Nike's Campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick: Impact on Consumer Behavior

This essay evaluates the impact of Nike's campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick on consumer behavior and attitudes. It discusses how the campaign divided the country into two halves, with some boycotting Nike products and others supporting the brand. The essay applies the concept of consumer attitude to analyze the motivations behind these behaviors. The study concludes that the negative attitude towards the brand is responsible for the subsequent consumer behavior.

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Introduction
The news, which this essay will be taking into account for evaluating it based on
consumer behavior is Nike’s recent campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, and how it turned
America into two halves; a half which was boycotting the Nike products, and another half,
which supported Nike in the venture. The concept, which will be applied to the case, is
consumer behavior.
Context
The reason why this particular news story has been selected is because of the fact that
this perfectly reflects how actions by a brand can directly affect a customer’s attitude towards
the brand, with customer attitudes being a core element in consumer behavior.
The news story
The news story states that following Nike’s ad campaign, which featured Colin
Kaepernick, who had recently disrespected the American national anthem publicly while
protesting against Donald Trump’s discriminative ruling, the entire country got divided into
two halves. A half stood by the bravery of Nike and the message, which it tried to convey in
the campaign, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything”, while another
half found themselves boycotting Nike products (CBC Sports, 2019).
Applying concept
Consumer attitude is a core element in consumer behavior. Consumer attitude is
driven by motivations, which refers to the factors which make an individual abide by certain
values and beliefs and act accordingly. The reason why the campaign divided the country into
two halves, is because of the fact that the context of the message which Nike sent out to the
public was a highly sensitive one. Kaepernick was already a sportsperson who led America to

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have mixed feelings about him, because of his disrespect to the national anthem. Nike
endorsing the sportsperson, indicated that they were also endorsing the impression which half
of the people had about him, which was that of anti nationalist.
This factor acted as the motivation for those people, to ignite a stigma in them and the
perception that the company stood by the anti nationalist acts of the athlete. This motivation
in turn, made people formulate a negative attitude towards the brand, and led them to the
behavior of boycotting Nike products. On the other hand, there were people who were
supportive of the bravery of the athlete, and to them, Nike had endorsed bravery. This acted
as the motivation in those people and formulated the perception that the brand stood by
rationality, integrity, empathy and justice, which created a positive attitude for the brand.
Support arguments
According to Wade (2019), Nike wanted to create the perception in the minds of the
Americans that it stood by justice and bravery in order to create a positive customer attitude
and subsequently influence consumer behavior, but high entropy in that message made the
haters of the athlete perceive Nike as a supporter of anti nationalism.
According to Min et al. (2017), negative consumer attitudes towards a brand is driven
by negative intentions and perceptions, and often results in consequential consumer behavior.
Conclusion
Nike endorsed Colin Kaepernick with the intention of conveying justice and bravery.
High entropy in the communication process failed to convey that with effectiveness, and
haters of Kaepernick became haters of the brand as well, boycotting their products. The study
concludes that the negative attitude which people had formed about the brand, is solely
responsible for the harsh consumer behavior which followed afterwards.

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References
CBC Sports. (2019). Colin Kaepernick timeline: From protests to a Nike campaign. Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwlopXMTzS4
Min, J., Ziegler, M., Chang, H. J. J., & Jai, T. M. C. (2017). The Effects of Celebrity-Brand
Congruence and Publicity on Consumer Attitudes, Buying Intention, and Loyalty.
Wade, J. (2019). THE CALCULUS OF CONTROVERSY. Risk Management, 66(1), 26-29.