Anyway, my best guess is that stirring controversy was the whole point. I'll point you at the Keurig Effect again. Short version: it turns out to be free publicity. Instead of paying for more ads on YT and X, you let the dutifully enraged guys post a million posts about it.
Ok, but that doesn't track. They put out an ad, that if you looked at it a certain way, looked bad. I don't think it was intentional, in that I can totally see someone not seeing it (some didn't here, till it was pointed out).
Is Converse some struggling startup with falling sales? No way. They are a well-known multibillion dollar iconic brand. They don't need exposure to become a household name. They've been one for a century.
But what are they now? An athletic footwear manufacturer? No. They rely almost exclusively on selling Chucks to quirky teen girls. It's almost the entirety of their sales, and still enjoying wild popularity with their target demographic, and no significant secondary market even exists (look at an NBA court- see much Converse out there?).
This kind of publicity would sour them on their target demographic, and not attract a new one, so there would be no benefit to generating this "buzz". And Converse went out of their way to NOT generate a buzz- They quickly and quietly laid it to rest, without fanfare. Just a lightning fast pulling of the ad, a brief sincere apology and then silence.
Converse is trying to keep this quiet, not hype it. Any hype can only make their leading product tainted to their primary market.
(Here's my old longer post about it, so I don't have to copy and paste:
https://internationalskeptics.com/forums/threads/the-keurig-effect.346023/ )
Great example of my point. Keurig was slumping and wasn't entirely a household name just yet. But I'm not sure if the surge was directly due to this issue. People loved their product, and still do. Before COVID, they had already started a recycling campaign for their spent pods (my SIL was filling bags with them). Im.pretty sure their sales arc would have gone +/- the same, with or without thr Fox ads. In 2017, they had built up enough to be advertising on national broadcasting in the US. Their name was getting out there, and the eco friendly trend was dying out. Keurig was all set to skyrocket in popularity on its own.
And Nike had had their spike in sales at least once with that strategy.
Of course, recently it started to backfire.
Ya, it failed spectacularly, with stocks currently in a death spiral despite incredibly high name recognition and sponsored pro athletes and all.
But yeah, I'm not convinced that any corporation actually went "woke". They just say whatever they think will drive their sales up.
Agreed. But they can choose their target market to appeal to as well. Converse simply couldn't win by alluding they were Klan supportive. They would tank their brand irrecoverably.
The whole idea of "any publicity is good publicity" can work, with the right controls. It doesn't work randomly. Kanye is our primo example. He self generated controversy, and took a nose dive. His wealth is mostly sustained by the peripheral gigs from his former fame, not because he drew more sales from his antics. He lost sales.
