Ethics in Nike's 2018 Ad featuring Colin Kaepernick

This paper discusses the ethical considerations of Nike's advertisement featuring NFL player Colin Kaepernick in 2018. It analyzes the impact on sales, CSR ties to profit, CEO ideology, and ethical theories like Kantian ethics, Utilitarianism and Virtue ethics.

Running head: ETHICS
Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Abstract
The following paper aims at the ethical perspectives of Nike advertisement in the year 2018
regarding NFL player Colin Kaepernick. This advertisement came out and many people across
USA showed their anger and threatened Nike to boycott their products. This situation was also
flamed by United States President Donald Trump when he gave his view against Colin. Colin’s
advertisement deal with Nike had been exemplary and Nike sales went up because of this deal.
However, the question of ethics comes up in this regard since Nike has not been put up a good
show when it comes to ethics. Many ethical questions have been raised against their works. In
this case, stand of Nike should be supported since they stood by the side of a player speaking
against racism and police brutality.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Details about Nike advertisement....................................................................................................3
Presentation of arguments................................................................................................................4
Impact of Nike’s advertisement on sales.........................................................................................7
Ethical considerations for Nike advertisement................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference List................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
In this essay I will argue about the ethical considerations about the advertisement of Nike
released in the year 2018. Some crucial points will be covered in this essay. The advertisement
released by Nike featured the NFL player for San Francisco 49ers named Colin Kaepernick. In
an NFL match, he did not stand up for the national anthem of United States protesting against
police brutality and racial inequalities in the country. Nike featured him in their advertisement
where he was the central character where he protested against some social justice issues to the
viewers.
In this context some important things will be argued. At first, the topic for the first
argument will be CSR ties to profit. The role of CSR in this scenario of Nike advertisement will
be analyzed and argued properly. The second topic for argument will be influence of CEO
ideology on the decision of Nike. Thirdly, the topic for argument will be the analysis of this
decision as per ethical theories like Kantian ethics, Utilitarianism and Virtue ethics. These
theories will be very much important for a proper analysis on the situation.
Details about Nike advertisement
The advertisement that is talked of in this paper has become quite controversial indeed.
The ‘Just Do It’ advertisement has brought in a revolution in the sports arena all over the world.
This advertisement is a two minute one. The advertisement has also focused on the controversy
in NFL where players had protested about the facts of gender inequality. In this ad, Colin has
been seen to appear in the ad in the midway. When Colin appears on the advert, the reflection of
USA national flag is seen. The issues that have been focused in this advertisement primarily are
indeed very credible ones. Gender and racial inequalities have become quite indispensable in the

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social life of United States. This is why players like LeBron James and Serena Williams stepped
up to make the protests against those practices. Three arguments will have to be discussed in
light of this controversial advert campaign. The first argument is whether Nike should have opted
out of their deal with teams or not. The second argument lies in the fact that Colin Kaepernick
should have brought this fact in note of administrative authorities (Kane, Tiell and
Intercollegiate 2017). Third argument in this scenario could be about the stance that Donald
Trump took in this issue.
Presentation of arguments
In this section, three important arguments will be presented to discuss this scenario.
Nike’s ethical considerations about CSR tie to profits (Matten and Moon 2008). The society and
business do have a very close relationship with each other and their tie is basically intended for
gaining profits. The argument will be on the fact if Nike had positive purposes for this
advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick or not. At first it should be kept in mind that despite of
several controversies in relation to CSR profits, they would always like to keep up the
sustainable innovation for betterment of their brand reputation (Suchman 1995). Sometimes
critics like Friedman has said that ethical considerations in business are secondary matters and
profits of companies should be looked at in the first case. This opinion must be countered
because psychological impacts on the minds of customers have a huge role to play in the success
of the organization. However, this advertisement by Nike is very much unethical since it has
promoted racism in all aspects. Thus as per theory of Friedman, the companies will only be
concerned about making profits.

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According to this theory, the only purpose of Nike was to gain profits by ignoring profits
of the company. This theory has mentioned that Nike is only concerned about high profits and
they do not like any ethical issues to be considered. As per the other theory of Freeman, the
company should only care about profit of stakeholders without considering other alternative
issues (Suchman 1995). On the contrary, CSR activities should be balanced with treating
stakeholders in a better manner. The business communities of Nike are their primary
stakeholders. The financers and suppliers are also their primary stakeholders. In this scenario,
Nike should have considered about their brand image and impact of that advertisement on the
communities. They should have understood that Nike would not be able to cover up the issues of
bad impression on business communities (Matten and Moon 2008).
When Nike undertook this unethical advertisement it was not a matter of just gaining
profits. They should have considered the fact that it would lead to their profits primarily but it
would create problems in the long run. In the urgent situations like this, Nike’s only purpose
should have been towards making their business communities happy (Matten and Moon 2008). It
is because a large portion of NFL fans got outraged after they saw this advert and boycotted
products sold by Nike. The business communities generally have a high level of legitimacy, low
power and low urgency. Several social and political issues have hampered business communities
precisely. Taking this into consideration, it must be said this step by Nike was completely
unethical indeed (Suchman 1995).
The second argument in this paper is about influence on CEO ideology on corporate
organizations. The CSR pyramid theory says that organizations should always have their
concerns fixed on corporate organizations (Lawton, McGuire and Rajwani 2013). The CEOs
should also think of this aspect because they must understand they will never be able to continue

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their business smoothly if they simply ignore ethical perspectives in business. Here the
proposition goes that advert of Nike was completely unethical and against the emotion of
communities. Nike CEO should have possessed a conscience that nobody would accept a person
who did not stand up to the national anthem of the country just to protest against some social
evils. On the contrary, some would say he did the right thing because he was a victim of police
brutality and racial inequality (Lawton, McGuire and Rajwani 2013).
In this scenario, there are some other ways to protest against it as well. The organizations
should incur profits and return it to their stakeholders for their survival. The stability of
organization depends on thinking perspective of customers in the society. Thus, companies
should not undertake any unethical steps harmful for their company. If companies are not able to
fulfill this economic criterion they will surely have hard times. Nike has not been able to act as
per the rules of business law. They should not have initiated this new advert at a time when that
scenario was gaining momentum in the society against Colin. The business deal was also coming
at an end with Colin as well. In trying to stand beside Colin Kaepernick in this case, Nike lost
overall support of white people in USA. They might have forgotten that majority of people in the
country were white skinned people and Nike was regarded as the apparel suppliers for all teams
at NFL (Rathbone, 2018).
On a different note, it can also be said that society understood police brutality and racism
should be stopped somehow and they realized this was the probable way for this. But the
problem lied in the fact that majority of Americans did not support this advert campaign. After
covering the details of argument both for and against, it can be assumed that the ideology of
CEO of Nike played a major role in the decision to continue with advert campaign. To some
critics, it might be a sort of negative publicity. The CEO of Nike understood that victims of

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racism were boiling with anger in protest of police brutality and racial issues. This is why they
took this step to release that advert and watch over the reaction of common people. Thus the
resolution to this argument is Nike could have taken other steps to protest against racism without
getting involved in controversy regarding an already controversial player. When sports get
vindicated with racial politics, the psychology of people will be hampered as well (Rathbone,
2018).
The third argument will be regarding utilitarianism, Kantian ethics or virtue ethics
theory. Everyone should understand the social ethics that boosts up morale of individuals to a
certain degree. It can be argued that Nike has been able to earn their profits by that advert but
they failed to please the customers within business society. The normal economy of the company
in society had deteriorated much since customers of their brand and NFL teams began to show
their protest with slogans like #JustBurnIt in contradiction to #JustDoIt. However, it can also be
stated that Nike has been organizing such brand adverts and marketing campaigns very
frequently and this has harmed the welfare of common citizens. Thus it can be fairly said that it
has been very much unethical for Nike to continue with such marketing campaigns. These
marketing campaigns are also hurting the emotions of common people. This is why common
citizens are drifting away from brand products of the company.
As per virtue ethics, individuals should always take on such acts that will do well for
everyone. On the other hand, some people would point out that actions and words of Donald
Trump has been unethical since he told media that Colin should be thrown out of ground. USA is
the home ground for Nike and they should have understood the sentiments of common people.
The conflicts between black and white people have been much clear in this scenario. The
marketing promotions of Nike’s brands could have been undertaken in other ways as well. Thus

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Nike has violated rules of virtue ethics. This decision of Nike is not utilitarian as well. This
promotional activity has been colored with politics i.e. highly unwelcome for brands like Nike.
The counter-arguments in favor of protesting against racism and police brutality cannot be
supported since it has affected their brand image highly.
The brutality of policemen has been quite an apprehensive factor for the dark skinned
people in the country. However, a very popular league in USA like NFL is perhaps the best stage
for showing the protests. Colin Kaepernick says in this advertisement ‘Believe in something,
even if it means sacrificing everything’ (Kelner 2019). This is a simple message for all the
booming sportspersons that they should not get defeated in front of any challenges in front of
them. The dream of presenting the country or team should come true for the athletes in every
situation (Crane and Matten 2016).
Generally, there are two kinds of ethical situations in which the companies must work.
The virtue-based and human-based approaches are most important in this consideration. The
branded companies like Nike should work as per normative ethics. The moral judgments on good
and bad should be made clear in this scenario (Majors 2017). Nike has supported the cause of
#TakeAKnee campaign in NFL that Colin Kaepernick took. In this situation, social media
platforms also came up to support this cause. The well-being and human rights of players should
be secured at any cost (Crane and Matten 2016). As players are public performers, their rights
should not be hampered at all. However, this deal had been initiated and this faced huge debates
over the situation.

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Ethical considerations for Nike advertisement
The advertisement of Nike had gone through some serious repercussions both in their
country and social media as well (Majors 2017). This is why ethical issues have to be analyzed in
this regard. It must be remembered that protesting against serious issues like racism and police
brutality is not at all unethical thing. As per the Constitution of United States, every person has
their freedom of speech to protest against wrong things (Rovell and Writer 2016). Colin noticed
many people had been victims of racism because of their skin color. The African American
people were biggest victims of this practice in USA. In this context, decision of Colin to stand up
against this practice should be supported (DesJardins and McCall 2014).
Conclusion
On a concluding note, the findings from this paper will be discussed. At first it has been
found that Nike did not give any notice to their CSR activities when they released this
advertisement. It is because they only concentrated on earning their profits. This factor became
much sensitive because of interference from Donald Trump, President of United States. They
should not have released this kind of advert on social media because millions of NFL fans had
been watching this. Secondly, the solution is the influence of CEO was completely apparent.
Since this advert was for their commercial benefits only. They had earned a huge margin of
profit from this commercial. Thirdly, Nike did not take this decision by reviewing ethical
considerations like utilitarianism, Kantian ethics or Virtue ethics. Their decision was completely
based on gaining public attention and thus benefitting from commercial point of view. This paper
can be ended by saying this decision about advert was not proper from ethical perspectives.

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References and Bibliography
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