“His Shoe Broke!”: Nike’s Response to Zion Williamson’s Shoe Breaking During the Most Watched College Game of the Year

Chloe Yopp MEJO 531: Case Studies in Public Relations Final Dr. Cabosky

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Part One: Synopsis Background

Nike is one of the most well-known sports equipment and athletic apparel brands in the world. Founded in 1964, the brand grew in popularity through its partnerships with famous athletes like and Tiger Woods, among many others. Nike is a proud sponsor of many US college athletics programs as well as professional athletes around the world. In 2019 Nike faced a potential crisis situation when phenom Zion Williamson’s Nike basketball shoe split open within the first thirty seconds of one of the biggest college basketball rivalry games of the year: UNC vs Duke. With tickets to this game selling for over $2,000 a ticket and notable figures like former President Barack Obama and famed director Spike Lee in attendance, this freak incident was the talk of the basketball world.

Objectives and Key Publics

Key publics involved in this case include the victim (Zion Williamson), all of Nike’s current and potential sponsored athletes and collegiate teams, Nike’s current and potential customers, investors/stakeholders, and sports media. With Zion, Nike’s objective was to apologize to him (since he was the victim), understand why this incident happened, and continue to build a strong relationship with him so that he would hopefully sign with Nike once he began his professional career. Regarding their current and potential sponsored athletes and collegiate teams, Nike looked to assure them that their products are still trustworthy and that this was an isolated incident. Nike’s objective when appealing to investors and key stakeholders was to also assure them that this isn’t a larger problem with their products as a whole and that their company is still a worthy investment. For sports media, Nike wanted to make sure that their apology and explanation for the incident were published and that the media understood that Nike was doing all they could to fix the situation.

The Crisis

On February 20, 2019 one of the biggest college basketball rivalry games of the year had their first matchup of the season: UNC vs Duke. Both collegiate basketball teams are sponsored by Nike meaning that they wear only Nike apparel and shoes during games. The game was on during primetime and tickets were being sold on the secondhand market for upwards of $2,500. While this basketball matchup is always the talk of the sports world, this specific season’s rivalry game was even more talked about than usual because of one specific player: Zion Williamson. At 6-foot-7, 285 lbs Williamson was regarded as the best and most exciting player to watch out of high school since Lebron James. He was almost unanimously predicted to be the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft and the leading candidate for national player of the year, and everyone wanted to see this legendary player on the court before he was off to the NBA. With former President Barack Obama and director Spike Lee in the front row at Cameron Indoor Stadium, all eyes were on Zion Williamson as the ball was tipped at court. Within the first 30 seconds of the game, the entire sole of Williamson’s Nike basketball shoe busted open causing him to slip and twist his knee. The star player of Duke’s team was taken off the court to receive medical attention and did not return to play for the duration of the game.

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The Response

Social media buzzed immediately after the incident, with many memes being created and many calling out Nike for their product failure. A video showing former President Barack Obama saying “His shoe broke!” was widely circulated and GIFs/videos of Zion’s foot busting through the shoe were all over social media platforms. Many notable sports commentators and basketball players took to social media to comment on the incident as well, including NBA superstar Lebron James. The next day Nike responded to the crisis and released a public statement saying: “We are obviously concerned and want to wish Zion a speedy recovery. The ​ quality and performance of our products are of utmost importance. While this is an isolated occurrence, we are working to identify the issue.” Nike understood the importance of Zion as a ​ future face of the brand, so they sent their top people to Durham the very next day to look at the shoe and figure out why this happened. They even went a step further and went to China with Zion’s custom measurements to build a shoe that’s specifically engineered to withstand the force a player like Zion has on their shoes. When Zion returned to play in the ACC Tournament for the first time since the injury less than a month later, he was wearing a set of custom made Nikes and went 13-13 from the field (Wolken). The way Nike handled the crisis by taking actions like these created a strong relationship with Zion and ultimately led him to sign with Jordan Brand, a subsidiary of Nike, once his college career was over.

Part Two: Analysis

Lesson One: Big Events and Notable Sponsors Are High Risk/High Reward***

When your brand is being showcased on a large national , or international, stage there is potential for your brand to reach a wider audience and gain recognition, but if something goes wrong this can create a potential crisis situation for your brand. This is something to consider when you hold large events to promote your brand or have third-party endorsers using your brand in an uncontrolled environment. While your brand has a reputation of its own, third-party endorsers can also affect your brand’s reputation and perception. With Nike sponsoring well-known athletes and collegiate teams, the organization needs to understand the risk that comes with this and have a plan for how to handle product failure or negative hits to brand reputation because of the brand’s association with teams or athletes. Nike sponsoring some of the nation’s most recognizable athletes and teams puts them in a situation where their brand is on display to a large audience a lot of the time. This can be seen in this case where both teams in one of the nation’s biggest college basketball rivalry teams are sponsored by Nike, so many of their products are on display during the game. While this is great for their brand to be showcased by two of the nation’s top teams battling each other, it also has its risks because if there is a product failure during the game, there is a large audience viewing the game that could begin to question Nike’s trustworthiness and the quality of their products. In this case, that risk became a reality when Zion’s Nike basketball shoe busted open for all of the world to see on one of the largest stages in college basketball. What was originally a great opportunity for Nike to show off their brand and the quality of their products, quickly became a public relations crisis in a matter of seconds. In this situation, Nike was very lucky since Zion ended up only suffering a minor injury that did not require surgery or hurt his NBA prospects. If this situation had turned into something more serious, Nike should have a plan in place to handle 4 that. Overall Nike handled this situation well by releasing an apology, reaching out to the victim directly, and sending representatives to the victim ASAP to figure out what caused the issue. This showed that Nike understands the athletes and teams that they sponsor are the faces of their brand and it is important to have a solid relationship with those endorsers because they are the people who are the most connected to current and potential customers. While the Sony case is very different, and the severity of the crisis is on a much larger scale than Nike’s, their use of “supergamers” as third party endorsers to appeal to different audiences is similar to Nike’s use of big time collegiate athletics program and professional athletes as recognizable faces of their brand. In Sony’s case, the company faced a data and security breach that compromised many of their users’ personal information including birthdays, credit card numbers, and social security numbers to name a few. This left many users and customers upset with Sony because their personal information was compromised and also because Sony had to shut down their gaming servers for 23 days. In a similar way that Nike uses athletes and collegiate programs to help communicate their messaging and be a mouthpiece for the brand, Sony had cultivated and built a network of “supergamers” over a long period of time that appealed to many different Sony audiences. This was important specifically during this crisis because Sony was able to use this ambassador network as a way to get out their apology and gain back users’ trust in the company. Just like how Zion and Duke stood behind Nike after the shoe incident, these Sony supergamer ambassadors stood behind Sony. In both cases this made other key publics, especially customers/users, more quick to trust each brand again because supergamers that were connected to their communities or athletes that they know and love were telling them that it’s okay.

Lesson Two: Competitors Will Use Your Failure to Their Advantage***

When you have a product failure or large public crisis, competitors will use this to their advantage in order to advertise their product as a better alternative to yours. Timing is critical because releasing a statement too soon can seem insensitive to the situation at hand, but doing it too late could cause your attack to seem irrelevant. Brand personality and image is also a factor to consider when deciding how and if your organization should use a competitor’s failure to showcase your own product because it could seem disingenuous or desperate depending on your brand’s personality in your industry. Nike’s competitors used different tactics in order to try and capitalize off of Nike’s highly publicized product failure. With Nike being in such a competitive industry, some of their competitors saw this incident as an opportunity to offer their products up as a better alternative to Nike’s shoes. About 10 days after the incident occured, Skechers debuted an advertisement in sports section as well as on social media with the tagline “Just Blew It”, in the iconic Nike font, alongside a picture of a sneaker busted along the sole just like Zion’s. Additionally, they added another tagline along the bottom of the advertisement that said “We won’t split on you”, an obvious reference to the Zion sneaker incident (West). Puma, another one of Nike’s competitors, put out a tweet at 9:27 pm on the night of the game (just shortly after Zion was taken to the locker room) saying “Wouldn’t have happened in Pumas” (Ching). They later deleted the tweet after coming under fire for seeming insensitive to the potential harm this incident could have caused Zion and the injury he could be facing from the malfunction. These two instances of competitors attempting to use a company’s failure to their advantage shows how 5 critical the timing is when taking a jab at your competitor, especially in a situation where someone could’ve been injured by your competitor’s failure. Since Puma responded so quickly, they did not receive very positive feedback and ended up taking the tweet down since it was seen as insensitive by many due to the timing. Skechers’ satirical response was perceived much more positively by the public because the brand waited long enough since the incident occurred to determine if it was something that could be made light of before they rolled out a response or campaign. A great example of using competitor’s failures to your advantage is Wendy’s social media accounts, specifically their Twitter. Over the past five years, Wendy’s has become the “sassy” voice of the fast food industry due to their Twitter account, which is always “roasting” their competitors and taking jabs at other fast food accounts and Twitter users (Works). For example, when one user tweeted “@Wendys can you find me the nearest McDonalds?”, Wendy's Twitter account responded with a picture of a trash can. An example of Wendy’s responding specifically to a competitor can be seen when @McDonaldsCorp tweeted “Black Friday ****Need copy and link****” to which Wendy’s responded “When the tweets are as broken as the ice cream machine.” These witty remarks and comedic responses work well for Wendy’s because they have built their brand’s voice around this personality of confidence and cleverness. Wendy’s CMO Kurt Kane said, “We are very confident in who we are and what we do,” and this attitude translates through the brand’s social media presence and voice. Wendy’s also does a great job at deciding when and how to respond directly to their competitors, they don’t just “pound their chest and declare that they’re better” (Works), they respond tastefully and in a lighthearted manner. This makes their responses seem genuine, authentic, and shows how a brand can use their competitors’ failure to their advantage without receiving backlash or going too far.

Lesson Three: Importance of a Public of One

When one specific person is facing injury or consequences caused by your organization, it is important to focus on that public’s well-being and making them feel like you care. If the victim of the situation doesn’t feel adequately compensated and cared for, then that can affect how the public perceives you, especially in crisis situations. It is important to show that your organization wants to remedy the issue and do everything you can to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again, especially when you are dealing with a public of one that is so well-known and could be marketable for you in the future. Because Nike prioritized their relationship with Zion Williamson in this situation, the consequences of their product failure were less detrimental to the brand. In this case, Nike’s first priority was to make sure that Zion was okay, to continue to create a good relationship with him, and to understand why this incident occurred in order to make sure something like this does not happen again. Nike did a great job of making Zion feel like this issue was a priority to their organization and that they wanted to figure out why this happened in order to make sure it didn’t happen again. The day after Zion’s shoe malfunction, Nike sent some of their top representatives to Durham to look at the shoe, assess the damage, and understand why this happened. After their initial assessment, Nike went to China with Zion’s custom measurements to build a shoe that’s specifically engineered to withstand the force a player like Zion has on their shoes (Wolken). If Nike had not taken these steps to assure Zion 6 that his well-being and future as a Nike shoe wearer was a top priority to their organization, Zion may have had a different reaction or his perception of Nike could have become very negative. Because of the steps that Nike took to prioritize Zion (a public of one), they were able to fix the situation, continue to provide Zion with quality footwear, and even sign him as a Jordan Brand athlete once his collegiate career was over. A case that showcases the importance of prioritizing a public of one in a different sector is the Cleveland Clinic face transplant case. In 2009, Cleveland Clinic was ready to perform the first near-total face transplant in the United States. They knew that more than anything, the patient’s well-being and mental stability were the top priority in this very unique situation. Because this high-profile surgery was bound to have intense media interest, the hospital did everything it could to protect the privacy of the patient and donor. The success of the surgery depended on the patient, so all focus of the media relations plan was patient-centered in order to make the patient feel adequately prioritized and cared for. Parts of the media relations plan included not releasing information about the surgery until eight days after it was complete, allowing the patient total anonymity until they were ready to speak, and not forcing the patient to answer any questions from the media. Because they took these steps to prioritize their patient, Cleveland Clinic was able to control the narrative which made the public perception of Cleveland Clinic stay positive. This case showed how to prioritize a public of one preemptively when planning for an event or a media release, as opposed to the Nike case which showed the importance of prioritizing a public of one in a crisis response situation.

Lesson Four: Previous Actions and Behaviors Can Influence Public Perception After a Crisis

Your brand identity and previous actions can have a major influence on the way the public perceives your brand after a crisis. If your brand has faced crises like this before or has a history of product failure, it will be harder for you to gain back trust from key publics. Establishing a strong brand identity and responding with consistent messaging during crises can help isolated incidents not affect your brand’s reputation in the long run. Nike’s consistent messaging to previous crises and trustworthy brand reputation aided them when handling this incident and allowed it to have little to no effect on their overall brand reputation in the long run. In this case, Nike was at risk for taking a serious hit to their reputation and brand perception by current and potential customers due to Zion’s shoe breaking on national television. The way they handled this crisis, along with their previous actions when dealing with other crises, allowed Nike to maintain a positive perception from their key publics and not see any serious, long-term effects from this incident. Their quick release of a statement, which assured their publics that this incident would be investigated, along with their previous track record of no major product failures helped them to avoid a large amount of blowback and convinced consumers that this was just an isolated incident (Anton). “Nike’s strong relationship and ongoing dialog with its consumers enabled the company to place the product failure incident in proper context, and move on with little or no impact to its brand. In fact, Nike turned the high visibility incident into a positive by living up to the consumer’s expectations when handling it” (Bloodhound Branding Group). If Nike didn’t have a history of extensive product testing and transparency when it comes to their products and crises situations, this incident could’ve had much more damaging effects. 7

On the other end of the spectrum, this lesson can be seen in a negative way through the BP Deepwater Horizon case. The Deepwater Horizon case is much more severe and victims incurred more serious damages than in the Nike case, but the lesson can be seen just the same. In contrast to the Nike case, BP had a long history of handling crises the wrong way and not being very transparent with their publics. This history, which included a number of U.S. safety and environmental incidents involving BP operations, caused many to question if BP valued profit over other considerations and many lost their trust in BP as a company. Since BP’s public trust and company values had deteriorated over time, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the company was in hot water like they had never seen before. While BP’s executives and PR team made numerous missteps along the way including shifting the blame to another company, changing information, and not showing much concern for victims and their families, this was all exacerbated by their previous actions and missteps in previous crises. While BP could not escape from this severe of a crisis without a scratch, if they did not have such an extensive history of responding to crises with a emotionless, corporate attitude as well as a lack of transparency and honesty with their publics, this incident might not have affected them as severely in the long run.

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Works Cited

Anton, Daniel. “Zion Williamson's Shoe Tore but Nike Survived: A PR Strategy That

Withstands Pressure.” Catapult Creative Media Inc., Catapult Creative Media Inc., 5 ​ ​ Mar. 2019, catapultcreativemedia.com/zion-williamson-nike-pr-strategy/.

Bloodhound Branding Group. “How the Nike Brand Benefited from Zion's Shoe ‘Blow-out’.” ​ Bloodhound Branding Group, Bloodhound Branding Group , 21 May 2019, ​ bloodhoundbranding.com/2019/03/05/how-the-nike-brand-benefited-from-zions-shoe-blo

w-out%E2%80%8B/.

Ching, David. “For Nike Brand, Zion Williamson's Shoe Blowout Is The Exact Opposite Of

Tiger's Legendary Chip-In.” Forbes, Forbes Media, 21 Feb. 2019, ​ ​ www.forbes.com/sites/davidching/2019/02/21/for-nike-brand-zion-williamsons-shoe-blo

wout-is-the-exact-opposite-of-tigers-legendary-chip-in/?sh=3ec3d8cf79da.

West, Jenna. “Skechers Roasts Nike with 'Just Blew It' Sneaker Ad.” , ABG-SI ​ ​ LLC. , 3 Mar. 2019, www.si.com/college/2019/03/03/skechers-just-blew-it-ad-nike-zion-

williamson.

Wolken, Dan. “Opinion: How Zion Williamson's Nike Shoe Blowout Worked in His Favor

Five Months Later.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 23 July 2019, ​ ​ www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/dan-wolken/2019/07/23/opinion-why-zion-wil

liamson-shoe-blowout-wasnt-bust-nike/1805659001/.

Works, FastCo. “Behind Wendy's Epic Social Strategy.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 15 Apr. ​ ​ 2019, www.fastcompany.com/90330377/behind-wendys-epic-social-strategy.