L.A. Firm to Handle Nike’s Minority Ads
Nike Inc., which has been the target of a nationwide boycott organized by a civil rights group, Tuesday selected a Los Angeles-based agency to help create minority advertising.
Muse Cordero Chen, which has created ads targeting blacks, Latinos and Asians, will work initially on adapting Nike’s “Just Do It” corporate campaign and its “Stay In School” public affairs program for ethnic groups. Muse Cordero Chen will work with Nike’s current agency, Portland, Ore.-based Wieden & Kennedy, in developing the minority-oriented campaigns and programs, the Beaverton, Ore.-based athletic shoemaker said.
“We don’t want to create a whole separate campaign for minority consumers,” said Nike spokeswoman Liz Dolan. Instead, the company wants to better adapt its mainstream ads and public affairs programs to minority audiences, she said.
Dolan said the search for an agency to handle minority ads began two years ago and was not motivated by the boycott lead by Chicago-based PUSH, the civil rights group founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
“We have been looking for an agency (to handle minority ads) for two years,” Dolan said. However, the boycott has “made us aware that a multiethnic agency is what we were looking for. Our thinking changed from just looking for a Hispanic agency to one that could do Hispanic, African American and Asian” ads.
Agency President J. Melvin Muse said his firm has not placed a dollar value on the Nike account or developed specific commercials or campaigns for the shoemaker.
Ken Smikle, president of the African American Marketing & Media Assn., a Chicago-based trade group, said Nike’s move was apparently motivated by the PUSH boycott, despite denials by the footwear maker and Muse Cordero Chen.
“After months of denial, Nike has admitted that it can use the expertise of minority marketers,” said Smikle. “The major concern that we have is that they be given a significant account--one that involves product advertising.”
PUSH officials were not available for comment.
