Bye Bye (Not Buy Buy) Nike

Bye Bye (Not Buy Buy) Nike

It makes absolutely no sense for a corporation which earns billions of dollars by selling to people regardless of their political beliefs to take sides in a contentious and ongoing political debate. Doing so ensures that they're going to (to one degree or another) alienate roughly half the voting and buying public.  This is not rocket science, either. At age of soon-to-be 67, I can't recall ever seeing the country I love so politically-divided.  Sure, we had a close Presidential race in 1992 (thanks to Perot, it was a three-way race, and no candidate got a majority), and again in 2000 when the Supreme Court had to decide who won (it wasn't Chad, who was apparently hanging wrong).

However, the election of politically indefinable billionaire populist Donald Trump at the expense of the unwilling-to-admit-she's-really-a-socialist-progressive Hillary Clinton has divided the country in ways – and at a level of volatility and vitriol – that I don't think has prevailed since the Civil War.  All we need now are the smooth-bore cannon, saber-wielding horsemen and rifled muskets firing Minie Balls and we’d be back in 1861.

Into this debate having nothing to do with sporting gear or clothing, Nike has thrust themselves by boldly siding with anti-American (or at least anti-Traditional American) progressives against those who, by a solid Electoral College (but not raw vote total), achieved a stunning victory in 2016.  This may make Nike’s decision-makers feel all warm and politically correct in their Manhattan solons, and might also help Nike sell more branded college football gear to university teams whose institutional masters are wracked with fear of micro-aggressions and eager to avoid virtue shamings. But regardless of the reason, this act is going to hit Nike where it really hurts – in their sales, profits, market share and bottom line. 

No "sane" company would willingly decide to alienate half of the entire potential US market, yet that's what Nike just did. This makes me wonder if they are, in fact, sane – or if, perhaps – those decision-makers live and work in that Manhattan/Hollywood/San Francisco bubble that doesn't recognize that more Americans hate them than support them.

Just what is this all about, anyway?

As a believer in the bottom line, Nike’s action left me breathless with surprise. The executive management and the board of Nike have made the decision to use America-hating (or at least Traditional-America-hating) Colin Kaepernick the new “face” of Nike’s “Just Do It” multi-million-dollar ad campaign.  Kaepernick, is, of course, the first NFL player to publicly “take a knee” rather than to stand respectfully during the singing of the National Anthem.  The leaders at Nike are apparently intent on profiting from the dubious fame garnered by a former (benched) NFL second-string football player who became the face of anti-American efforts to turn the NFL games away from being sporting events and into part of an ongoing, far-left progressive political campaign. 

What the good folks at Nike haven't counted on is the backlash that will be so profound and pervasive that – even without a formal boycott.  Just for the record, I am NOT calling for a boycott – I don’t like them, and in this case, a formal boycott’s not necessary.  Boycott or not, Nike has just taken an action – one they can’t easily walk back – that will cost them a huge segment of the American market.  And not just for now, but for a long time to come.

This should come at no surprise, for two reasons – one scientific, the other logical without being easily proven.  First, published surveys showed that half or more of all those Americans who watched less football in the 2017-2018 season did so primarily or exclusively because they strongly disapproved of the actions of Kaepernick and his followers.  This statistical backlash cost the NFL hundreds of millions in unsold tickets and un-sold (or sold for far lower prices) ads on TV networks carrying games which couldn't attract a live, in-stadium or a live, at-home audience.

There are other examples of how Americans react to other Americans who seem intent on hating America.  Perhaps the most well-known celebrity who spoke out against America was "Hanoi Jane" Fonda, who – 50 years after her flirtation with North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners whose job it was to kill American servicemen – remains a hated figure who is (personally – not formally) boycotted by millions, reducing her box office draw in movies and TV shows.  While Kaepernick's name will soon be forgotten (he doesn't the family Hollywood "Royalty" cache that has helped Hanoi Jane's name remain well-known) Americans who don't like what Kaepernick and his ilk are doing will be remembered, by the name "Nike."

I am an American who believes that standing respectfully during the National Anthem is an appropriate way of beginning sporting events, governmental meetings and other gatherings.  Others are free to hold a different perspective ... but I don't have to do business with them.  Converse All Stars is going to benefit from my commerce at the expense of Nike, who has just lost my custom – for shoes, golf shirts, baseball hats and other Nike-branded gear that I might otherwise have worn.  Taking advantage of the laid-back nature of my home city for the past 30 years (Las Vegas), I've recently made a "business move" to dress more casually – including substituting jeans, t-shirts, baseball hats, loud Hawaiian shirts or "polo" shirts ... and athletic shoes in place of button-down Oxford Cloth dress shirts and highly-shined wing-tips ... or even dressy-casual Bass Weejuns.  For years now, I’ve been changing my wardrobe from three piece suits and Florshiems to the more casual gear Nike brands and sells.

Well, thanks to their move to interject themselves into a national political debate that’s got nothing with athletic shoes, ball-caps or sport shirts, they've just lost me for a client.


Ned Barnett is a branding and marketing expert, ghost-writer and writing coach working in Las Vegas as founder of Barnett Marketing Communications.  He can be reached at 702-561-1167 or ned@barnettmarcom.com.

You're not going to believe this, but it's true - and these people "think" they're professionals in the PR world

I logged on today to the RadioGuestList.com and decided to buy one of their packages, the better to serve a new client I landed today (plus to better serve other clients I already have).  The service I selected was their weekly dump of all new radio guest opportunities – the price (on their website) was $4.97, with a note that I should act quickly because it would soon double in price – they specifically said I needed to act now to “lock the lower price in.”   

Uh, yeah. 

Not a big fan of that “act now or we shoot your dog” kind of marketing, but they made their point.

So I clicked purchase, and instead of $4.97, the price was listed as $5.97.  A month. So I’m kvetching about $12 a year, right?  Hardly worth it.  But wait, there’s more … (and by the way, I’d show you the "more" but they’ve already changed their website).

Anyway, thinking there was  a glitch, I wrote to note that they’d screwed up their pricing (based on what was said on their website), thinking they’d do the right thing and honor their posted price. Instead, I got this email note:

“Hi Ned,

Sorry about that.  The price is $5.97.

Looks like we missed updating that on the website after raising the price recently.”

Frankly, I’m absolutely gobsmacked.  They’re pissing off a prospective client (who has access to thousands of other prospective clients) for a buck a month? Incredible.  I guess we’re witnessing the death-throes of customer service and professional integrity.   

Damn, skippy, but this is disappointing.

Self Publishing School's "100 Percent Guarantee" Isn't What It Seems to Promise

I would like to warn readers away from a writing service that seems to have scam-like characteristics, especially when it comes to honoring their "100 percent refund guarantee." This regards a writing support service offered by Chandler Bolt's Self Publishing School, which offers a 90-day "Bootcamp" for $497, or $600 if you pay in three equal portions, which is what I did.

Here's what happened: I signed up for the 90-day bootcamp and made the initial $200 payment, and while the materials offered were not bad (not great, but not bad), I quickly realized I had over-stretched my personal-time resources, and I wasn't able to keep up with the 90-day program. Since they offered a 100 percent money-back guarantee, I asked for a refund. That's when the horror story began.

Instead of honoring their request, they made me jump through seven "flaming hoops" (i.e., complete seven specific tasks, including creating a book outline and writing an introduction and at least ten pages from the first chapter) before I would qualify for their guarantee. This was all new to me - that was NOT made clear in the promo material.

As a result, I had to spend nine hours completing these seven steps, creating the "proof that I'd given the course a chance" (even though that wasn't the issue, and they knew it). Then I had to send this information to them - even to the point of using my phone camera to take pictures of my screen since I've never known how to take a "screenshot."

So I sent in all that material as an attachment to a return email (return from the email which spelled out the requirements). Then, about 10 days later, while still waiting for my promised refund, I got another email. This one said I had to re-send these items via either Dropbox or Google Docs - a process that exceeds my admittedly-limited tech-ability (i.e., I know you can do that, but I've never known how to do that). This one also said that the refund offer was only good for 30 days (and they'd eaten up nearly two weeks in this back-and-forth, leaving me to think that by the time I finally complied, I'd be told I was "too late" for the "100 percent guarantee" that I'd get my refund, just for asking.

While a reminder of the deadline seemed threatening, the re-send demand just seemed absurd, since they'd already received (and acknowledged receipt of) the proof that I'd taken those seven steps. Suddenly, that "guarantee" seemed a lot more like a bait-and-switch than a legitimate offer - no matter what I did, they kept adding new and (for me) nearly impossible tasks.

Finally, in frustration, I called the company then emailed the owner (who never replied) - but finally, after a flurry of emails and phone calls, I finally got someone's attention. Earlier today, I finally got my refund. But if I hadn't been persistent, I'm sure I'd have been out of luck, refund-wise.

What is my warning here? Before you commit big bucks to any writer-help organization, check out the specific terms of delivery of services, as well as the specifics of their refund policy (if any). Don't get stuck like I was.