Nike …JUST DO IT??

Nike is a company that has cultural and economic elements. People who buy the brand are buying it to find status in the world, which is Bourdieu's idea of culture capital. American's ability to buy wealth through the Nike product. The consumption of Nike shoes in inner-city l areas caused violence because people would kill each other over the shoes. For example, in Harlem 10,000 pairs of Nike and Reebok sneakers were stolen in a fenzy of stealing violence because people were greedy to have the sneakers. This is also another example that extends Bourdieu's theory of culture capital into symbolic violence. This is because the people who owned the Nike sneakers were showing off a sign of wealth that other people in the inner-cities envied, so they would rob the sneakers from the people who could afford them because they wanted to take those other peoples wealth away from them.

Because there was so much violence Nike came out with a crisis management campaign called PLAY (Participate in the Lives of America's Youth). It enabled Nike to restore their social responsibility by coming up with the solution to inner-city deterioration came through the dicipline of sports and its promise of upward mobility.

Furthermore, Nike proclaimed the revolution of running-shoe technology. This would boost Nike popularity to distinguish them from the masses. The "Just Do It" campaign evoked personal responsibility. Nike was first advertised to the white middle-class male because they were associated with fitness being their leisure activity. Thus, implying they would be primary consumers.

But Nike's success came from African American basketball players like Michael Jordan. This showed the diversity Nike had to offer its customers. Advertisers came up with the term "urban market" so that white customers could be more comfortable than saying black and African American. Nike's use of African American's in their ad campaigns relied upon Stuart Hall's logic if inferential racism. This is enabling racist statements to be made without ever bringing into awareness.

To whites, the image of basketball the Nike puts out makes them believe that blacks can achieve their American Dream by buying into the "Just Do It" slogan Nike puts out.

Nike's veneer of social responsibility is less than persuasive due to its invisibility of real contradictions for the consumer caste. Unemployment in African American communities remain outside the media Nike puts out in their advertising. Basically, no one really see's how Nike treats the people who make their products and how it goes against what they put out as "social responsibility." In schools, campus activists throughout the country have been protesting against Nike. Some schools have adopted an anti-sweat shop code as a result of the activism.