Enfuego is more right than wrong about the top brass being stupid. Like I said in a previous post, 10 years ago people just say “fuckin Nike” and shutoff the TV. Now you have sites with a great story to run for a little bit and mobilize against a corporation over a decision that people loathe. The Internet brings the loathers together.
They might be a smart company but Kyle Shanahan is a smart offensive coach. He still threw the ball at the 30 yard line vs the Pats. Don’t always appeal to the authority of an expert.
They might be a smart company but Kyle Shanahan is a smart offensive coach. He still threw the ball at the 30 yard line vs the Pats. Don’t always appeal to the authority of an expert.
Well, these companies are constantly having to evaluate risk vs. reward right? When they sat in the boardroom over the last month or so, who was the guy that raised his hand and told the other members this risk was going to be worth the reward? That guy should be fired.
I honestly think companies like Nike are trying to please the Twitter mobs and social justice warriors when they make decisions like this but those groups don’t adequately represent Americans as you saw play out in the last POTUS election.
Who cares about the 50% number?
Even if the number is only 5% it is dumb.
5% can be the difference in being a fortune 500 company and filing bankruptcy.
Of course im not predicting bankruptcy for NIKE anytime soon but I have to think that his move will have a whole lot more people burning NIKE gear and swearing never to purchase again then there will be people that say very cool move NIKE and buy another pair of Jordans in support.
Now im not one of those fake protest people. I could not care less. If i go to the store and see a pair of Nikes i like im gonna buy it if its the shoes or shirt etc that I want the most.
But Nike should realize they already have a strong loyal base. The people that this campaign appeals to is already in your camp.
I think this offends more people then it appeals to.
Its just the world we live in where people have not adjusted to this new world we live in.
Even if the number is only 5% it is dumb.
5% can be the difference in being a fortune 500 company and filing bankruptcy.
Of course im not predicting bankruptcy for NIKE anytime soon but I have to think that his move will have a whole lot more people burning NIKE gear and swearing never to purchase again then there will be people that say very cool move NIKE and buy another pair of Jordans in support.
Now im not one of those fake protest people. I could not care less. If i go to the store and see a pair of Nikes i like im gonna buy it if its the shoes or shirt etc that I want the most.
But Nike should realize they already have a strong loyal base. The people that this campaign appeals to is already in your camp.
I think this offends more people then it appeals to.
Its just the world we live in where people have not adjusted to this new world we live in.
And ive never been a believer in the phrase "any publicity is good publicity"
Its simply not true.
Someone came up with that phrase a long time ago and people just kept repeating it over and over till everyone believed it to be true even though its not close to true.
There is indeed a such thing as bad pub.
Its simply not true.
Someone came up with that phrase a long time ago and people just kept repeating it over and over till everyone believed it to be true even though its not close to true.
There is indeed a such thing as bad pub.
Certain numbers just overstate the issue though. What they did is most likely negligible in the long-term.
If you say 50% of the population, that's overselling the impact.
If you say the company lost billions of dollars rather than say their market cap went down 2% after going up 65% over the last 12 months. That sound's like a lot more of an impact.
And given that there are so many vested interests in pimping these stories because they're incredibly polarizing, these phrases tend to win out over more measured analysis. That's just the media/social media/world we live in/whatever.
And I do think mean reversion of equities on bad PR is legitimate because of how the media/social media tsunami is with this stuff. Gun manufacturers getting beatdown down after that FL shooting was the previous example.
I think it was a -EV move, I was just making the point the severity is widely overstated by those who have created a cottage industry of overstating things.
I am not in the marketing business but I went to school for marketing and this subject has always interested me.
Im always fascinated with commercials on tv trying to figure out what each company is trying to present and what audience they are trying to appeal to.
Its just something that has always interested me.
If you would have asked me a week ago what company in America was the best at marketing over the last 20 years I would have probably told you Nike.
I have always had tremendous respect for their strategies over the years.
So this is all a huge shock to me. If it was any other company practically I would have already wrote this off as one of the worst marketing campaigns in history.
But because this is Nike we talking about im going to step back with a wait and see approach . Maybe they on some next level thinking that is beyond what im thinking and this all turns out brilliant .
Im always fascinated with commercials on tv trying to figure out what each company is trying to present and what audience they are trying to appeal to.
Its just something that has always interested me.
If you would have asked me a week ago what company in America was the best at marketing over the last 20 years I would have probably told you Nike.
I have always had tremendous respect for their strategies over the years.
So this is all a huge shock to me. If it was any other company practically I would have already wrote this off as one of the worst marketing campaigns in history.
But because this is Nike we talking about im going to step back with a wait and see approach . Maybe they on some next level thinking that is beyond what im thinking and this all turns out brilliant .
Another thing about this is that if it was such a great strategic move, why do it now?
Do it a year ago when the flame was burning white hot on all of this stuff and Kaepnerick was spending his first year not in the NFL. Maybe it would've appealed to people more then. It is lagging badly behind the cultural zeitgeist that the issue has created. It just feels so old news to me. That's the first thing I thought about when I saw it was "Kaepernick? It's 2018? Ya a year late at best"
I could be wrong but I really do not see too many people saying "You see Nike was down with the cause? Let's go hitup the mall!"
Luckily for them, 125k people move to the US a month and most of them probably don't care, not to mention they have a massive global operation and buying sports apparel probably isn't going out of style anytime soon. Their moat is big enough that they can make dumb decisions.
Oh yeah the 50% thing is way overblown no doubt.
Maybe even the 5% thing is overblown.
Nike certainly not going to be filling bankruptcy over this but still dumb to me on the surface.
My goal as a marketer is not to offend anyone that is a potential customer.
I think Nike offended potential customers with this campaign and thats not ideal.
This is going to be a little beyond your friendly marketing psychology analysis and it isn't something I'm dying to say in polite company, but the reason it potentially works is because traditional white America is rapidly dying out via mass migration. Our foreign born population as a % of overall population is nearing all time highs over the next few decades. And I don't want to go too into detail about this but these people aren't as jazzed up about the flag or which wars America fought in to win her freedom. Many of them don't care at all, and 125k of them are coming every single month.
So when these coastal based companies make appeals like this, they may not be correct in their assessment, but they aren't totally ignorant to which way the wind is about to blow either.
