Now anyone can look like McEnroe!
Within twenty-four hours, an ad in the local paper generated 150 replies from would-be John McEnroe. There was a tall one, a child one, a female one, a dog one! By adding his trademarks a headband and sultry expression a team of lookalikes gave the advertising copywriter his cue for the caption: You don’t have to be McEnroe to wear Nike’. White polystyrene was positioned on the ground to bounce light back up into the shadow areas, this was cropped out of the ad itself.
Here’s Michael in action, taking the time to ensure that everybody is well-positioned!
1985
The Nike McEnroe, look a likes were shot on 10×8. I was pleased because the poodle behaved so beautifully and just look like McEnroe, even the expression!
Only one of the characters came from the lookalike agency. The other seventeen models were all non-professionals, recruited from one ad in The Mail on Sunday. They weren’t actually paid, they just got the Nike gear and nicked the rackets, even though they were requested not to, they figured Dunlop could spare a few rackets. The saddest thing was that this image appeared only once as a double page spread in a colour supplement.
