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In Nike’s Shoes (Jim Karrh On Marketing)

3 min read

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When you think about Nike, which phrases or messages come to mind?

“Just Do It” is probably the first one. If you recall the ads that Spike Lee created for Nike in the 1990s (when he appeared with Michael Jordan as the Mars Blackmon character), then you might have also thought, “It’s gotta be the shoes!”

How about “His shoe broke”? That one didn’t come from an ad agency or star director, but rather from Barack Obama, in a spontaneous moment while in the crowd watching a basketball game.

It was Feb. 20, at a much-hyped game between Duke University and its archrival the University of North Carolina. ESPN had been promoting the game for weeks. Duke and UNC are big brand names in college hoops, but much of the buzz surrounded Duke’s freshman star Zion Williamson.

(By the way, young Mr. Williamson was unquestionably the star of the Real Deal in the Rock tournament in Little Rock in 2017. There’s plenty of viral video out there.)

The celebrities were out in force, including former President Obama and current NBA stars who wanted to see this freshman phenomenon in person. Less than a minute into the game, however, Williamson fell to the floor in pain as his Nike shoe literally fell apart.


Thankfully, Williamson’s knee injury was only a mild sprain. But as you might imagine, there were many ripple effects for Nike. Its share price fell nearly 2% during trading the following day. Competitors were quick to pounce on a rare weakness. Puma — in a tweet that was later deleted — said “Wouldn’t have happened in the Pumas.” Skechers bought ad space in outlets including The Wall Street Journal with the taunt, “Just Blew It.”

For its part, Nike stated in an email to Bloomberg and other reporters, “We are obviously concerned and want to wish Zion a speedy recovery. While this is an isolated occurrence, we are working to identify the issue.” That’s a tepid response; Nike needs to just do more.

This was a public, embarrassing, and costly product failure. What should Nike do over the coming weeks and months? What should any company do in the face (or foot) of such a situation?

I recently interviewed one of the best PR pros in the business, Nick Kalm of Reputation Partners, for my podcast. Nick reminded me of the Pepsi syringe hoax from the early 1990s, when a few dozen consumers claimed to have found syringes or other unsafe debris in their Pepsi cans.

According to reports at the time, Pepsi quickly gathered an expert team including manufacturing, scientific and regulatory affairs, legal and communications. The company was ready, quickly distributing video from its bottling facilities which showed how cans were only open for nine-tenths of a second before being sealed. They also found video from a Denver store’s surveillance camera which appeared to show a woman slipping a syringe into a can.

There’s no hoax in the case of Zion Williamson. Yet Nick’s point is still relevant: Nike should have details of its design and assembly processes ready, in order to assure consumers that this was indeed an “isolated” incident.

For Zion Williamson, things might turn out downright peachy. When he turns pro in a few months — likely the first player selected in the NBA draft — he has even greater fame and a new point of leverage.

Do you suspect that his price tag for a shoe deal just went up by a few million?

Apart from shoe deals, how prepared is your organization to respond to a product or service issue (real or staged)? Everyone should know what to find, say, show and share before something breaks.

Jim Karrh, Ph.D., of Little Rock is a consultant and professional speaker, a consulting principal with DSG, and host of “The Manage Your Message Podcast.” See JimKarrh.com, email him at Jim@JimKarrh.com and follow him on Twitter @JimKarrh.
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