
Notes on the Kaepernick/Nike deal from a copywriter who doesn’t follow sports
I don’t talk much about football. In fact, my standard response to the question “What is your greatest weakness, professionally speaking?” is “I don’t play or watch sports, so I shouldn’t be your first pick to write about them.”
In my capacity as a freelance advertising copywriter and content strategist however, I was asked to weigh in on the recently-announced Nike ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. So in spite of being a Canadian nerd with a fine arts degree and less than no interest in American football (apologies to my American colleagues, but to be fair I’m not much of a hockey fan either), I did want to take a run at it from a marketing and human rights perspective.
The playbook
In case you were in a coma for the last week, Nike announced on Monday that Colin Kaepernick would be the face of a new ad campaign, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the launch of their “Just do it” slogan. Kaepernick will get his own branded line of shoes, shirts and jerseys, and Nike will also contribute to his Know Your Rights campaign.
Kaepernick, as you may recall, gained fame, notoriety and eventually an Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International for refusing to stand for the US national anthem, as it was played before his NFL games, to protest racial injustice in 2016. In November 2017, he filed a grievance against the league for colluding to keep him out of the league. In August 2018 an arbitrator gave him the green light to proceed.
The huddle
To my mind this is a huge coup for Nike, who, unbeknownst to me, had the ball for the whole play, as Kaepernick has been on their endorsement roster since 2011. First they get the swoosh logo for $35 in 1971, and now it turns out they had two full years to figure out what to do with the whole kneeling-during-the-anthem business in time for their 30th anniversary. But according to the Washington Post, the decision wasn’t an easy one.
“It wasn’t a forgone conclusion that [Nike would] go this way, especially as he was being vilified,” [a] person familiar with the agreement said.
— Colin Kaepernick to star in Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ campaign (Washington Post, September 3, 2018)
Nike stock had dropped almost 3% as of Tuesday morning, and the Twitter was abuzz with images of people defacing and even immolating their Nike attire, accompanied by hashtags like #boycottnike and #justdont.
Let us consider the hypothetical deliberations at Nike, who in March signed a deal to continue supplying the NFL with uniforms and apparel through 2028. Kaepernick’s largely under-utilized endorsement deal was due to run out, but as he is himself a bit of a political football, there is no option to drop him quietly. In fact, that headline alone, “Nike quietly drops Kaepernick from endorsement roster,” could have made Nike look like they were siding with the NFL brass against him.
Choosing instead to give Kap an anniversary-year campaign and his own line of gear is a fine poke in the eye for the NFL owners, who at first seemed incapable of addressing the kneeling issue in a comprehensive manner, then bristled at having Trump tell them what to do, then eventually decided that having Trump tell them what to do was okay after all. They announced a new policy last spring that clears the way for owners to penalize players who refuse to “stand and show respect” during the anthem (though some dissenting owners did opt to support their players).
The timeout
This is ostensibly a discussion about marketing, and I realize we’re not supposed to bring politics into the workplace, but Nike brought the knife to this particular decorative spoon exhibit. Now that the door is open, I want to say that I get a bit of a bulging forehead vein whenever I hear someone say, “Sports is no place for politics.” If you ever wondered what privilege was, it’s pretty much this: to the author of that phrase, politics is something you can put aside while you enjoy your Sunday afternoon sports viewing, during which you don’t want to cloud your brain with trying to decide who deserves your vote for school trustee. But to many others on the planet, politics is a guy outside the front door with a gun and a lot of friends who buy their outfits at the same store.
Final score
With their uniform and apparel deal solidly in place for the next 10 years, Nike’s response to whether the NFL was consulted regarding the Kaepernick deal was, basically, we have a great relationship with the NFL, but Colin isn’t on an NFL team at the moment, so there was no need to consult them. If they don’t like it they can pound AstroTurf. (I’m paraphrasing.)
Sports brands are all about youth, and Nike has made personal empowerment one of their pillars. You can, however, be cynical (allow me!) and say that if you go by the numbers, taking into account the popular vote in the U.S. and where their demographic falls (my instincts tell me that younger influencers are making the decisions rather than their income-earning parents when it comes to lifestyle brands and sports gear), and let the bean counters work that out to the penny, dropping Kaepernick would have almost certainly cost Nike more business than running with him.
But even a cynic like me would rather believe that they made him the face of their new campaign because they knew it was the right thing to do. The only question left to ask is what took them so long.
References and further reading
Colin Kaepernick, Face of N.F.L. Protests, Is Face of New Nike Campaign (New York Times, Sept. 3, 2018)
Colin Kaepernick to star in Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ campaign (Washington Post, September 3, 2018)
People are destroying their Nike gear to protest Colin Kaepernick’s ‘Just Do It’ campaign (Washington Post, September 4, 2018)
Nike ‘Just Did It’ With Colin Kaepernick, And You Should Applaud (Forbes, September 4, 2018)
Nike Again Ranks As Most Valuable Apparel Brand (SGB Media, March 26, 2018)
NFL’s new policy: players who kneel during the national anthem may face a fine (Vox, May 23, 2018)
How Nike Got An Insane Deal On The ‘Swoosh’ Logo (Business Insider, Jul. 25, 2014)
