- The Washington Times - Sunday, September 9, 2018

The Colin Kaepernick furor might be good for Nike after all.

Advertising-research firm Edison Trends said that the company’s online sales grew 31 percent over Labor Day weekend despite bashing on social media and from President Trump among others.

Those several days are a traditionally strong sales period, but this year it came days after the athletic-equipment giant centered its advertising on the former NFL quarterback now best known for leading protests against the U.S. flag and the national anthem.

“Both this year and last year, online sales of Nike products across the web hit a low point on Sunday of Labor Day weekend, rising again on Monday and Tuesday. But this year, they climbed 31% between Sunday and Tuesday, besting 2017’s 17%” increase over the same two-day period, Edison wrote.

Social media and political discussion were rife last week with users critical of Mr. Kaepernick burning or trashing their Nike equipment and/or vowing never to buy the company’s wares.

“There was speculation that the Nike/Kaepernick campaign would lead to a drop in sales, but our data over the last week does not support that theory,” Hetal Pandya, co-founder of Edison Trends, told MarketWatch.

Besides their short reporting period, which reflects short-term impacts that can be more directly traced to advertising or marketing, the Edison numbers are limited by covering online sales only and do not reflect in-store purchases at brick-and-mortal merchants. Also, approving sentiment toward Nike dropped 38 percentage points, according to marketing company 4C Insights.

Nike’s stock took a hit for a few days, but gained ground Friday and remains up for the month as a whole, Marketwatch reported.

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.

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