If you have read anything about the NBA 2K series in the past couple years, then you know that its centerpiece “MyCareer” mode, in which you guide a custom-created fledgling NBA player to stardom, is a hyper-branded, microtransaction-choked nightmare all but explicitly designed to pressure human players into spending …
If you are someone who wants to pump your fist about Nike’s big endorsement deal with Colin Kaepernick, try this on: It is probably an encouraging sign of the times that Kaepernick’s demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism have not made him toxic for marketing and public relations purposes, the way…
“Calling a dream crazy is not an insult,” Colin Kaepernick says during a two-minute ad that Nike rolled out last Wednesday. “It’s a compliment.” It’s one of many perfectly circular blobules of aspiration that Kaepernick delivers in stop-and-go voiceover throughout the ad, and in that context and the broader context of…
Colin Kaepernick is the new face of a Nike ad campaign. As you might imagine, this has really angered the type of people who have said, “I’m a Christian first, and a conservative second” out loud at the dinner table. And if there’s one thing you can expect from these people, it’s that they will go about expressing…
When you’re watching porn, especially one of those gauzy-lensed sensual ones, you generally do not find yourself thinking, Boy, that porn star fellow must be quite the gentleman at home.
Papa John’s is ready for the hurt to end. This wounded nation expected better of Papa “John” Schnatter, and his racist remarks have cut us deep. His crusade against his former company may have sprinkled red pepper flakes on the wound, but the time has come to gather around the kitchen table of forgiveness and remember…
An official social media account for Burger King in Russia posted a promotion this morning promising a reward of 3 million Rubles ($47,000) and a lifetime supply of Whoppers for any Russian woman who got pregnant with the child of a World Cup player.
If you’ve spent any time in an REI or around outdoor enthusiasts of a certain economic stratum in the past several years, you have almost certainly encountered a YETI Coolers product. Their coolers are blocky, unconscionably heavy boxes that prevent ice from coming anywhere near melting, and they cost between $200 and…
The Wall Street Journal’s Sara Germano reported last night that Nike president Trevor Edwards had resigned after the company received complaints about “inappropriate workplace behavior.” What behavior? The Journal’s report does not specify what the complaints contained or who they were about, only that the No. 2…
ESPN.com altered the published headline of one story and deleted Twitter and Facebook posts about it, and halted the promotion of another story, all under pressure from advertising partners, according to an ESPN source and internal emails viewed by Deadspin.
PORTLAND, Ore.—Here is a story from Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike, J.B. Strasser and Laurie Becklund’s 1993 book about about the company’s early days. In 1975, Nelson Farris, Nike’s first employee—he still works there, “Chief Storyteller” or some such thing—went to a women’s track meet to sell some shoes. He…
The NFL PR playbook is so obvious at this point that it’s shocking the league’s executives are still impressed by the idea: When people get upset, throw money at the problem.
Here’s an email I just got, from a Google employee, beneath the subject line: “Kevin Durant just leaked YouTube news ;)”
If you were, for some reason, left hungering for more after the latest installment of the NFL’s unbelievably dumb pizza drama—remember Papa John claiming that revenue was down due to football players protesting during the national anthem, followed by speculation that he’d been put up to it by none other than Jerry…
This is the first of Nike’s eight-year, $1 billion apparel deal with the NBA. Which massive corporation is responsible for making the league’s jerseys is usually of very little concern to anyone, but Nike has caught everyone’s attention in a bad way by making jerseys that won’t stop ripping.
Big news in the world of digital media today, as Ad Age has a scoop about ESPN partnering with Cycle, a “media network” that “evolved from an internal influencer management division at Laundry Service to a sibling content company last year.”
The NFL loves nothing more than a hollow branding opportunity. Just look at the self-satisfaction on the face of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones when he knelt, uselessly, with his team before the performance of last night’s national anthem. That’s the look of a man who knows he’s taken something that has nothing to do with…
Until very recently, Under Armour was a surging company that had doubled its revenues in a few short years and was actively endorsing the MVPs of the NFL, NBA, and National League. However, in January, company stock plunged after CEO Kevin Plank admitted that revenue was slowing and that the company was being forced…
If you’ve been on the internet this month, you’ve definitely been exposed to the most successful ad in the history of Twitter. Millions of people and countless media outlets have propagated the heartwarming story of a giant corporation buying a priceless amount of advertising for close to free. If you, like me, are…
South by Southwest is going on in Austin this week and if you’ve ever been to that thing, you know that it started out as a music festival before BIG LANYARD got its paws on it and turned it into an event where brands jizz all over themselves and do NOT keep Austin weird. Since the festival’s inception in 1987, SXSW…
