While the news last week was dominated by the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, one other news event took place that made headlines for unexpected reasons. It falls squarely under the category of “unintended consequences”.
On September 3rd Nike announced it had renewed its contract with Colin Kaepernick and debuted a new ad featuring Kaepernick just in time for the start of the 2018 NFL season. We are by no means experts on present day marketing strategies, especially for the key 18 – 34 age group, and could well be fooled by the eventual outcome of this move, but our “old school” intuition tells us this might turn out bad. Not because of what we think of Colin Kaepernick, but because of the high-risk unpredictability of having such a divisive figure at the core of the ad (and therefore the business’s marketing strategy) – a curious departure from Nike’s typical ad choice of sure-fire superstar and elite level competition focus.
For the last two years, the Kaepernick-originated anthem protests and accompanying statements have spawned strong reactions, both positive and negative. From a business point of view, it is now clear the NFL has lost viewers, both on TV and at the stadiums, because of the anthem protests. To try and stop the decline, the NFL put in a new rule prohibiting anthem protests (as every other professional sport already has) although it has yet to declare a penalty for violating the rule. It was with this clear example of a negative business impact (at least for the NFL) of Kaepernick and his protest message in front of them that Nike chose to proceed with a Kaepernick ad campaign.
What happened almost immediately was predictable to those of us looking at this from the old school perspective. Videos of burning Nike shoes, pictures of people cutting the “swoosh” off their socks, vows of boycotts for all Nike products, all made headlines. At the opening bell of the stock market on the day following the Nike announcement, Nike stock dropped by 3.8% – just under $5 billion in lost value (the stock has recovered some since but is still way down from its pre-Kaepernick announcement level). Also, the NFL could not have been very happy that a sore subject they have recently endeavored to de-escalate and distance themselves from was now back front and center just days before the season opener, courtesy of their business partner, Nike.
Assuming Nike anticipated all the above was going to happen in the aftermath of their announcement, they must have thought the reaction would be temporary and would quickly give way to a positive response that more than made up for the initial hostility. That may yet prove to be true (again, we’re not marketing experts). In the meantime, something else has occurred that Nike could not possibly have anticipated, and highlights the extreme risk and unpredictability incurred by embracing such a controversial subject – Memes.
Within days after the new Kaepernick ad debuted, a few very funny variations on the ad began to appear on Twitter and other social media sites. Then the floodgates opened over the weekend. The depth and breadth of the meme response has been spectacular, and as of this writing there is still no end in sight. Some of these are absolutely hilarious, and as with all genuinely witty humor the good ones stick in your head.
Not only do these memes capitalize on the Kaepernick message as the basis for their humor, but most also incorporate a comic variation of the iconic Nike slogan, “Just do it”. Nike came up with this slogan 30 years ago and up to now has faithfully kept it associated with the work ethic and hard training of elite athletes at the top of their game. In fact, the “Just do it” slogan, as well as the Nike swoosh, are featured on a tee-shirt in the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. Now, that famous slogan is being associated through these memes to a plethora of different topics, many of which have nothing to do with sport. Most are just funny, but some are also vulgar, targeted at vile acts of specific people, or connected to decidedly poor outcomes. Here is the original ad with Kaepernick’s image:
This was one of the first memes that followed:
Then came a series whose subjects were a complete departure from sports:
Finally, we think the meme below says it all. You need to be a Star Wars fan to appreciate it fully, but even if you’re not, it shows how the essence of the original message has been completely obscured:
There are literally tons of these out there already making fun of everything you can imagine. There is even a “Nike meme generator” now available online so anyone can easily create one of their own. Will this help or hurt Nike? For the moment at least, when we hear or read the phrase “Just do it”, these funny memes now come to mind and not the original association Nike worked so hard to cultivate over 30 years. Time will tell.