Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/02/21/amid-trumps-muslim-hate-new.html
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Seems like a good place to drop this.
Iranian Motorcylist and all-round badass:
And she’s staged the first women’s motorbike race in Iran.
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Nike may be an american brand, but its an international company and the commercial is narrated in arabic for a middle-eastern audience. Its hard to think of something that has less to do with trump or islamophobia. As that one twit complained in the CNN article, its about regressive norms there.
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It’s about worldwide sales above all and there is an unbelievable amount of disposable wealth in some parts of the Arab world. The cynic meter is really sensitive for me these days and if I put myself in the shoes of Ad execs around the world I’d see that these social buttons are easy to push. I’d like to think that Nike is well meaning but I am skeptical of corporate motivations. The goal is to make people feel good about a product and buy it, whether or not Nike actually is active in affecting social change outside of selling running shoes is unclear.
Shoes or not the message is a positive one.
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Hijab washing is the new green washing, I guess…
Call me cynical, but multi-natitionals only care about being progressive if they think ti will ultimately help their bottom line.
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That’s kind of funny since the twit in the CNN article is literally complaining that the ad is telling women to take off their hijabs.
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there is an unbelievable amount of disposable wealth in the middle east.
That is a huge generalization with an ill-defined socio-policial term. There are pockets of wealth in the “middle east” much like there are pockets of wealth in the U.S. - with the “1%” etc.
But I agree with your cautious cynicism.
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It’s true that ad campaigns are designed to push buttons and that right now the issues of inclusion of Muslims as equals is a big button that a company can push to generate social media coin. It’s also true that they have a choice of where they want to stand and what buttons they want to push. There are companies that align themselves with a Make America Great attitude - maybe because that is their market, but also, there are corporate values that are involved in making decisions about how the company is portrayed. I think Nike has a history of doing sophisticated things with their brand to appeal to different markets and be part of making the Zeitgeist. This ad is sporty but feels like they are pushing some boundaries, too.
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In the words of Zach Galifianakis, “So, do you guys still have 7-year-olds making your stuff?”
Yeah. I like the ad and everything but for me Nike is buried under a distrust that this ever stopped. Has it?
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