On the spot with Abhilash Madabhushi, Founder, Consuma AI

Why the campaign rocks:

Nike’s “Winning Isn’t Comfortable” campaign, especially the Stairs film, does something most sports ads don’t. It catches you off guard. Young, fit athletes awkwardly limping down stairs, grimacing. There’s no music drop, no heroic glow. The part every runner knows but rarely sees in ads.

That moment after the win. The soreness and the stiffness. The quiet struggle to move. The reminder that even success hurts. It’s a stark contrast to the usual Nike bravado. And that’s what makes it powerful.It doesn’t just celebrate performance, it humanises and pauses on the pain.

It tells the truth: if you don’t hate running a little, you probably don’t love it enough. There’s honesty in showing that greatness doesn’t live in the sprint, but in the recovery. It lives in getting up again the next morning, in limping through the pain down the stairs, and in choosing to run despite knowing what comes after. As a founder, I deeply resonated with this. The journey is not a smooth sprint to the top, but a relentless climb, a constant push against resistance. The insight is simple, but real: every runner has faced that staircase. This time, Nike chose to show it.