![]() “I think this is one of those decisions where did look at positives and negatives and threw that out the window,” he added. ![]() Of those who aren’t, he said, “Consumers are quick to outrage and quick to forget.” Since when did the American Flag and the National Anthem become offensive? /4CVQdTHUH4- Sean Clancy September 3, 2018Ĭhris Allieri, a brand expert and founder of the communications firm Mulberry & Astor, told Vox, however, that the average Nike customer will likely be supportive of the campaign. Then forces me to choose between my favorite shoes and my country. Journalist Jemele Hill - who, like Kaepernick, has been a target of Trump - noted that while Kaepernick is still a major draw in sports apparel despite not currently playing for an NFL team, Nike also has a history of working with black athletes, a move that, to some, was at one time considered controversial.įirst the forces me to choose between my favorite sport and my country. Nike’s choice to use Colin Kaepernick’s activism as the face of its campaign isn’t all that surprising - not only does activism often raise a brand’s profile (one study showed that about two-thirds of consumers thought it was at least somewhat important for brands to take a stand on social issues), but it’s well within Nike’s wheelhouse. ![]() Nike knows exactly what it’s doing with the Kaepernick campaign During New York Fashion Week in February 2017, the biggest trend was anti-Trumpism, with models walking down the runway in T-shirts that read, “Nevertheless she persisted,” and one show that began with a speech by the organizers of the Women’s March. Patagonia, meanwhile, which has long been associated with activism, went so far as to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for reducing the size of two national monuments.Īpparel brands in particular have embraced politics through design. He issued a statement that said, “As a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.” After President Trump’s comments on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which he claimed that there were “some very fine people on both sides” and that “not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch,” Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier dropped out of the president’s American manufacturing council. The Pepsi ad didn’t fail because it used #resistance optics it failed because it completely undermined the message of the protests.ĬEOs also started to seem less afraid - and at times appeared to feel as if they were obligated - to make public statements about political happenings and social issues. It was an aesthetic that many brands were (and still are) co-opting, but it went disastrously wrong when the ad ended up insinuating that police brutality can be solved by Kendall Jenner giving a cop a Pepsi. ![]() Later in the spring, there was that Pepsi commercial, which featured a rather milquetoast protest/march/street party full of attractive, racially diverse millennials. That’s not to say that all these forays succeeded. By the time the Super Bowl came around, commercials from Coca-Cola and Airbnb were making loose references to the necessity of diversity ( Coke’s ad featured voices singing “America the Beautiful” in a variety of languages Airbnb’s was called “ We Accept”), while at the Oscars, Cadillac ran an ad featuring footage of protests with a voiceover saying things like, “We are a nation divided.” Since the election, brands have tried to seem “woke”Ģ017 was the year of corporations taking a stance. There’s never been a more popular time to be a brand with an opinion.Īnd the Kaepernick ad seems to be the result of an essential lesson from the past two years of brands attempting to take a stand in their advertisements: It actually takes a stand. Nike’s decision to feature Kaepernick in its campaign is part of a larger trend: Since the 2016 US presidential election, brands - once terrified of controversy - are more and more likely to enter the realm of politics. Meanwhile, Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the campaign “ an attack on the country,” while others took issue with the term “sacrifice,” suggesting instead that the campaign should have gone to Pat Tillman, the NFL player who left the league to enlist in the Army in 2002 and was killed in Afghanistan. The ad was also met with backlash, including a boycott, a trending Twitter hashtag, and viral tweets of customers cutting the Nike swoosh off of their stuff. #JustDoIt /SRWkMIDdaO- Colin Kaepernick September 3, 2018 Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.
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