It's OK if I eat the cheeseburger, large fries, biggie frosty, have a few beers, stop for a milkshake, grab a couple donuts - I'll just work out an extra 23 and a half hours...

Finally, a pair of shoes that appeals to my lazy-ass. I'm going to run out and buy a pair. Well, maybe not run. I'll walk. Nah, I'll drive. Ooo, maybe I can buy them online.

"It's okay if I have a cheeseburger, I'll just work out 15 minutes later today."

I think you're making a BIG (no pun intended) extrapolation from their campaign.

I would feel that they're aiming at 2 sets of people -
1) the casual market as you mentioned and
2) the people who feel a little daunted and intimidated by all the Nike-Gatorade-type hardcore exercisers. Reebok says "Ignore those who keep try to run the 6 minute mile, you run the 10 minute mile. But do run the mile. Oh, and wear Reebok. Please."

Not to be all contrary...but don't you burn the same amount of calories running a mile in 10 minutes as you do in 6 minutes? Sure, if you are saying you are exercising for 20 minutes, and you run 2 miles instead of 3.3, it's not the same...but if you run for 30 minutes instead of 18, isn't it about the same?

Yeah, and that 15 miles you rode in your H2 is the same as the 15 I rode on my bike.

We live in a feel good society. Effort (even half assed) is what counts, apparently. I'll just keep complaining that I can't find my sizes in stores because everything is made for short fat people. I'll rejoice the day I can walk into a store and regularly find a pair of pants that have an inseam greater than the waist. I don't even care if I can fit into it. When that becomes the norm, my faith in the world will be restored.

This fits well with their slogan, "I am what I am." At least I believe what their slogan read.

@wreckingcru: I agree. I think it's an interesting campaign. Plus, how many people wake up one day, decide to start running, and make a 6 minute mile. Probably not many. I think the point is to tell people you don't have to be in shape to start working out.

My vote is with Wreckingcru above...

Plus, it is a great way to get their ads to stand out. By the merit of the weight problem in this country, it is clear that there are more "average joes/janes" out there than uber-athletes. Kudos to Reebok for using a clever campaign to get to these people...er, my people!

@enm4r: You sound like an angry elf.

You'll get over it. Or move to Eritrea...

@enm4r: You sound like an angry elf.

You'll get over it. Or move to Eritrea...

I think this is a smart campaign. Health advocates suggest light running and walking over doing nothing at all, and this marketing speaks directly to that.

Still, I wouldn't buy Reeboks because they're shit.

@The Quite American: Not exactly. The difference between a 10 minute mile and a 6 minute mile could be the difference between aerobic and partially anareobic exercise, although it depends on how fit the person is. And Anaerobic is less efficient, so it would burn more calories, the same way that a car traveling at high rates of speed will burn more gas than a car traveling that same distance at a slower speed.

As an elite competitive athlete, I often giggle about chubby joggers out there on the paths. But then i remember, hey, at least they're out there doing something, rather than sitting on their asses like 90% of everyone. At least they are trying, so I give them credit.

Also, from a pure calorie perspective, walking 1 mile burns the same calories as sprinting 1 mile. work is work. however, running will keep your metabolism going hard even after you stop running, burning additional calories. also, the higher heart rate exercises your heart and lungs, and makes you fitter faster.

I'm in agreement with wreckingcru. One shouldn't punish one's self in a workout. I think one thing that discourages some people from working out is when they don't do a 6-minute mile and get disenchanted with their workout. Also, the whole "no pain, no gain" mentality is a fallacy. There's a difference between the burn of a workout and actually causing damage to your muscles/tendons/ligaments/bones.

@bbbici: THANK YOU. Exactly. As a chubby jogger, it's kind of nice to see a company recognize that at least I'm giving it a shot, even if I'm waddling more than I'm running.

I think it's a cute campaign. And there's no comparison between running fast or slow and riding a bike and driving a Hummer. For reals. Apples to apples, people.

@Erskine: An angry elf? I don't know any elves that are tall (not even necessary that tall) and skinny.

But seriously. If I want to get something with a 32" inseam, the waist automatically starts at 32 and just increases from there. If I want something with a 34" insteam I'd be lucky to find the rare 32"x34", other than that everything is for people who have these abnormally huge waists. Seeing the 30" inseams is even more hilarious, because they hardly ever have anything below 34". Not that that's fat, but the proportions of pants are not made for lean people at 90% of stores.

I'm stuck wandering into Hollister or American Eagle, and even then the 30x34s are usually "don't carry in store, order online."

They just ended the 'moving posters' campaign for Reebok on the T in Boston (the posters are on the wall of the subway tunnel and they appear to move as the train does). It featured someone upchucking as he ran. Sold me on buying those shoes.

Their ads on the train also say something along the lines of "Stop and Smell the Garbage."

Is that before or after I should go work out at the Reebok Sports Club in Columbus Circle?

Sorry, not the way to win the hearts and minds of NYers. WE can make fun of our city. You can't.

I run about 25 miles a week and i've found there is nothing more satisfying than dry heaving for about 30 seconds after I've just completed a 5 mile run. However, I can fully understand that pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion might not be appealing to the average person, so by all means, run easy.

@enm4r: I wear 30x30 pants, and I don't have too much trouble finding them at Old Navy. I can usually find at least one pair my size in each style.

Surely there are other grammar sticklers out there besides me who are tempted to take a sharpie to all these subway ads, making them read "Run easILY". I don't care if Reebok's bajillion-dollar ad agency thinks it sounds hip- adjectives can never modify verbs, only adverbs can!!!

(See also: "Think differentLY.")

@NoctisEqui: I feel badly for you're friends who tell you their good when you ask how they are doing.

yeah... i don't get the cynical tone of this post.

Reebok is not a top brand for running shoes, so i imagine they're appealing to casual/new runners. so their point is: rather than try to run hard and then quit altogether, just take it easy. run. run some more. no no, not too hard--just enough. there you go.

the more people they get to continue running (rather than trying to be superstars and then quitting), the more those people will need new running shoes after a few months.

it's a good campaign and a breath of fresh air as far as sports ads. reminds me of the curvy Dove Soap billboards.

There's actually a little more to this than making first timers comfortable with running or encouraging half-assed efforts at athleticism. There's a fair body of knowledge out there that running long and slow reduces injury rates while building stamina. Ten minute miles are a good starting point for running a marathon.

I can't tell you how many friends I've had who started training by running fast for long distances and ended up not running their target marathon due to injury. The key is to separate your endurance work from your speed work.

You know, this is one of those posts that makes me wonder if the people who run Consumerist ever finished junior high.

The ad is clearly aimed at people who aren't great athletes and will never be great athletes. They're saying that it's OK to get out there and do something even if you aren't great at it. Our society would be 1000 times healthier if everyone had this mindset. You don't have to be an über-athlete to be healthy, there is something between six-pack abs and being a big fat slob, you can exercise without running triathlons. This is a total non-story.

@B: I wear 32x32 and I have a hell of a time finding them in any store...For jeans, I can usually find one 32x32 out of 3 different "styles" I'm looking at, in the one super-bleached-I-can't-stand-that pattern.

In most stores, be it department store, Old Navy, or any of the young/hip style stores (AE, Express, whatever), I'll regularly see 34x32 and up. I love going in and seeing almost nothing but 38x32 (or even 38x30) and of course the milestone 40x32 and 40x30.

Maybe there are just a lot of fat people in the areas of the country we (me and enm4r) live in compared to where you are?

If my feet (and knees) did not love my Brooks so much, this campaign might make me at least try on some Reeboks. I think it's kind of brilliant, and certainly jibes, at least superficially, with everything I've ever been told by trainers and physical therapists about sane training and avoiding injury. Running fast might burn more calories than running slow, but running slow burns more calories than nothing. Which is what you'll be doing if you push too hard and get injured. I've learned that lesson the hard way.

I agree, the campaign is focused on the average person who just likes to get out there. This is a nice relief in a marketing environment where everyone unrealistically athletic, beautiful, intelligent, etc.

@enm4r: Elves are tall and skinny and in terrific shape. It's dwarves that are short and rotund.

@NoctisEqui: Breathe easy. It just so happens that "easy" is also an adverb, too.

Personally, I've recently slowed down from eight minutes/mile to 10 minutes/mile as I've increased my miles in preparation for my first ultra (the Knickerbocker 60k 11/17. It's in Central Park, New Yorkers!). Now, I can do runs of 20 miles each on two consecutive days. I never would've thought about doing that before slowing down. But, I'm not buying Reeboks, I've tried the shoes that would be right for my feet and didn't like them.

This marketing campaign is great! I tell you what gives me the dry heaves - seeing all these Gatorade or Nike commercials that feature Olympic-talent athletes "going for the burn." Okay, so that's about .1% of the population - what about the rest of us? An ad campaign that's targeting those of us who manage to get in a little exercise everyday is brilliant. And, as TWinter said, our society would be much better off if athletics seemed more accessible and less intimidating.

Unfortunately my last pair of running shoes were Reebok. I once ran in them with low cut socks for 8 miles about six months ago. It was so poorly made that the tongues dug into my skin and caused a fair amount of bleeding by the end of my run. I still have decent sized scars from it.

In other words, Reebok running shoes aren't designed for anything more than "running easy" as apparently I was running too hard for the shoe to handle.

I see this as more of a tortoise/hare ad - the slow runner can go a lot farther than the fast runner, and subsequently burns more calories.

They have localized versions of these ads, too. Here in the running haven of San Francisco, I've seen one near my bus stop that reads "These hills will chew you up and spit you out. Run Easy, San Francisco." I may be mixing the words a little, but that's more or less it.

Personally, I originally thought these were something of a capitalization on an over-exerted athlete who killed himself completing the dear-lord-why-would-you-do-that painfest that is the Bay to Breakers marathon (a 12K run across the width of SF that sends runners up those insane hills usually reserved for cinematic car chases). Dude crossed the finish line, panted for a minute or two, then just stopped living.

I saw the Reebok ad the following week.

@TWinter: I don't know who you are. I don't know if you're male or female. But I am seriously considering asking you to marry me anyway. It pisses me off SO MUCH to see the elitist attitude it seems like most athlete types seem to pull. "Omg if you can't keep up, don't try. By the way, you're a lardass, and I see no contradiction in these two statements!"

And on the topic of pants sizes: Being female, I have two points to make. First, at least you men GET to pick an inseam length. You're ahead of women on that. And second, I don't doubt that you skinny guys have trouble finding skinny pants, but what does it mean that while you have that problem, most women's stores make it impossible for one to find anything above size 12, if that? I mean, there are just as many fat women as fat men roaming the USA, right?

And on the subject of adverbs: oh my god, SPARE ME. Just because something doesn't end in -ly doesn't mean it's an adverb. And yes, "hopefully" can be used to modify a whole sentence!

And on the subject of my bitchy attitude: yeah, sorry. It's one of those days. Just pretend I said everything less offensively.

I saw one of their billboards in SoHo (NYC) the other day, and I was so confused by it. They showed a girl running, and it had some message that said something about taking it slower or something. I was really confused by it.
Definitely one of the worst ad campaigns I have ever seen.
When I watch sports, especially Track and Field, and cycling, it makes me want to get off my ass and start working out again, hard, like I used to. I definitely don't want to buy new running shoes when some dumbass ad is telling me to relax.
I run because of the accomplishment I feel when I push myself. Your brain wants to quit. Your brain says "Why am I running around this track? I could easily just sit down." But then you push yourself. And You Go. And you go as fast as you can, or for as long as you can. And that makes you a stronger, better healthier human being, and not some fat lazy piece of shit sitting on the couch eating McDonald's fries which may or may not have trans-fat in them.
I am never going to be Lance Armstrong, or Carl Lewis. And I know that. But pushing yourself physicallythrough exercise is the healthiest thing you can do for your mind, body and spirit.

Seeing as I am utterly sick of the "RRRAAAARRRGHHHH!!!! EXTREME!" style of advertising for sports wear, this seems like a nice change. There are a lot of people who use exercise to relax (yoga, tai chi, meditative walking) and see the getting in shape part as a nice bonus, and don't need shoes designed for Olympic marathoners. On a side note: How many of those out of shape Americans used to be athletes in their youth? They definitely need to be ease back into it, otherwise the ER's would be jammed with people with shattered shins.

Oh, so you think everyone should do the same thing with shoes that you think they should do. That's the mark of, oh, I don't know, selfishness.

@The Quite American: The actual work you do to travel 1 mile is the same rather you do it in 6 minutes or 10 minutes. However, as already mentioned, there is more to exercise than just the work you do. The more you push yourself (without going too far), the higher and longer your metabolism will stay up, and as muscles grow, that also leads to general rise in your metabolism, even when you aren't exercising.

That said, I like what I've seen of this campaign, and I think Ben's comments on it are wrong. Reebok is saying the same thing that doctors say: you don't have to go all out to exercise - you just need to get out and do something.

How funny to see this post here -- this topic has been discussed to death on various running forums.

I personally prefer Pearl Izumi's "we are not joggers" campaign (google it), which I find hilarious. I also prefer Pearl Izumi's shoes over Reebok, but I'm still primarily a Mizuno girl.

That being said, I enjoy the "Run Easy" TV ads because they remind me of the fun of doing group 20- or 22-milers during marathon training. Having someone to talk to makes the time fly by, and running at a conversational pace keeps me from going out too hard on training runs and burning myself out before race day. "Easy" runs are important for every runner; it's just that "easy" for Joe Six-Pack who just laced on his first pair of Reeboks three months ago and "easy" for Deena Kastor are two completely different paces.

Running snobbery annoys me because one of the things I really enjoy about the sport is its inclusiveness. Not to mention, slow runners keep participation numbers up and therefore keep race fees down for the rest of us.

And by the way, hitting the wall is not something to be proud of -- it means you either undertrained or are too inexperienced to pace yourself.

Dieting isn't a solution for long-term weight loss for most people because it's just too demanding to sustain over extended periods. Most people are better off making simple changes to the way they eat.

Similarly, most people probably get more lasting results from adopting simple changes, like jogging around the block without timing themselves, walking or riding a bike instead of driving everywhere, and things like that.

And when did we as a society become so self-absorbed that we judge others for not being self-absorbed enough? People can be healthy and happy without being obsessive about it.

@AnnieGetYourFun: And you can't go straight from doing nothing to doing everything, so how does he know that those people are worth sneering at? He doesn't. He's being elitist. He even used the word "elite" ...

@The Quite American:

I believe you are correct. There may be some aerobic v. anaerobic effect, but mostly Work is a function of distance and mass.

But if you run faster, you can run farther in the same time and since time to exercise is mostly the limiting factor, it's best to run faster.

@Chaoticfluffy:

And on the subject of adverbs: oh my god, SPARE ME. Just because something doesn't end in -ly doesn't mean it's an adverb. And yes, "hopefully" can be used to modify a whole sentence!

but i digress.

the last "news" i heard on running (not that i've followed it much, being more of a "stroller") was that walking is better for the ankles and knees. i'd rather stroll for an hour than run for six minutes. (even if my ankles and knees were in better shape, until i can afford this - demo is NSFW - running/jogging is PAINFUL.)

Hahahaha!

Chaoticfluffy, all the guys on this site have already seen that one!

@NoctisEqui: Whoah take it easily!

Oh, wait. That should have been addressed to RebekahSue!

Hahahaha!

REBEKAHSUE, all the guys on this site have already seen that one!

It's better than their original ad campaign: "Reebok: Our sweatshop children work fast, so you can jog slow"

You guys missed the best part!

Apparently one of the ads read:
"Not eveything needs to be done in a New York Minute."

A pic is posted [community.livejournal.com]

@meiran:

I was just about to post this. I noticed it when the campaign started. I think it was just the first run of ads, I've seen corrected ones since. couldn't quite believe what I was seeing

the campaign would be ok if it wasn't so patronizing to new yorkers (not that they're any match for virgin mobile)