Question 1. Why was Nike in particular targeted?
Question 2: How would you have handled the situation? Why?
Question 3: Is all PR good PR? Why?
Answer:
Question 1. Why was Nike in particular targeted?
The short answer is that Nike was targeted because it was a leader in the athletic shoe
industry, and people thought they could make an example out of the biggest company. In
fact most of the companies in the same industry also had similar working conditions in the
Southeast Asian area, but were left alone. Nike had revenues upward of $9 billion in 1998,
while the closest second, Reebok, only had $3 billion. Therefore, Nike represented a huge
opportunity for activists over the smaller companies. At an event that included people from
28 states and 12 countries to encourage Nike to clean up their act, they admitted that Nike
was only being targeted so aggressively because of its position at the top of the industry.
They believed that if Nike changed their human rights standards, then a new precedent
would be set for all other companies.
Another reason is that the media was very eager to print any negative story about Nike.
There were many stories, often false, that depicted the conditions of the manufacturing
facilities in Taiwan and Korea. Some examples of these include employees being forced to
run laps in hundred-degree heat for not wearing the proper Nike Shoes to work, employees
being forced to lick the ground, and 125 employees being lined up and smacked with the
soul of a Nike Shoe. The massive amount of media attention on Nike led to a snowballing
