially
conscious software programmers end up creating technologies that invade
privacy. We do what we're good at. We create. And we do what we want. Several months ago, I got into
an e-mail debate with a sales rep at an online intelligence engine (my day job
involves buying advertising for a record company). I asked him why we need to
"automate the word-of-mouth process." Why have robots recommend music?
Why take a fun, interesting process-talking to people, record hunting, reading
zines-and hand it over to machines? Mr. Sales Rep agreed, "It's not that
people need this. We're just providing another option." Because we can. Don't worry about the
consequences, just do it. Remember AT&T's campaign from 1994? One ad read,
"Ever tuck your baby in from the airport? You will" Another:
"Ever send a fax from the beach? You will." Should you tuck your baby in
from the airport? Ever want to send a fax from the beach? These questions are
irrelevant. Technology is inevitable. Only a chump would resist. And so it is
with the market-essentially a machine where the only "should" that
matters is the buy-and-sell. "Because I can" is the mantra for a
society that has so internalized the mechanisms of the market that we see
ourselves as little machines. Capability equals justification equals destiny.
If you can, you will. For some reason, when I think of "choice" and
"possibility" and "freedom,' this isn't what I have in mind.