Recently, Nike released a campaign starring NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in which stirred up a bunch of controversy. There are many people around the US that are questioning Nike as to why they are using Kaepernick when he took a knee during the National Anthem. Some people view that as a sign of disrespect towards our country so they were appalled when seeing this campaign.
Some people against this campaign went as far as cutting the Nike symbol off of their clothing and showing backlash to the company through social media. Upon Kaepernick taking a knee, he was also kicked off of the 49ers NFL team that he was on.
Many people have sworn to never watch the NFL again due to them removing Kaepernick.
“Nike knew it would risk losing some customers, followers and sales, but the short-term fallout would be far less than the long-term gain in brand loyalty,” Vinny La Barbera, a member of the Forbes Agency Council said in an October 18 Forbes story.
Honestly, Nike thought this one out. They knew the controversy going on within the US and NFL with Kaepernick but yet they still launched this campaign. Thinking from a marketing perspective, even with this campaign they have still gained so much money rather than losing. People who ripped the logo off their clothing are only doing harm to themselves because they already bought the product.
“Even though it’s not all positive, the apparel giant is gaining more recognition with free advertising all over social media,” another member of the Forbes Agency, Andrea Keirn said.
Any publicity is good publicity. People who tried to make this company seem so bad are, in reality, doing nothing but advertising the brand. Speaking up on this brand will do nothing but bring more consumers their way.
