The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 107 — How politics changed the sneaker world forever
And why it's probably for the best
Good morning, family! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. I know this week has been a rough one for a lot of us because of Election Day, so I’m sending all my positivity and love your way.
I hope you managed to do that thing you really needed to do and I hope that you didn’t stress yourself out too much during all of this madness.
Speaking of, let’s dive in on that real quick.
Sticking to sneakers won’t work anymore
(Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash)
I don’t know about y’all, but I’m certainly glad Tuesday is gone. The election ain’t over, obviously (SIGH) but at least we got that part out of the way.
Even with Tuesday in our rearview, we’re not going back to what most of us consider “normal.” Nah. That doesn’t really exist anymore in a lot of areas. We’ll see big changes in news coverage, sports, tech and, yes, even the retail industry.
Companies are as political as they’ve ever been now and that includes the sneaker companies we love.
This combination of the election cycle, the pandemic and social injustice everywhere heightened everyone’s sensibilities to the moment we’re living in. And as our sensibilities heighten, so do the corporations asking for our dollars.
We saw that manifest in a big way this year. For example, lots of sneaker companies took stands on injustices this year after the brutal murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police officers.
This year sort of feels like a peak, but this has been in the making for a while. The most obvious example would be Nike’s support of Colin Kaepernick over the years.
This is a relatively new phenomenon. Normally, they’d sit on the sidelines and avoid #TheIssues at all costs in fear of losing potential dollars. Now, though, they’re leaning into things. There are a couple of reasons for this.
The first reason gets pretty complicated, but I promise we won’t stay here long. The Supreme Court’s ruling in 2010’s Citizen’s United case (great explainer on that right here) determined that corporations were people, too. Yup. You read that right.
It essentially granted multi-billion dollar corporations the right to spend money on political causes and campaigns as they saw fit. Yikes, right?
The second reason is sort of a reaction to the first. Since companies are allowed to support things now, consumers want to know what they’re thinking about.
An Edelman study from 2018 shows that two-thirds of consumers will actually boycott or buy from a company based on their core values.
Consumers can use databases like Open Secrets to figure out what Company Y has donated to or whose campaign the CEO of Company X is supporting. So, yeah, a company can support what it wants. But people will find out. And backlash tends to come with that.
That’s the ecosystem that we live in now. It’s absolute chaos. It’s been in the making for a while and it’s definitely come to a head this year. It’s why we saw Nike using the SNKRS app as a gentle reminder to tell you to go vote or Reebok sending you a text reminder that it’s election day.
On one hand, it’s dope to see brands you love promoting things like civility and justice for all. On the other? You wish they’d back that up with their bread instead of just playing on people’s sensibilities publicly for brownie points.
Either way, this is what business looks like for us for the foreseeable future. So get used to it.
Nike’s layoffs are worse than we thought
(Photo by Tom Roberts on Unsplash)
I’ve said it before here and I’ll say it again. It absolutely stinks that Nike is laying people off in the middle of a pandemic. But it gets worse. Turns out that the layoffs are worse than we initially thought they were going to be, Oregon Live reports.
Instead of just 500 employees losing their jobs at the swoosh, 700 will. They announced the new cuts on Monday.
The 700 cutbacks announced Monday, in a brief legal filing with state workforce officials, includes that prior tally and so expands the total number of job losses by 200. Oregon’s jobless rate climbed from 3.5% in the months before the pandemic to 8.0% in September as the recession took hold. Nike’s layoffs, though, aren’t a response to the weaker economy – the company’s sales and profits are strong. Rather, Oregon’s largest business is changing strategies.
The timing of this could not be worse. COVID cases are on the rise once again as the virus surges around the globe and, with that, job insecurity around the nation will be sure to follow.
Nike is scaling back its staff size as a result of its Direct to Consumer initiative that will reportedly make the company a more efficient operation. And, so far, the proof is in the pudding — it has definitely worked and it’s only in the early stages.
But this still stinks. The country is still in recovery and people are still trying to get back on their feet financially. This is a difficult situation to put people in — especially those who aren’t executives at the company. It’s just a bad look.
Level up on hip-hop with Trapital & Dan Runcie
A quick word from friend of the program Dan Runcie on his excellent newsletter, Trapital — my go-to read on the music business.
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. These artists are some of our most successful business leaders, and they deserve the coverage that comes with it. When we tell these stories how they deserve to be told, we can learn as much from Rihanna as we can from Elon Musk. Trapital has been featured in NYT, WSJ, CNBC, and others.
Join thousands of people who read Trapital's free weekly memo.
Notre with a helping hand from hype
Hype stinks. Until you use it for good, anyway. That happened last week with Virgil Abloh’s Off-White Jordan 5 drop.
He partnered with Notre and non-profit organization Hugs no Slugs to raffle off pairs of the Sail AJ5. Consumers paid $2 to enter the raffle and the proceeds from that $2 paid for free meals for folks who need them.
In total, they raised $44,820.
That’s just dope, man. Shouts to Virgil, Notre and everyone else involved in this thing. You absolutely love to see it.
Yo, man. Get y’all homies
Listen, somebody needs to teach the youth. Because, clearly, something is wrong here. Teach the youth, y’all. This is tragic.
Somebody scamming these kids. First of all, the price of your outfit don’t make you fly. Never has, never will. Second, that’s especially true when you look like you just got dressed to take a trip to take the trash out. Delete this video.
We gotta be better, y’all. We just have to.
#TheKicksWeWear
Y’ALL KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS. COME ON WITH IT.
First the homie Vasilios started us off with a BANGER in the Fire Red 4’s. Goodness.
The homie Greer came out in the Air More Uptempos in this clean colorway.
The homie Kendrew popped out in the Nothing But Net AJ1 lows and I really love these. I just can’t bring myself to buy a low Jordan 1 lmao. Tragic.
The homie Adrian popped out in the Tailwind 79 and they’re soooo cleeeeean.
The homie Danny hit the polls this week in the AJ1 Zooms and you absolutely love to see it.
My guy Sumeet jumped on the scene in the Adidas x Bape Dame 5’s. So clean.
Josh really wasn’t playing fair with us bringing out the Travis 4’s. Still his best work if you ask me.
The homie Ryan came out in the Community Garden Dunks and MAN these are fire.
The homie Alex came through in the Wotherspoon Asics and DOG I NEED THESE SO BAD.
The homie Storm came through in the Spidas and these joints is hitting.
The homie Marcos was out here breaking necks with the Reese High Dunks. My God these are fantastic.
The homie Yosh came out in these TRIPPY AF1’s.
Then homie Phil came through with a God Damn treasure piece. These Ghostbuster joints are WILD. This is meant for a trophy case.
Then the homie Sugar sent us all packing with the DE LA’s. That’s all that needs to be said, dog. GG. These joints about to live rent free in my head for the next two weeks.
Bruh. Every week. Y’all are DOING the damn thing.
Thank y’all for rocking with your boy today! I appreciate the time that you give me. Hope you have a fantastic weekend.
Remember, family, protect your peace!
Y’all know what it is. Peace and love. Be easy. Be well. Be kind.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯