NIKE’s Latest Ad Campaign – Brilliance, Bust or Boo Boo?

If you think advertising doesn’t work, just look at the latest NIKE campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL Quarterback who knelt during the playing of the National Anthem.  Boy this campaign has lite a gas can on fire.

Let’s go back to another “controversial” NIKE campaign…the TV ad NIKE did with Charlies Barkley in 1993… the “I’m Not a Role Model” campaign.  It was a hot topic then, but that campaign had something going for it.

-        - The focus was on a topic that didn’t have a tremendous amount of controversy and passion around it and

-        - The ad had :30 seconds of airtime to explain why parents should be role models not athletes

I look at this latest campaign from NIKE in a couple of ways.

1.     Consumer.  Summing it up, I don’t care for it – but I’m not the target audience for NIKE.  Their target audience is clearly younger and the campaign probably resonates with them. 

2.     Marketing Professional.  There is a risk/reward with everything in marketing.  With that in mind, the short-term backlash over the Kaepernick ad might be enough to actually hurt NIKE with its intended target audience.  Let me explain.  If NIKE bends to the pressure and dumps the campaign ad featuring Kaepernick they look weak to their intended target audience as they’ve “caved in to pressure of society.”   In today’s society, empowerment has become a theme permeating our culture.   The message integrates society and sports together. 

“Hey you support Colin Kaepernick, but you don’t have the guts to stay with the campaign? “Whoops”… now who eats crow?

And although NIKE is clearly trying to resonate with younger audiences by using well known athletes, it seems to me they could have chosen a better individual to focus on. 

I trust they’ve thought through all the permeations this ad campaign might cause.

3.     Business Professional.  As you’ve heard me say before “there is no other reason to invest in marketing unless it drives sales.”   Whether or not this campaign drives sales via the brand is up in the air.  Look to NIKE’s next two quarterly earnings statement to see what success it’s had.

So where does all this lead us?  I don’t know, but I would hate to be in their PR department these days.

Scott