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.
