Is Advertising Authored?

As much as any poem or magazine article is authored. In the late 1980's and early 1990's Nike had an ad campaign with lines of text responding to the idea that "you run like a girl" or "you throw like a girl" for their emerging Nike women's line. In competing for the speech and debate team at North Dakota State University, I used those lines of text, the ads, for one of my speeches. I got disqualified at my first tournament for stating "Nike Ads" and not naming the author. I called the Nike corporation and spoke with a woman who told me who the poet was. She was a published poet who wrote those texts. I called her an author at the next tournament. The bigger, more encompassing definition of author was also established as Nike hired her to write the specific text responding "I run like a girl, well, what do you think I am?" There were institutional and monetary restraints on the poet. The lines had to fit on a two-page magazine spread with graphics. The typeset was chosen and the words were placed on the page how the editor wanted them to look. The whole process made that Nike ad and authored piece. They were good empowering ads, I wish I still had them!