There's a certain logic to this. Nike is a big brand. It's totally mass, with revenue in the billions, frequent big-budget television ads, a logo everyone recognizes, a ubiquitous retail presence. Why not try to be Red Bull to Nike's Coke, or Diesel to its Levi's?
How hard could it be?
Lasn is less interested in discussing the workings of sneaker factories than the antimarketing campaign he's planned. He talks of a $500,000 war chest -- earnings from Adbusters magazine, he says -- that he will spend on billboards near Nike's headquarters, on stunts like leaving black spots (stickers or maybe even ink) in Niketown outlets, and on print and TV ads that go after Nike and Phil Knight. One tentative TV ad shows the Swoosh morphing into a black spot as an announcer says, "No more corporate cool." A sample print ad called the sneaker "Plain. Simple. Cheap. Fair. And designed for only one thing: kicking Phil's ass."
The essence of Lasn's plan is brand jujitsu -- for the Blackspot to both piggyback on Nike's mighty and pervasive image and to undermine it.
Obviously, such a campaign has less in common with traditional advertising than with the protest-oriented agitprop on which Adbusters has built its reputation. The essence of Lasn's plan is brand jujitsu: Nike has built a mighty and pervasive image for itself, and the Blackspot notion is both to piggyback on that image and simultaneously to undermine it. It's still an "information war," not just advancing a set of ideas but trying to do so by tearing down a rival.
Nike spokeswoman Caitlin Morris was willing to talk a bit about No Sweat, describing its labor-description leaflet as an "interesting" idea but one that might not tell consumers the whole story. She also notes that Nike is part of an effort with other global sneaker makers to improve labor standards across the board. "Nike is pushing for a universal reporting format and a broad-based agreement about what's relevant to stakeholders," she says. But she declines comment about the Blackspot (and Lasn's rants) on the reasonable grounds that it doesn't exist.
There is, however, a group that is willing to speak up: Nike fans. Yu-Ming Wu, who is 25, is the co-founder and "sneaker editor" of a website called Freshnessmag.com, and he's as expert on sneaker coolness as it is possible to be (see "The Hunters," page 131). One afternoon, I talked to him and his partner, Danny Hwang, about the Blackspot, about Nike, about sneakers, and about cool. Hwang was wearing a pair of Nike Shima Shima 2 Air Max 1s ("a U.K. exclusive," he explained); they were made in Taiwan. Wu wore Air Max 90 Pythons, made in China, and noted that he owns 20 identical pairs.
In Wu and Hwang's world, Nike is not a staid mainstream brand -- it's the undisputed king. Time and again, Wu notes, Nike has innovated in the quality of its actual sneakers (appealing to athletes), in the way those sneakers look (appealing to the lifestyle wearer), and in edgy ways to promote them. "Everybody tries to copy Nike," Wu summarizes. Other companies now put out sneakers in limited-edition batches, or designs made in collaboration with edgy artists, or launch "urban underground" promotion campaigns. "None of it works," says Wu. "Nike did it already and moved on to something else. Those other companies are trying to catch up."
A sample print ad called the sneaker "Plain. Simple. Cheap. Fair. And designed for only one thing: kicking Phil's ass."
One thing Nike fans and the antipreneurs criticizing the brand seem to have in common is the idea that a sneaker can stand for something much bigger than footwear. Bobbito Garcia -- author of the recent book Where'd You Get Those?, a blend of memoir, sociology, and the cataloglike history of urban sneaker culture -- makes the case for sneakers as nothing less than symbols of personal identity. He did some consulting for Nike in the 1990s, but in the book he blames the company and others for the advertising onslaught that made sneakers a mass lifestyle phenomenon. Nevertheless, he praises Nike's quality and its marketing savvy. And he questions the antistrategies of its upstart opponents: Like politicians who go negative, attacks on a widely respected brand are more likely to turn people off than rally a following; you can't build an identity by being not something else. "I think it's really, really dumb on their part to market themselves as the anti-Nike," he said.
Talking to Wu and Hwang makes it clear that Nike is hardly seen in the marketplace as a stodgy and vulnerable brand. After all, Wu and Hwang are not just members of exactly the educated and plugged-in demographic that both the Blackspot and No Sweat target, they are also both of Asian descent. And neither seems to take the exploitation issue seriously, informing me that low wages in Asian factories are better than no wages. "The worst joke I tell is, 'They're employing my people," Wu says with a deadpan shrug.
In late June, Adbusters creative director Michael Simons took a trip to Europe, where the long journey to find a manufacturer apparently came to an end. Through the Vegetarian Shoe Co. -- a U.K.-based maker of footwear that looks like leather -- the Adbusters group was pointed toward a factory in Portugal. "He was waxing poetic about the factory," Lasn says, "how airy it is and how sunny and well ventilated, the old-world craftsman feel." The Blackspot, Lasn pledges, will finally be a reality.
The design will still be essentially a Converse low-top -- just like No Sweat's -- available in any color you want so long as it's black. One point of differentiation will be the materials: The shoe will be made of organic hemp. The Vegetarian Shoe Co. is handling the soles, which will be latex -- "much better than the toxic foam soles of typical running shoes," Paul Shoebridge says. (He hopes the next batch will have soles made from recycled tires, "with the treads still on them.") Lasn promises the first 5,000 shoes will be completed by October and expects most to sell through the Adbusters site.
