Since announcing their new advertising campaign will be led by Colin Kaepernick, the social media backlash has dominated the virtue-signaling efforts we presume they hoped for.
With images of Nike apparel and footwear being burned and real sacrifice being discussed, it appears investors are growing disillusioned as NFL fans as Nike shares are down over 3% in the pre-market.
Setting half their lawn on fire while burning Nike shoes pic.twitter.com/rDqGGARzj0
— Things White Folks Like (@Things4WhitePpl) September 4, 2018
On a side note, it appears Twitter has decided that snowflakes are just not prepared to see a pair of sneakers on fire and have attached a warning note to the previous tweet…
That is a loss of over $4 billion in market capitalization since the market close on Friday…
Nike may have “just done it” but was it worth it?
If the public backlash against other corporate brand names who have taken a vocal political stance is any indication, Nike faces considerably more pressure: companies from Dick’s (which saw a sharp decline in sales after it stopped selling guns), to ESPN, to Papa John’s, to Twitter and Facebook, to In-N-Out burger, have all seen an angry customer backlash – from either the left or the right – once these corporations entered the political arena, resulting in a hit to the top line, and ultimately, the shareholders’ pocket.
Believe in something.
Anything. It doesn’t matter.
True or not. Right or wrong. Constructive or destructive. Smart or stupid.
A slogan to lead the lambs to slaughter.
Okay, Rocky, help us help you.
Are you trying to haiku but are constipated? Are you signaling that Stucky has you cornered with a 2×4 in the library by the thesaurus?
Did you LOSE the lambikins I packed up for you the last time you got whacked?
Well, did you?
And, by the way, Mr. Hardscrambled Egg Farmer? do you see that poor dead soldier on the far right side of my engagement piano, purchased for me by Nick in lieu of engagement ring? We both knew I would probably lose that engagement ring anyway and a Classic Baldwin piano turned out to be real treasure to a couple of guys forced to listen to Mother hammering away on the keyboard while she recovers from the surgical crisis _____ (insert year here). Nick and I really do fight to the point of almost insults, as I grow more and more haughtily compassionate as he tries to buy the right thing but doesn’t know where the right thing comes from and I realize I would be a dead woman ten times over if it wasn’t for the fact that my husband (and son) refuses to let me go.
And, I look at this image and laugh and laugh and laugh. In Iceland, I told him I did not want a diamond ring. I wanted a Baldwin Classic. I told him I’d already walked with a nice Marquis diamond and I hated wearing rings anyway. But, I told him I would never leave behind a Baldwin Classic.
And he can’t bring himself to buy real organic maple syrup for me because it is so damn expensive and what is wrong with regular pancake syrup anyway?
Yet, take a peek behind me Farmer.
He. Bought. Me. That. Baldwin. Classic.
Please tell me if I timed that right, MM
Any thought that this is a political add by Nike against Trump. Who Nike fears will disrupt their cheap pipeline of Asian manufacturing?
Sundance at CTH would agree with you. Though the manufacturing is done in North Korea, which is undermining the sanctions currently in place. Nike stands to lose far more with the tariffs than losing half of their customer base. Same for Levi Strauss and other multi national apparel corporations.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/09/04/nike-and-levis-strauss-political-business-strategy-the-much-bigger-geopolitical-and-trade-picture/
Nike is taking a big gamble. With companies like UnderArmor (among others) slowly killing them, this is a “hail mary pass” pun intended, to bring the ghetto negro back into the fold, and keep his eyes locked on that big swoosh.
I don’t see this being a winning strategy. Ralph Lauren did the opposite, they started seeing gangstas wearing the little Polo man about 20 years ago, and came out with a press briefing saying that their apparel is meant for higher class people. The media dragged RL through the mud, but in the long term, the brand stayed healthy.
Nike just cemented their company with ghetto trash, which is a shallow consumer base outside that core group. That’s why the stock is plummeting. It was a poor decision, made in Portlandia, by very very white, very very sheltered people, who put that company into the firing line. Future Marketing experts will study the folly.
This has to rank right up there with “New Coke” as the most idiotic marketing decision in history. The only bigger disaster to befall a ‘brand’ was Tylenol and that was because some homicidal maniac laced its pills with cyanide.
Companies like Bennetton could get away with ‘edgy’ ads because they were just ‘edgy’ , i.e. not associated with a deeply unpopular person. Who in the hell thought Colin Kaepernick was a popular figure anywhere outside a few hundred NFL negro malcontents?
Fuck Nike and fuck colon Kapernig.
I saw on a site someone mention the phrase”Believe in something.Even if it means sacrificing everything.Just do it” can just as easy apply to suicide bombers.
While out shopping, drop all Nike branded item on the floor. Just do it!
Just Do It
If I were a meme creator I’d put the same slogan over a pic of Mohamed Atta. In fact it’s so easy to mock this campaign meme-wise you almost couldn’t have screwed it up any worse if you tried intentionally. And maybe THAT was the plan. Look for short sales of Nike stock last week.
This is a no win ad campaign no matter what they do. If they stick with it, they continue to lose their market share among the customers who oppose the take a knee movement. If they start to lose those customers there’s no doubt competitor will swoop in and snag them with a patriotic ad campaign. If they pull it then it shows that they don’t stand by their “Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything” slogan.
How did they go through with this without someone at some level along the way giving them sober counsel?
It boggles the mind.
Love your paradox! Fake Sneakers!
Rumor has it that the background music to the new Colon ( not a typo) Nike ad is “Burning Down The House ” .
Seems nike(no spell check,will not use a capitol!) may die of colin cancer(saw that elsewhere but liked it!).
That is funny , James.
You guys are probably overthinking this. Who buys $200 sneakers? It’s sure not the white kids with money in affluent neighborhoods. Nike gets to claim moral high ground while dog whistling their primary constituency – poor black kids in the hood eager to burn their last dollars on highly depreciating overpriced consumer goods.
I do not buy sneakers at all,that said,easily lay 200+ on boots any day.I got a free pair of basically brand new Georgia boots that seem like they will fit well,vibram sole is basically new excepting scratches,a great freebie to say the least!
They have contracts with thousands of school systems … “selling” gear to people buying w/ “Other Peoples’ Money.”
Disgusting crap.
Just what you need as the face of your company: An ugly, almost freakish mulatto, a spoiled subversive whose total skill set consists of throwing a ball around to another group of over-fed nobodies. The face staring out at you is the product either of rape or copulation between a random negro and a white slut. Don´t forget it.
I know I’ll take a lot of heat for this but I’m a BIG Kap fan for what he sacrificed to get the conversation going…
I think he should have turned Nike down to show that Nike is just a much of the systemic blight on the world as copfucks with itchy trigger fingers.
Sorta lost some respect for him selling out to Nike, but I guess since he has been blackballed in his prime, he found a new way to make some $$$
Oh, goody ,goody.
You might be the first one who could actually tell us what he is actually protesting? Is it an unjust law or a law that should be enacted?
Something that could have some type or any type of resolution?
Anon,
I think we could start with HOW the POPO is being trained nowadays compared to even 20 years ago.
There’s a start and the fact that you asked me a question proves that Kap’ s sacrifice has got the conversation going about police use of excessive lethal force as well as the military industrial pharmaceutical prison industry complex being put into the spotlight by someone with a large developed brand recognition who wasn’t afraid to lose everything to get us busy Americans to stop and discuss.
Unfortunately it has been politicized to death and framed to elicit the greatest emotional reaction from the most blinded and ignorant.
Plato—didn’t a philosopher say, “If you can’t do the time,don’t do the crime ” ?
Colon’s mantra is dogshit. Blacks make up 13% of the population but commit 50% of the murders and robberies . Colon never mentions that this fact alone accounts for the greater inter-action with the cops.
The other fact is that cops kill less blacks in a year than a months worth of killings done by blacks,to blacks in Chicago,Detroit,East St.Louis,Baltimore or Memphis. Colon seems to forget this understated fact.
Sigh,while the quality was going down now they have shot themselves,another company to not do business with: http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/404902-levis-teams-up-with-gun-control-group-we-simply-cannot-stand-by-silently ,soon we will be shoeless and clothless this keeps up!
I haven’t bought any Levi’s in 43 years. After they endorsed homosexuality I quit buying them. Give me my beloved Wrangler’s!
Besides the color of Kap s skin, the fact remains that the use of lethal force by police continues to rise, rather dramatically and it ain’t just black and Latino thugs either.
And then there is this
I don’t get all the haters? We talk about the emerging Big Brother police state on here all the time but when Kap took a knee to get the public discourse started He is painted as Anti American even though any good U.S. soldier who took the oath of protecting the Constitution seriously will tell you that they fight and follow orders so that we still have our freedoms, particularly of speech, even if they don’t necessarily agree with what we have to say…
Thus the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
This is older data, the newer trends are higher deaths in both groups.
Whites are getting murdered near as much as all non white civilians…
So again, I ask…dont we agree that the big brother police state is a BIG PROBLEM and a symptom of this are the increased numbers of civilain deaths by cops’ hands, so why Hate on Kap because he is protesting specific police brutality cases which happened to be Black?
FUCK ALL these presstitute and corporate talking points that we are encouraged to emotionally invest ourselves in…
I never bought Nike shit or Jordan shit anyways.
Platopus,
Yeah, the police state is getting (if not already) out of control. But people are tooooo tired of the hackneyed harangue about those poor oppressed black folk who can’t get ahead due to the systemic racism. Such BS. Quit committing crime at astronomical rates, turn your communities into productive citizens, get off the welfare that the good folks pay for, etc. Blacks have been elevated to the status of sacred cows and it’s still not enough for them.
Using excess force or unwarranted force is a crime. So, you still refuse to answer the question.
It’s all a farce to propagate a narrative that can have no resolution so as to continue to perpetuate the self same narrative. In other words “fuck you whitey” . And I’m so distrustful to you I’m going to force my protest on you.
I believe it has been co opted just like any other movement. I’m sure Kap has some animosity towards some white folks just as white folks have some animosity towards others who have wronged them…
As a “white” person myself I can’t disagree with the fact that most central banksters happen to be disproportionately white of skin….does this mean that im falling for the “kill whitey” propaganda? Hardly.
But let your hubris blind you from coming together with common sense solutions, not more laws or regulations…less fear.
The ad should read “Believe in something even if it is fake and be so STUPID as to turn down 14 million dollars” What in the world was Nike thinking?!?!?! STUPID MANAGEMENT!!!! Has anybody noticed how stupid and non-sensical most commercials are nowadays??? What gets me is management will pay a ad agency MILLIONS OF DOLLARS for a ad to be made that doesn’t tell me why I need their product or why their product is better than their competition! Well duh!!!
Mustang said,
“Has anybody noticed how stupid and non-sensical most commercials are nowadays??”
What ‘sacrifice’ did this POS ever make? NOTHING. The National Felons League could have put a stop to this right away if they’d said “Do that shit again and when your contract expires, not only will WE not rehire you but we’ll make sure no one else does either”. But they failed to slap the overgrown toddlers. Fuck them and Nike. They deserve the financial shitstorm coming their way.
National felons league? C’mon Man!
What did he sacrifice? Seriously?
What did Tebow sacrifice by refusing to stop doing his thing?
And YES, WE ALL know the NFL is a business and can blackball people if they like. The NFL owners like the NBA owners can apparently electronically and physically surveil and monitor their “inmates” as the Houston Texans owner suggested last year when he said, “You wouldn’t let the prisoners run the prisons would you?”
Richard Sherman and Doug Baldwin’s cardboard cut out press conference backing up former teammate Marshawn Lynch points out a bit of the hypocrisy and treatment of players as commodities with limited constitutional rights thanks to collective bargaining agreements heavily influenced and controlled by the owners themselves.
Great 2 minutes
Who wants to buy anything a piece of shit is representing????????
Get woke, go broke