By Fraser P. Seitel
Several years ago, some nitwit wrote a book in which he posited that companies shouldn’t apologize when they’re confronted by crisis. It makes them seem weak, he said, or even “guilty,” which gives their adversaries an advantage.
Evidently, the good PR people at Adidas, headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, never read the book. (Or maybe it wasn’t translated into German!)
Thank goodness.
Had Adidas not acted quickly this week to douse a burgeoning firestorm, it easily might have found itself forever dodging charges of “racism“ or worse.
The story of Adidas‘ ill-fated JS Roundhouse Mids training shoe should serve as an object lesson to any public relations professional, whose company has done something monumentally stupid and then wonders if it should “ cut its losses.“
While every situation is different, the general answer -- in a 21st century society in which Twitter and Facebook information move around the world at the speed of Net -- is most usually, “cut early and don’t look back.“
Here’s the Adidas sneaker saga.
Scoring a Marketing Disaster 3-Pointer
On Monday morning, June 18, news was revealed on the Internet that Adidas was introducing new sneakers with ankle bracelets and chains, reminiscent of the kind worn by chain-gang prisoners.
The shoes, created by shi shi designer Jeremy Scott, were attached to the plastic, day-glo orange shackles, according to Adidas, to accommodate players with “a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles.”
Huh?
Obviously, what Adidas was really trying to do with its shackle-bound sneaks – although it wouldn’t admit it -- was evoke an image of “gangsta,” so popular among inner city youth. What the company apparently didn’t anticipate, however, was that the shackles would also evoke images of another bygone period in American history – the era of slavery.
Almost immediately, Mr. Scott’s innovative design was met with a fusillade of opprobrium on the Adidas Facebook page.
- Wrote one unfaithful follower, “Adidas, you should be ashamed of yourselves. The mockery of oppression that has not been overcome.”
- Another wrote, “Slavery isn’t a fashion example. Everyone involved in this show should be fired ASAP! This is the new reason I won’t buy any Adidas anymore!”
- Summarized yet another unhappy non-customer, “It’s offensive and inappropriate in many ways. Not to mention ugly.”
So in one fell swoop, then, Adidas had introduced a new product that not only was dumb and ugly, but also offensive – in basketball parlance, a three-pointer.
Learning to Cut and Run
The first indication that Adidas had been caught completely off guard by the Net attack was the meek defense of the product and its creator, offered by a spokeswoman.
“Jeremy Scott is renowned as a designer whose style is quirky and lighthearted and his previous shoe designs for Adidas Originals have, for example, included panda heads and Mickey Mouse. Any suggestion that this is linked to slavery is untruthful.”
Clearly, the company was treading water.
And so Adidas may have turned for inspiration to another apparel firm that found itself in the crosshairs of bias accusation a month ago, Urban Outfitters.
In late April, the Danish shirt manufacturer introduced a $100 T-shirt with a pocket patch that resembled the Star of David symbol that Jews were made to wear in Nazi Germany. Again, the outcry on the Web was immediate. And Urban Outfitters quickly realized that the world wasn’t quite ready for “Nazi sheik,” and the company kept the shirt and removed the star.
So, too, after Adidas was attacked by Jesse Jackson, who practically jumped out of his gym shorts to condemn the company for attempting “to commercialize and make popular more than 200 years of human degradation,” Adidas folded.
On Tuesday morning, June 19, less than 24 hours after the first wave of criticism, Adidas announced it was keeping the shoe and dropping the shackles. The days of “racist sheik” also would have to wait.
The fact that Adidas meant no harm – and certainly wasn’t attempting to glorify racism – mattered not at all. In a day dominated by blogs and Facebook and Twitter and instantaneous castigation, perception is reality. And no billion dollar retailer wants to risk being perceived as “racist.”
Lessons Learned
So what can the rest of us take away from the Adidas shackle saga?
Three things.
1. PR advisors must always consider the “worst case” before introducing any new product; meaning that PR people must be “at the table” with marketing.”
2. If you’re a huge corporation with multiple products around the world, you must always err on the side of caution.
3. Whether or not your action was deliberate, if you find yourself amidst a social media-fueled, crisis, the best advice may well be to cut your losses immediately and live another day.
|