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Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn aims to beat Nike at its own game, by selling "Black Spot" sneakers to consumers tired of shelling out for megabrands.
Oct 8, 2003 | Kalle Lasn isn't scared of the U.S. PATRIOT Act. "America has become a bit of a monster," says the punchy, 60-something founder of Adbusters, the anti-consumption magazine based in Vancouver, B.C. "Some of the things the U.S. is doing, in Israel, in Cancún with the WTO, I just can't take it any longer. It's gotten to the point where I almost think I've become a terrorist."
But Lasn is no Osama bin Laden. The author of "Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Binge," Lasn is one of the leading figures in the "culture jamming" movement, an international grassroots effort that uses the logic of commercial images to critique corporate hegemony and rampant consumerism. Under his leadership, Adbusters' preferred method of culture jamming has been to publish ad parodies, such as "Absolute Impotence," a photo of the familiar bottle drifting in spilled vodka, or a Nike satire that morphs Tiger Woods' smile into a Swoosh.
Last month, Adbusters announced a new phase in state-of-the-art meme warfare. ("Memes" refer to the core images, slogans or ideas that culture jammers manipulate: e.g., a swoosh, or "Just Do It.") Although the campaign's targets, Nike and CEO Phil Knight, appear frequently in the magazine's culture jams, the latest strategy moves Adbusters out of the realm of parody and into the competitive world of global marketing and production.
More specifically, the Adbusters Media Foundation, the nonprofit that brought the world Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week, has decided to go into the sneaker manufacturing business. According to Lasn, the plan is to market a "Black Spot sneaker, a shoe that will resemble the retro-style Converse but with one crucial difference. In place of the ubiquitous Nike swoosh, the Adbusters shoe will display a prominent anti-logo "black spot," the magazine's anti-corporate trademark.
"Phil Knight had a dream," reads the, well, ad for the "Unswoosher," located on the back cover of Adbusters' October issue. "He'd sell shoes. He'd sell dreams. He'd get rich. He'd use sweatshops if he had to. Then along came a new shoe. Plain. Simple. Cheap. Fair. Designed for only one thing: kicking Phil's ass."
By January, the magazine plans to manufacture an initial line of 10,000 sneakers, which will retail globally for about $65 a pair. The release will follow a $500,000 marketing campaign, hyping the sneakers on CNN, in the New York Times, and on the major networks. "One of the many reasons I really love this campaign," said Lasn. "Is that we are selling a product, not an idea or advocacy. We are selling a sneaker. So those stations that have systematically refused to sell us air time over the past 10 years for our ideas will now have no choice but to sell us air time."
Since the nonprofit broke the news of the Black Spot late last August, Nike hasn't exactly been shaking in its shoes. "As a global leader, it doesn't surprise us that we occasionally get targeted by groups who use the strength of our brand to leverage their agenda," said Caitlin Morris, senior manager of Nike corporate communications.
Reaction on the anti-corporate-globalization front has been mixed. Some question the wisdom of an anti-advertising magazine going into the advertising business, while others think Lasn would be better off targeting clothing manufacturers that don't receive as much international scrutiny.
But for some heavy hitters in the no-sweatshop movement, the Black Spot couldn't have come at a more propitious time -- just days after the Converse brand sold out the "Chuck Taylor" shoe to Nike. For years, that was the sneaker of choice for millions opposed to megabrands churning out sneakers in Third World factories.
"The anti-sweatshop forces need a few alternatives in the marketplace," says Jeff Ballinger, author of the original Harper's Magazine 1993 exposé on Nike's labor practices, and now vice president for policy and sourcing at No Sweat. "Kalle's right to see that. I've given 'sweatshop' talks to a wide variety of groups for over a decade and one of the first questions is: 'What can we buy?'"
Lasn admits the "ethical sneaker" may not succeed. Still, employing what appears to be a signature combination of brashness and nostalgia, Lasn said the time has come for a change in how activists deal with "rogue companies."
"We got tired of all the lefty whining and the boycotting. It wasn't making any difference," he said. "Quite apart from how many percentage points in market share the Black Spot sneaker can take away from Phil Knight -- that's of course the ultimate goal but may be a long time coming -- in the meantime, we can go a long way toward uncooling the Swoosh, which is losing momentum fast."
"I have a grandiose plan," Lasn said. "My dream as a culture jammer is that a small group of people with a limited budget could have the power to choose a megabrand we don't like for valid reasons and uncool that brand, to show that we the people as a civil society have the power to keep a corporation honest. Now that would be something that would actually redefine capitalism."
