Robbie Trosclair

Colin Kaepernick Nike Commercial FULL VIDEO

The protests started in 2016, he left the NFL in 2017 and the ad first appeared in September of
2018.

Before the campaign even began there were factors at play. First, Kaepernick was one of if not
the most talked about celebrity because of his choosing to kneel during the national anthem
during NFL games.

Although a lot of people didn’t agree with his message, a lot of people did. Him getting dropped
by the NFL only gave him the greatest possible origin story to join a company like Nike.

Nike was also running their 30th year ad campaign at the time so they were already on the
forefront of mass media.

Colin Kaepernick was also a great model for co-orientation. Kaepernick was already a well
respected athlete on top of that he quit making millions for the NFL for a cause he believed in
and was a very strong supporter of the BLM movement.

Nike also knew it’s tipping point. There was probably more radical movements they could’ve
taken with the campaign to include Kaepernick's message but it didn’t release anything that
would scare away it’s audience that they predicted would already leave.

The Colin Kaepernick/Nike PR case in 2018 was unique because company’s usually
don’t take a political stance.

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2018/09/17/nike-and-kaepernick-nfl-pr-disaster-o
r-move-in-the.html

This journal article goes over about how financially, this decision didn’t really hurt Nike. Sure,
people were burning Nike products, but they were buying them to do it which really defeats the
purpose.

In this case, Colin Kaepernick signing with Nike is a major boost to his connectional power. After
being kicked out of the NFL, he immediately signed himself back with an organization which is
just as big.
https://www.prweek.com/article/1492269/worth-sacrifice-why-nike-willing-risk-backlash-embrace
-colin-kaepernick

This website goes into detail about whether or not this was an amazing business decision, Nike
is doing it to get on the right side of history. Nike is now an early adopter of the #BLM movement
for big business. It’s not a new movement but Nike is one of the first to get behind it as we’ve
very recently seen every company posting their own safe versions of support with the death of
George Floyd and current events.

https://www.prnewsonline.com/nike-kaepernick

This article talks about how Nike got on top of the agenda with their new campaign. For the
time, they had everyone (including President Trump) talking and they were the only thing being
talked about. This ties back into the first point I made of Nike’s stock. Even though they were on
the agenda for reasons that weren’t 100% received well, their overall stock did better as a
result.