Bo Knows was an advertising campaign for Nike cross-training shoes that ran in 1989 and 1990 and featured professional baseball and American football player Bo Jackson. Generally speaking, advertising is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually by an identified sponsor. ... The Nike swoosh logo Nike, Inc. ... Cross training is the combination of various exercise to work various parts and systems of the body. ... Baseball is a team sport in which a player on one team (the pitcher) attempts to throw a hard, fist-sized ball within a zone over home plate while a player on the other team (the batter) attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat that can... United States simply as football, is a competitive team sport that is both fast-paced and strategic. ... Bo Knows Sports Illustrated Vincent Edward Bo Jackson (born November 30, 1962) is an American former multi-sport athlete who played professional football in the NFL and Major League Baseball simultaneously, and was the first athlete named an All-Star in both sports. ...

Jackson was the first athlete in the modern era to play professional baseball and football in the same year. He was the perfect spokesman for a shoe geared toward an athlete actively engaged in more than one sport at a time or with little time between activities to switch to sport-specific footwear.

The original "Bo Knows" ad was a television commercial by firm Wieden & Kennedy. The spot opens with a picture of Jackson playing baseball and fellow ballplayer Kirk Gibson saying, "Bo knows baseball." The next scene shows Jackson on the gridiron, with quarterback Jim Everett explaining, "Bo knows football." Jackson then plays basketball, tennis and ice hockey and goes running, with Michael Jordan, John McEnroe, and Mary Decker vouching for Jackson's knowledge of their sports. (Wayne Gretzky, when confronted with Jackson laying a body check, simply says "No.") The ad concludes with Jackson trying to play the guitar, whereupon blues legend Bo Diddley says, "Bo, you don't know diddley." A television commercial (often called an advert in the United Kingdom) is a form of advertising in which goods, services, organizations, ideas, etc. ... Kirk Harold Gibson (born May 28, 1957) is a former American two-sport athletic star, best known as a Major League Baseball player noted for his competitiveness and clutch hitting. ... Gridiron can mean many different things: Gridiron football — either the field on which the football game is played, or the game itself. ... Joe Montana, an American quaterback. ... James Samuel Jim Everett III (born January 3, 1963 in Emporia, Kansas) is a former quarterback in the NFL. Everett attended Purdue University and was selected in the first round of the 1986 NFL Draft. ... Sara Giauro shoots a three-point shot, FIBA Europe Cup for Women Finals 2005 For other uses, see Basketball (disambiguation). ... Tennis ball This article is about the sport. ... Ice hockey, known simply as hockey in areas where it is more common than field hockey, is a team sport played on ice. ... Man Running - Edward Muybridge Horse Running - Edward Muybridge Running is by definition the fastest means for an animal to move on foot. ... Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York), is an American former NBA player, and is considered by some the greatest basketball player of all time. ... John Patrick McEnroe, Jr. ... Mary Slaney (born Mary Teresa Decker August 4, 1958) is an American Track and Field athlete, who holds seven American records in her sport. ... Wayne Gretzky playing for the Edmonton Oilers in 1984 Wayne Douglas Gretzky, OC (born January 26, 1961) is a former professional ice hockey player and is currently part-owner and head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. ... Checking in ice hockey is the act of physically keeping an opposing player in check. ... The acoustic archtop guitar, used in Jazz music, features steel strings. ... The blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on a pentatonic scale and a characteristic twelve-bar chord progression. ... Bo Diddleys emphasis on rhythm largely influenced popular music, especially that of rock and roll in the 1960s. ...

Later "Bo Knows" ads had Jackson trying his hand at cycling, soccer, cricket, surfing, weightlifting, auto racing and, as a jockey, horse racing. Cycling is a recreation, a sport and a means of transport across land. ... Football is a ball game played between two teams of eleven players, each attempting to win by scoring more goals than their opponent. ... For the insect, see Cricket (insect). ... Surfing outside Kaneohe Bay, Hawai‘i. ... An Iraqi professional weightlifter Weightlifting is a sport where competitors attempt to lift heavy weights mounted on steel bars, the execution of which is a combination of power and technique. ... Auto racing (also known as automobile racing, autosport or motorsport) is a sport involving racing automobiles. ... Toulouse-Lautrec - The Jockey (1899) This article is about the sports occupation. ... Horse-racing is an equestrian sporting activity which has been practiced over the centuries; the chariot races of Roman times were an early example, as was the contest of the steeds of the god Odin and the giant Hrungnir in Norse mythology. ...

The ad campaign was very successful, making cross-trainers Nike's number-two line behind its famous basketball shoes. It was subsequently parodied by the ProStars cartoon, which featured likenesses of Jackson, Gretzky, and Jordan. It also became the subject of many bootleg merchandise, primarily t-shirts, with adaptations of the slogan such as "Bo Knows New Kids [On The Block] suck." ProStars was a Saturday morning cartoon show on NBC in 1991. ...

External links

• Adweek citation as one of the best TV commercials of the 1990s.
• "The Sneaker Wars: Going Toe-to-Toe" by Bernice Kanner, in The Super Bowl of Advertising: How the Commercials Won the Game, Bloomberg Press, 2004. (PDF file)