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By Kyle O'Brien, Creative Works Editor

September 13, 2016 | 2 min read

Women athletes are done with ads telling them to be empowered, according to a new ad from the NCAA and SS+K.

“Done” features award-winning and professional athletes, including Misty May Treanor, Natalie Coughlin Hall, Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike, to drive home the point that female athletes are powerful because they work hard and have been for years, not because ads tell them to.

The athletes in the ad turn to the camera in the middle of doing tasks like taking batting practice, swimming laps, working with weights, playing soccer and more and say “Enough,” “I’m over it,” and “done.” It’s meant to imply that all we have to do to recognize strong female athletes is to watch them perform.

“We shouldn’t need commercials to tell us we’re powerful,” said Treanor in the ad.

All the professional athletes in the spot are successes as both graduates and athletes, and the NCAA helped them achieve their goals.

The ad was done in response to the trend of “empowerment” ads that build up girls and women by first making them seem weak and set upon.

“The flip side of an ad that says ‘women do anything’ is that you're saying you believed they couldn't,” says Alyssa Georg, senior art director at SS+K. “We’re pointing out that women have already reached the top of sports.”

Still, the ad, with its show of strength with these athletes, is in itself empowering by displaying their power and successes. That may be partly the point, by saying no to “empowering” ads with one that actually is empowering without being condescending.

The ad is the latest in a series of PSAs SS+K has created for the NCAA since July 2015, which have included athletes such as Billie Jean King and Shaquille O’Neal, to correct misperceptions about sports. The most recent ad, “2%,” features NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice and points out that 98% of NCAA athletes never go pro, never sign shoe contracts. But they get something more important: a college education.

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