• by Sarah Mahoney , February 6, 2018

With the opening of the Olympic games in PyeongChang just days away, Dick’s Sporting Goods is hoping the spirit of sport can unite a divided America.

Its new ad kicks off with a news-hour screaming match, then moves on to a montage of some of sports finest moments, including Jesse Owens in Germany in1936, Billie Jean King in 1973, and Kerri Strug sticking her one-footed landing in 1996, mixed in with scenes including the ordinary athletes that make up the retailers’ customer base. “We have something unbreakable binding us together,” the spot begins. “As the world puts differences aside to play games, you’ll see humanity at its best. This is sport. It will help unite us as one country, one people and one world.”

The ad is from Anomaly and running on digital channels, including YouTube. It is scheduled to air on NBC and its Olympic channels beginning Feb. 10, as well as on TNT during the NBA All-Star Game. The retailer is also planning on running full-page ads, in the form of a letter from its CEO, in such newspapers as The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune. (A copy of the letter is also being sent as an email blast to its customers.)

The new spot follows the Pittsburgh-based retailer’s announcement last week that 11 of its store associates, or close to a third of the 36 Olympic hopefuls who work for the company, earned spots to compete in the coming games. (See the Contenders Spot.)

The ads are airing at a rough time for retailers in general, and especially those in the ultra-competitive athletic apparel sector, and Barclays just downgraded its rating of the company. While other investors have speculated that Dick’s might benefit from being one of the few surviving names in the category, as Best Buy is in the electronics sector, Barclay’s questions how Dick’s, with its “sparse labor model and no treasure hunt aspects, will remain relevant as changing consumer preferences increasingly require intensive and specialized service/experiential levels to compete,” writes analyst Matthew McClintock. 

With continued weakness in the hunting category, McClintock also doubts the ability of Dick’s private-label Calia line to compete with the expanding offerings of stores like Lululemon, JC Penney, Kohl’s and Nordstrom. He notes that Nike is investing heavily in revamping its physical stores, at a time when Dick’s stores are in need of a makeover. While that increased competition has been intensifying price cuts for retailers for the past several years, he says, it’s been worse at Dick’s: “Our work indicates that promotions at Dick’s specifically increased by more than 40% in December.”