All
15 Greatest Footwear Commercials of All Time
#6 Reebok Basketball Pump: Bungee Jump Face-off Reebok Vs. Nike 1989
When the first Reebok Pump basketball shoe hit store shelves no one had ever quite seen anything like it. In combination with Reebok’s ‘Energy Return System’ –which was visible under the shoes sole -it was a masterpiece. Of course to those that dismissed them as nothing more than a cool gimmick Reebok had an answer by way of a very extreme commercial. To promote the shoes ability to give the wearer a custom fit that their competitor couldn’t, they teamed up with ad agency Chiat/Day who took two bungee jumper’s and put one of them in a pair of Nike Air Flight 89 High’s and the other in The First Reebok Pump basketball shoe and had them both jump off a bridge. The outcome? A pair of Flight 89 High’s dangling on a cord with no one in them while the wearer of The Pump bounces back with no issue. It was an extremely controversial commercial that at the time was initially pulled after worried parents started calling Reebok to complain that it may inspire a child to mimic the stunt. Reebok would go on to add a disclaimer to the intro, the first Pump basketball shoe would be the first of hundred’s of Pump Shoes to come and this commercial would go down as one of the best of all time.