DECISIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  Even for Nike.  This is a lesson for corporations who believe they can defy the public.  From Conservative Treehouse: 

Never before in the history of corporate branding decisions has a multi-billion dollar company had such a massive and swift drop of brand image as Nike.  The results from Morning Consult Intelligence, a firm that specializes in monitoring and measuring the brand image and reputation for thousands of major companies, reflects a massive drop in brand image across every single demographic.

We suspected there would be a diminishment of brand image, but nothing like the scale discovered within the polled data:

The report features over 8,000 interviews conducted among American adults, including 1,694 interviews pre-campaign launch (8/26/18 – 9/3/18) and 5,481 interviews post-campaign launch (9/4/18 – 9/5/18). Additionally, Morning Consult conducted a study among 1,168 adults in the U.S. about Nike’s ad and the decision to choose Kaepernick as the face of the campaign.

? Nike’s Favorability Drops by Double Digits: Before the announcement, Nike had a net +69 favorable impression among consumers, it has now declined 34 points to +35 favorable.

COMMENT:  Clearly, Nike is out of touch with its own country, kind of like the Democratic Party.  How did their executives make such a crazy decision?  Were the spouses of executives involved, as is too often the case?  Did they talk only to people who agreed with them politically?

Will their board of directors speak up, or will they fear accusations of racism?  That may be the key question.

September 7,  2018