And yet, Nike's sales surged when they brought on Kaepernick
> Despite Fox News and parts of the social mediasphere predicting the Swoosh’s downfall, the company claimed $163 million in earned media, a $6 billion brand value increase, and a 31% boost in sales.
There's a meme, where someone goes on a rant in the wrong location and someone responds "Sir, this is a Wendy's".
Maybe we need one for "Sir, this company sells shoes". It isn't clear to me why a person trying to sell shoes needs to take a stand about one politician or another. Except for the fact that there is only one thing partisans hate more than their enemies - the people who aren't part of the partisan fray.
The meme creator is unfortunately quite racist. I see it is a problem if extremists are the only ones comfortable making certain obvious true statements. It attracts the support of people who might otherwise remain moderate.
Businesses are supposed to be separate entities from the individuals who own them. I don't understand why people think businesses need to be political. If that's the case then just start your own Political Action Committee.
The zealot's standard rejoinder is that everything is political. See, also, you're either with us or against. What contemporary liberal politics has brought to the table is "science" that purports to show a simple, direct link between rhetorical opposition or even mere abstention, and directly consequential, imminent harm. See, e.g., claims re trans-gender suicides, or just today insinuations that compromises made in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act will kill minorities--https://www.npr.org/2022/08/17/1117725655/the-spending-bill-...
These are liberal analogs to, e.g., conservative claims about the how Civil Rights Act would directly lead to blacks and latinos raping and murdering whites, or in more recent years similar insinuations (and sometimes outright claims) regarding border controls. When you can draw a straight line between abstract policy preferences and the imminent death of an untold number of people, dissension becomes intolerable. Most people tend to agree with that sentiment on its face--that's why political rhetoric so often regresses to such stark terms--the sticking point is what that line looks like, if it even exists at all.
EDIT: I keep forgetting that the misuse of science is nothing new, so liberals aren't actually bringing anything new to the table in that regard. Of course science (certainly poor science, yet sadly mostly only in hindsight generally recognized as pseudo-science or non-science, e.g. Social Darwinism) was used to justify those example conservative claims, as well countless similarly specious claims from across the political spectrum going as far back as one cares to look, but particularly after empiricism displaced both institutional religion and rationalism as the fount of categorical truths.
I mean, at least at the highest level, businesses have to be political in their areas right? Internet companies should be involved in SOPA, car companies should be involved in emissions regulation, food companies should be involved in FDA regulation.
If I were running a business ethically, I'd want to mute my criticism of politics, including fairly extreme ones. Partisanship is tearing the world apart. I want people with different viewpoints to interact. That's the only way to address them. If we don't work together and we don't shop together, we'll grow more polarized as a result. Democracy isn't a battle, and you win by convincing people, and not by beating them down or punishing them. That means interacting with them.
A business isn't a good venue for partisan change. It is an okay place for some types of politics (e.g. environmental sourcing), but not for explicitly partisan ones.
Ironically, if I were running a business efficiently, I'd probably want to pick one side and stick to it. If I sell to everyone, and I have competitors who focus on the blue tribe and ones who focus on the red tribe, they'll have a competitive advantage over me with any given consumer, and I'll be left with the very few people who aren't on either side.
> Ironically, if I were running a business efficiently, I'd probably want to pick one side and stick to it...
Longer-term, that's a dangerous strategy in the social media era. The side you pick may regularly twist your arm to perform expensive demonstrations of loyalty to them. And (depends on where you are) potential customers who are less than comfortable with hyper-partisan politics may be more numerous than the red or blue zealots.
I think your initial ideas illustrate a truly naive viewpoint. This isn't about what your company wants. Your customers will create an identity for you and it's yours, whether you like it or not. You can choose to embrace it or to deny it, but even if you try to go the middle route, you're still making a call (usually it's "I'm ok with it").
Another way to look at it: There was a very popular hairstyle among alt-right youths a while back (actually, a couple now that I'm thinking about it). It didn't matter if you were alt-right: if you had that haircut, that's how people perceived you, because that's who adopted the style. It's no different with consumer products.
If alt-right nuts started buying up Jumpman products in droves, you can bet that the progressive fans of its brands would demand for the company to take a stand on their co-option or risk losing the progressives (because progressives buy sneakers too).
I think it gets the gnarliest in conversations about discrimination. We have notions of "protected classes" and "non-protected classes", and the recent discussions about caste discrimination are pretty exemplary. And sometimes you can't help but take a side. I don't know that I always think inaction is taking a side, but once you become aware of people taking actions in your company, like a higher caste firing a lower caste, it's harder to make that argument.
"you win by convincing people, and not by beating them down or punishing them. That means interacting with them."
This is painful and pointless unless it is a good faith discussion. But often people just use you as a sounding board to repeat rumors, gossip, and lies about whatever out-group currently in their crosshairs. Also what possible interaction can you have with someone that can compete with the slow drip of fear and hate they consumed nightly for the last decade from cable news for example.
If one side is advocating genocide and you want to mute your criticism of politics (so that you can make money, to be clear), that's a choice available to you, but it's neither ethical nor respectable.
I agree with you that partisanship and polarization are making it worse. However, you imply that "both sides" are just as extreme, but that isn't often the case. Let's exaggerate it to: "Russians buy sneakers too" or "Taliban are religious too" or something alike. A business saying "We want the Russian military and the Ukrainian civilians to interact, share different viewpoints and prevent partisanship" would sound ridiculous.
My example is obviously exaggerated but my point is: Right now there is only one really extreme "side" in the U.S., so it doesn't come across odd that some businesses for ethical reasons and some for efficient reasons try to position themselves against it.
Here I thought the progressive ideology would be to not buy Nike's because they are overpriced garbage that has a history of questionable manufacturing processes. Professional sports in many ways are like the cornerstone of capitalism.
Thats what I was thinking. Why is this article upset over something Jordan said years ago? Even if he is wrong for trying to stay neutral, there are worse things going on with Nike.
If someone is openly taking your money for the stuff they make and giving it to people who are pretty open about wanting to make your life worse, then they shouldn't be surprised if you quit buying their stuff. Actions have consequences, and being filthy rich shields you from some of them, but not all of them.
And sometimes choosing to not take a side is, in fact, an action with distinct consequences.
> Years later, for many, Jordan’s brand is intrinsically tied to this choice.
I really dislike this kind of journalism. How many is "many"? Is it just the author and their circle? Is it just people who insist that everything is political? I think this is a lazy assertion, which is a shame because I enjoyed the content that followed it. Surely there's a better introduction available.
The positive framing of this phenomenon is strange. Someone muting his criticism against an open segregationist because his voters buy sneakers is probably one of the more cartoonish examples of market logic and self-interest crowding out people's values.
And I mean this even in a value neutral sense in regards to the topic itself. It's as if a devout Christian would start selling abortion pills or a pacifist became an arms dealer.
When the article uses the phrase 'tribalism' it seems to me they just mean 'political'. People have started to prioritize values over economic calculus again after the monoculture of the 90s, which this kind of a thing was a product of.
> People have started to prioritize values over economic calculus again.
I'm actually pretty skeptical of this. I think that in most cases, when corporations are taking a "stand" it is because they have calculated that not taking a stand will be more financially damaging to their prospects.
I think the business school lectures that keep coming of late about not alienating consumers are skewd towards a time when
1) The American consumer was more homogenous.
2) Companies had less insight into who their customers were.
What's more, analyses like these seem to take for granted that companies risk alienating an equal number of customers taking any stand other than the center. But the consumer base is not the electorate. Conservative leaning Republicans make up less than half the electorate and their cultural preferences are generally held by well below the majority of people.
The strangest part of all of this talk is that it has exploded in the discourse at a time when the positions corporations are taking have generally been about issues facing minorities of race, sexual oreintation or gender orientation.
Yet dozens of large companies have taken conservative stands in recent decades. And while occasionally the media does question the ends of such stands, i.e. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, there isn't this endless hand wringing about whether businesses ought to be taking culturally controversial positions. The most pointed part being that in a case like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Hobby Lobby ACTUALLY affected the lives of millions of people. Most of the things business bloggers grouse about of late is corporations throwing out some utterly token signal of wokeness.
Having different spheres of society, including some where we can interact without having to hash out our differences in values is necessary for a pluralistic society to exist in a peaceful way. America, in particular, was not created to be a homogenous place where we share values. It was created by a bunch of different religious fundamentalist groups who mostly wanted to be left alone. Indeed, these value-neutral interactions are often a great way to reduce conflict between different groups.
You're never going to win. You're not going to achieve final and total victory over white southerners. Even if you did, then you'll have to battle conservative Latinos, Asians, Muslims, etc. Look over at Muslims in France to see what happens you try to have diversity without a pluralistic social structure that allows groups to leave each other alone over value differences.
I'm more interested in the question of by what right do we demand others to endorse candidates and be publicly political? Jordan provided that response out of pressure for an explanation for why he didn't endorse anyone. It's wild to me that somehow democrats felt they were owed his support. They certainly don't enjoy it when someone comes out in support of the opponent.
Yeah, reading his statement again, I realize he's not saying Republicans are people too, or businesses shouldn't discriminate, or any of another positive things he could say that I think others are reading into, he's basically admitting, whatever my values, I can make money. Some articles say he said it as a joke, but it doesn't really say what the joke was.
> Someone muting his criticism against an open segregationist ...
You're assuming that there was criticism to mute. Many people just want to live their lives without being dragged into politics and forced to choose a side.
On the other hand, commerce creates mutual dependency and reduces the willingness of participants to view their political enemies as completely evil, increasing the chances at political compromise and reducing the effectiveness of dehumanization propaganda from either side.
Political beliefs that are prejudiced are usually just people who haven't thought very deeply about the issue and find the emotional aspect of the political cause appealing. Dependency on members of politically opposed groups fosters empathy.
Unless you are a politician, there is no reason for anyone to know your own personal political views. Any announcement of such views is signaling. It serves no other purpose.
I don’t think that’s true — there’s second order effects in play, beyond shallow virtue signaling.
People respect Jordan unlike Kapernick or James, because Jordan didn’t hypocritically involve himself in politics — unlike those two who haven been outspoken against racism and slavery… except for the slaves making the shoes they advertise. They’re perfectly fine profiting from those slaves.
- - - - -
I also think your example is ridiculous: not vocally criticizing is nothing like actively participating.
People need to realize the consequences of this because it is the go-to tool for manipulating people. Creating division is creating tribes that people can belong to (and, by extension, another tribe they can blame for their problems). Racism, sexism, immigrants, homophobia and transphobia are obvious examples.
But there's a way more pervasive version of this: the myth of the middle class. The middle class is propaganda to create division between the completely made up middle class and the completely made up lower class.
> Workplace preferences see co-partisan workers paid more and promoted faster, despite at times being less qualified.
In tech we call this "culture fit" and it's pervasive and real.
> Republicans are more entrepreneurial. Conservatives start more firms than liberals ...
> A series of surveys suggests that people who identify as conservative are more likely to want to do this by buying products marketed as “better,” while liberals are more drawn to messaging that emphasizes that the product is “different.””
this is interesting. I would be more drawn to messaging on "different", but mostly because I wouldn't trust a company to be an impartial judge on what is "better" - I would look to reviews rather than marketing for that. I guess it also represents a difference in notions of black and white thinking as well. I'd be curious to hear which one appeals more to people and why.
I'm also wary of messaging about being "better." But if the marketing shows why it's better in concrete and logical ways, that might pique my interest more than without it. I'd still look to outside sources to verify.
> I would be more drawn to messaging on "different", but mostly because I wouldn't trust a company to be an impartial judge on what is "better"…
Per the cited article, it's not about whether the product is better. According to the research (which seems vague to me), conservatives supposedly prefer products that signal that they personally are "better" or "superior".
"In our research, conservatives tended to differentiate themselves through products that show that they are better than others — for example, by choosing products from high-status luxury brands." https://hbr.org/2018/06/how-liberals-and-conservatives-shop-...
Sounds like you got a persecution complex if you believe whites are receiving any real hostility in the US. But comments like this don't surprise me anymore on HN. HN is surprisingly conservative. I guess lots of rich white people here, and lots of people who want to be a rich white person.
The woke-PR institutions that are meant to be criticized by this already account for it. Companies that sell direct-to-consumer are not trying to outwoke each other, they're resting in the same moderate, optimistic, positive, there are well-intentioned people on both sides place they always were.
Where you see the aggressive enforcement of woke sentiment is within industries who are fighting regulation. To think about Republican voters (not politicians, who are of course important for them) is wasted time. All of them are going to vote for politicians who will not regulate these companies, no matter how their base feels about the companies and their messaging. Their Democratic politicians, however, could be voted out and replaced with eager regulators for helping a company that has been cancelled.
Instead of thinking about regulation, it's important that the Democratic voter ask: “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow... would that end racism? Would that end sexism?”
i.e. Their Dem politicians need to be protected, their Republican politicians do not.
Morizero|3 years ago
> Despite Fox News and parts of the social mediasphere predicting the Swoosh’s downfall, the company claimed $163 million in earned media, a $6 billion brand value increase, and a 31% boost in sales.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90399316/one-year-later-what-did...
jjtheblunt|3 years ago
not long after, the Nike Store in Scottsdale, Arizona 'went out of business'.
I wondered if it was correlated.
rayiner|3 years ago
jklinger410|3 years ago
googlryas|3 years ago
Maybe we need one for "Sir, this company sells shoes". It isn't clear to me why a person trying to sell shoes needs to take a stand about one politician or another. Except for the fact that there is only one thing partisans hate more than their enemies - the people who aren't part of the partisan fray.
dariusj18|3 years ago
mikkergp|3 years ago
deepdriver|3 years ago
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/are-you-sure-this-will-help-u...
The meme creator is unfortunately quite racist. I see it is a problem if extremists are the only ones comfortable making certain obvious true statements. It attracts the support of people who might otherwise remain moderate.
illuminerdy|3 years ago
wahern|3 years ago
These are liberal analogs to, e.g., conservative claims about the how Civil Rights Act would directly lead to blacks and latinos raping and murdering whites, or in more recent years similar insinuations (and sometimes outright claims) regarding border controls. When you can draw a straight line between abstract policy preferences and the imminent death of an untold number of people, dissension becomes intolerable. Most people tend to agree with that sentiment on its face--that's why political rhetoric so often regresses to such stark terms--the sticking point is what that line looks like, if it even exists at all.
EDIT: I keep forgetting that the misuse of science is nothing new, so liberals aren't actually bringing anything new to the table in that regard. Of course science (certainly poor science, yet sadly mostly only in hindsight generally recognized as pseudo-science or non-science, e.g. Social Darwinism) was used to justify those example conservative claims, as well countless similarly specious claims from across the political spectrum going as far back as one cares to look, but particularly after empiricism displaced both institutional religion and rationalism as the fount of categorical truths.
mikkergp|3 years ago
bragr|3 years ago
That doesn't really apply when your business is essentially selling your own image and personality.
manicdee|3 years ago
Just remember that politics isn’t everything.
blagie|3 years ago
A business isn't a good venue for partisan change. It is an okay place for some types of politics (e.g. environmental sourcing), but not for explicitly partisan ones.
Ironically, if I were running a business efficiently, I'd probably want to pick one side and stick to it. If I sell to everyone, and I have competitors who focus on the blue tribe and ones who focus on the red tribe, they'll have a competitive advantage over me with any given consumer, and I'll be left with the very few people who aren't on either side.
chrisan|3 years ago
Abortion for example, they just hardline "no". It's very exhausting.
bell-cot|3 years ago
Longer-term, that's a dangerous strategy in the social media era. The side you pick may regularly twist your arm to perform expensive demonstrations of loyalty to them. And (depends on where you are) potential customers who are less than comfortable with hyper-partisan politics may be more numerous than the red or blue zealots.
kyleblarson|3 years ago
dclowd9901|3 years ago
Another way to look at it: There was a very popular hairstyle among alt-right youths a while back (actually, a couple now that I'm thinking about it). It didn't matter if you were alt-right: if you had that haircut, that's how people perceived you, because that's who adopted the style. It's no different with consumer products.
If alt-right nuts started buying up Jumpman products in droves, you can bet that the progressive fans of its brands would demand for the company to take a stand on their co-option or risk losing the progressives (because progressives buy sneakers too).
mikkergp|3 years ago
sometimeshuman|3 years ago
This is painful and pointless unless it is a good faith discussion. But often people just use you as a sounding board to repeat rumors, gossip, and lies about whatever out-group currently in their crosshairs. Also what possible interaction can you have with someone that can compete with the slow drip of fear and hate they consumed nightly for the last decade from cable news for example.
zorpner|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
V__|3 years ago
My example is obviously exaggerated but my point is: Right now there is only one really extreme "side" in the U.S., so it doesn't come across odd that some businesses for ethical reasons and some for efficient reasons try to position themselves against it.
encryptluks2|3 years ago
danjoredd|3 years ago
egypturnash|3 years ago
And sometimes choosing to not take a side is, in fact, an action with distinct consequences.
andrew_|3 years ago
I really dislike this kind of journalism. How many is "many"? Is it just the author and their circle? Is it just people who insist that everything is political? I think this is a lazy assertion, which is a shame because I enjoyed the content that followed it. Surely there's a better introduction available.
Barrin92|3 years ago
And I mean this even in a value neutral sense in regards to the topic itself. It's as if a devout Christian would start selling abortion pills or a pacifist became an arms dealer.
When the article uses the phrase 'tribalism' it seems to me they just mean 'political'. People have started to prioritize values over economic calculus again after the monoculture of the 90s, which this kind of a thing was a product of.
DubiousPusher|3 years ago
I'm actually pretty skeptical of this. I think that in most cases, when corporations are taking a "stand" it is because they have calculated that not taking a stand will be more financially damaging to their prospects.
I think the business school lectures that keep coming of late about not alienating consumers are skewd towards a time when
1) The American consumer was more homogenous.
2) Companies had less insight into who their customers were.
What's more, analyses like these seem to take for granted that companies risk alienating an equal number of customers taking any stand other than the center. But the consumer base is not the electorate. Conservative leaning Republicans make up less than half the electorate and their cultural preferences are generally held by well below the majority of people.
The strangest part of all of this talk is that it has exploded in the discourse at a time when the positions corporations are taking have generally been about issues facing minorities of race, sexual oreintation or gender orientation.
Yet dozens of large companies have taken conservative stands in recent decades. And while occasionally the media does question the ends of such stands, i.e. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, there isn't this endless hand wringing about whether businesses ought to be taking culturally controversial positions. The most pointed part being that in a case like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Hobby Lobby ACTUALLY affected the lives of millions of people. Most of the things business bloggers grouse about of late is corporations throwing out some utterly token signal of wokeness.
rayiner|3 years ago
You're never going to win. You're not going to achieve final and total victory over white southerners. Even if you did, then you'll have to battle conservative Latinos, Asians, Muslims, etc. Look over at Muslims in France to see what happens you try to have diversity without a pluralistic social structure that allows groups to leave each other alone over value differences.
madrox|3 years ago
mikkergp|3 years ago
bdowling|3 years ago
You're assuming that there was criticism to mute. Many people just want to live their lives without being dragged into politics and forced to choose a side.
resters|3 years ago
Political beliefs that are prejudiced are usually just people who haven't thought very deeply about the issue and find the emotional aspect of the political cause appealing. Dependency on members of politically opposed groups fosters empathy.
xwdv|3 years ago
zmgsabst|3 years ago
People respect Jordan unlike Kapernick or James, because Jordan didn’t hypocritically involve himself in politics — unlike those two who haven been outspoken against racism and slavery… except for the slaves making the shoes they advertise. They’re perfectly fine profiting from those slaves.
- - - - -
I also think your example is ridiculous: not vocally criticizing is nothing like actively participating.
jmyeet|3 years ago
People need to realize the consequences of this because it is the go-to tool for manipulating people. Creating division is creating tribes that people can belong to (and, by extension, another tribe they can blame for their problems). Racism, sexism, immigrants, homophobia and transphobia are obvious examples.
But there's a way more pervasive version of this: the myth of the middle class. The middle class is propaganda to create division between the completely made up middle class and the completely made up lower class.
> Workplace preferences see co-partisan workers paid more and promoted faster, despite at times being less qualified.
In tech we call this "culture fit" and it's pervasive and real.
> Republicans are more entrepreneurial. Conservatives start more firms than liberals ...
Is this adjusted for socioeconomic conditions?
mikkergp|3 years ago
this is interesting. I would be more drawn to messaging on "different", but mostly because I wouldn't trust a company to be an impartial judge on what is "better" - I would look to reviews rather than marketing for that. I guess it also represents a difference in notions of black and white thinking as well. I'd be curious to hear which one appeals more to people and why.
ilrwbwrkhv|3 years ago
theonething|3 years ago
CharlesW|3 years ago
Per the cited article, it's not about whether the product is better. According to the research (which seems vague to me), conservatives supposedly prefer products that signal that they personally are "better" or "superior".
"In our research, conservatives tended to differentiate themselves through products that show that they are better than others — for example, by choosing products from high-status luxury brands." https://hbr.org/2018/06/how-liberals-and-conservatives-shop-...
marketwatcher|3 years ago
This is a great read, fun to look back at a young MJ's business strategy.
cryptokey|3 years ago
[deleted]
cryptokey|3 years ago
cryptokey|3 years ago
[deleted]
deepdriver|3 years ago
[deleted]
jayd16|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
roflyear|3 years ago
cryptokey|3 years ago
[deleted]
marketwatcher|3 years ago
[deleted]
pessimizer|3 years ago
Where you see the aggressive enforcement of woke sentiment is within industries who are fighting regulation. To think about Republican voters (not politicians, who are of course important for them) is wasted time. All of them are going to vote for politicians who will not regulate these companies, no matter how their base feels about the companies and their messaging. Their Democratic politicians, however, could be voted out and replaced with eager regulators for helping a company that has been cancelled.
Instead of thinking about regulation, it's important that the Democratic voter ask: “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow... would that end racism? Would that end sexism?”
i.e. Their Dem politicians need to be protected, their Republican politicians do not.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
jimjimjim|3 years ago