Remember when the Nike "swoosh" logo was very nearly omnipresent? Whether one was an athlete or a couch potato, Nike products were everywhere.
Not so much anymore. "Get woke, go broke" is once more claiming a prize, and this time it's the once-esteemed athletic shoemakers. They embraced all manner of woke horse squeeze in their marketing campaigns, and now their stock has crashed to an 11-year low.
Nike’s stock has slumped to its lowest level in more than a decade after the sportswear giant warned sales will keep falling through 2026.
Shares hit an 11-year low on April 1, capping a brutal stretch that has seen the company lose around 75 percent of its value since shares peaked in 2021.
It is now worth under $68 billion - a third of the value of TJ Maxx.
The latest sell-off was triggered by a bleak outlook, with Nike forecasting sales will slump 4 percent this quarter - a staggering $500 million fall in the value of shoes, tracksuits, and t-shirts.
The brand is being hit by a triple whammy: backlash to its more ‘woke’ image shift, a failed retreat from major retail partners in favor of direct-to-consumer selling, and a deepening slump in China.
Maybe pull back from featuring anti-American nuts like failed NFL player Colin Kaepernick in your advertising? Just a thought. I'm not a sportsball guy myself, but I do seem to recall that the NFL took a big viewership hit from their featuring of idiots protesting our national anthem.
Nike's top cat is not happy:
The scale of the pressure inside Nike was laid bare in a recent all-hands meeting, where CEO Elliott Hill struck an unusually blunt tone with staff in a recording leaked to Bloomberg News.
'I’m so tired, and I know you are, too, of talking about fixing this business,' Hill said during the meeting. 'I want to move to inspiring and driving growth and having fun.'
'You can’t just sit there and say everything’s great,' Hill said, referring to the investor call. 'Frankly it needed to be different.'
That last sentence is a classic example of belaboring the obvious.
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Now I'm not a marketing maven or anything, but here's a thought: If you're an American business, maybe don't feature in your advertising people who hate America? I can't answer for Nike's crashing in the China market, although it wouldn't be at all surprising to learn that the Chinese sportswear market is going more domestic - that's where most of this stuff is made, anyway.
Nike's recent ad campaigns have apparently featured not only Colin Kaepernick, who whines about being "oppressed" while enjoying fame and fortune, but also the woke Megan Rapinoe and a "non-binary esports player" - whatever that is - named Dominique McLean. That's not very likely to draw a wide audience of loyal American buyers.
Why can't these companies just advertise the virtues of their products? Why not just make the case to the buying public that Nike athletic shoes and so forth are better quality, longer-lasting, more comfortable, and explain why? Traditionally, advertising has promoted the virtues of a product. The company is looking to entice buyers to a free trade in which their buyers perceive a gain in value; that the shoes, or sportswear, or whatever, will return value to them greater than the cost of the product.
Promoting anti-American woke nutbars does nothing to that end. Nike seems to be learning that; they are learning, as other companies have before them, what it means to "get woke, go broke."
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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