Far from being the 'blunder' that it has been described, a San Antonio tech company that uses data to craft advertising message says Nike hit it out of the park with its Colin Kaepernick campaign, and predicts we will see more like it, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Blaine Britten is Digital Services Director of Stirista, which is based in San Antonio and India. It digs deep into data to craft targeted advertising campaigns for customers.
Britten says Nike crafted the ad campaign of the future when it carefully studied not only the demographics of Nike's customers, but also of people who follow the firm on social media.
"The race break-down tended to skew almost twice the national index of African American following," he said.
He says Nike's following is also far more Latino than the national average and far more Democrat. In fact, 56% of Nike followers self-identify as Democrats, while only 23% self-identify as Republicans. That is 24% above the national baseline for Democrats and 31% below the national baseline for Republicans.
Britten says that means Nike's ad targets not only people who already purchase Nike products, but also those who are more likely to buy the products in the future.
The entire issue of Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem to protect police misconduct toward African Americans is strongly supported among African Americans and generally opposed by Anglo Whites and Republicans.
Stirista says the campaign shows that Nike 'knows who its customers are' and is willing to alienate people who are less likely to buy Nike products to craft a message targeted directly to them.
Britten says we can expect to see more campaigns like this as America becomes more polarized politically and socially.
"The buzz in the ad industry is 'how do we do what Nike did'," he said. "Everybody is looking to make that statement."
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