Colin Kaepernick's recent Nike Ad

www.vox.com

The economic principle I’m exploring is how is Nike so effective when it comes to sales.

My research question to help me study the economic principle is how did Nike’s recent advertisement with Colin Kaepernick affect the company's sales?

The article published on Vox titled “Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad sparked a boycott — and earned $6 billion for Nike” demonstrates this economic principle by showing how the companies overall worth increased and how certain products of theirs were also more sought after.

Nike recently decided to make Colin Kaepernick the face of their 30th anniversary advertisement campaign, and this resulted in a lot of controversy. Many people weren’t a fan of him because he was the first of many to start kneeling for the anthem. However to the surprise of many this campaign actually improved Nike instead of hurting them.

First, “According to CBS, Nike’s stock has soared over the past year, seeing a 5 percent increase since Labor Day — the day it revealed that Kaepernick, the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, was the star of company’s 30th-anniversary “Just Do It” campaign.” I found this very surprising, personally I support Colin Kaepernick's motives and support him, but I know how many people feel the exact opposite as me so if anything I would’ve thought this would hurt their sales. It shows that for a company like Nike taking this risk of losing a few customer is worth it for the amount you could possibly gain.

Second, Kaepernick has been out of the NFL for 2 years now, but with this recent advertising people are wanting to back him even more. Nike decides to still sell his jersey and it has turned out very well for them because “Kaepernick is still a merchandise-selling machine. Sales of jerseys bearing his name have been among the league’s most popular even though he hasn’t played in two years” Which to me is very smart from Nike, they know people who may not even be big football fans will still buy his jersey just so they can show their support for him.