17452: Taking The Air Out Of Nike…?

Glossy reported how certain shoe brands sought to capitalize on the Nike Boston Marathon stumble.

 

Not convinced leveraging a competitor’s cultural cluelessness creates a strong strategic platform.

 

A more appropriate response might be walking the high road. Or just walking away.

 

Nike’s marathon billboard backlash inspires new Asics and Ecco campaigns

 

By Zofia Zwieglinska

 

Following Nike’s Boston Marathon backlash, competitors jumped on the opportunity to define “movement” on their own terms, beyond the marathon run.

 

In the days leading up to Monday’s Boston Marathon, Nike installed a series of signs near its Newbury Street store, including one that read, “Runners welcome, walkers tolerated.” The message drew immediate criticism online, with runners calling out the wording as exclusionary, particularly given how common it is for participants at all levels to walk parts of a marathon.

 

On April 17, Nike removed the sign. In a statement released the same day, the company said, “We want more people to feel welcome in running—no matter their pace, experience, or the distance. During race week in Boston, we put up a series of signs to encourage runners. One of them missed the mark. We took it down, and we’ll use this moment to do better and continue showing up for all runners.”

 

The response from competitors in the running space was swift. Japanese running shoe brand Asics installed its own messaging in Boston over race weekend, with a billboard reading, “Runners. Walkers. All Welcome,” alongside the line, “Move your body, move your mind.” The phrasing echoed the brand’s broader campaign, which emphasizes the mental benefits of movement alongside physical performance, but its timing positioned it as a direct counterpoint to Nike’s misstep.

 

Danish shoe brand Ecco, meanwhile, used the moment to introduce a longer-term change in how it talks about movement.

 

Over the marathon weekend, in Boston, the brand launched “Walk Your Walk,” a global campaign centered on everyday movement, rather than performance sport. The campaign is anchored by the line, “No run intended. Walk your walk,” and positions walking as a primary use case rather than a secondary one.

 

Ecco’s global CMO, Ezra Martin, said the timing was not coincidental, though the brand’s aim was not to directly criticize Nike’s billboard.

 

“We always pay attention to what’s happening in culture,” Martin told Glossy. “We all saw what other brands were doing and saying in the space. Walking became sort of the centerpiece of the cultural lexicon in that moment in time, which made it a natural platform for us to have a point of view.”

 

Walking has become more culturally relevant in recent years, driven in part by trends like “hot girl walks,” coined on TikTok during the pandemic, and the wider move away from high-intensity workout culture and looksmaxing. At the same time, analysts including Circana have pointed to growing demand for comfort-led, everyday footwear, as shoppers look for products that fit into daily routines and a softer approach to fitness rather than just peak performance moments. 

 

“Walking is becoming a symbol of accessible well-being,” Martin said, pointing to its physical, mental and social benefits. According to the National Library of Medicine, walking 9,000–10,000 steps a day can cut mortality risk by about 40% and cardiovascular disease by more than 20%, while even 10–30 minutes of brisk walking daily supports heart health, mental well-being and longevity. “Consumers are prioritizing longevity and quality of life,” said Martin.

 

The campaign also marks a new approach to brand building for Ecco.

 

“This marks a very purposeful movement into more of a brand-led conversation,” Martin said. “We want to build upper-funnel brand equity and not just do very product-led storytelling.”

 

Early signals suggest the message is resonating. “We saw record numbers of traffic hitting our site,” Martin said. “It showed that people were going beyond just liking something. They were sharing it, saving it, visiting the website and making a purchase.” The launch post has generated more than 123,000 likes on social, according to the brand, and driven a surge in engagement. The brand has 658,000 followers on Instagram.

 

On the ground in Boston, Ecco paired the campaign with light-touch activations, including product-trial moments. 

 

“People really connected with the simplicity and inclusivity of the message,” Martin said. “The magic in our shoes is that the technology is invisible — we don’t have visible airbags or exaggerated outsoles like a Hoka, where you look at the shoe and immediately think it’s comfortable. Ours looks like a well-designed shoe, so the best way to understand it is to actually try it on.” 

17451: Nike Just Blew It (Cont’d).

Advertising Age published a perspective on the Nike Boston Marathon stumble, presented by a disability community advocate.

 

The viewpoint inadvertently underscores that confronting cultural cluelessness in Adland is a never-ending marathon.

 

How Nike’s Boston Marathon ad exposed a gap in disability fluency

 

By Kelsey Lindell

 

Last week, a Nike window a few blocks from the Boston Marathon finish line read “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated.” The ad got pushback from the disability community and running community at large. The brand forgot that it’s completely normal to walk parts of the course, whether that is due to disability, or the fact that 26.2 miles is a very long run.

 

The company pulled the ad, saying it “missed the mark,” and replaced it with “Boston will always remind you, movement is what matters.” To Nike’s credit, the cleanup was fast and it’s a company that has invested heavily in accessibility in terms of product. But investing in product accessibility didn’t save the brand from a public snafu, or prevent competitors from taking ground with the community that Nike had been building towards for decades.

 

I wish Nike had considered our “Purple Framework,” which asks people to think about disability inclusion as the color purple: red represents accessibility and blue represents acceptance. Many brands, like Nike, invest heavily in adapting the product, or making sure that experiences are physically accessible. Far fewer invest in understanding disability culture.

 

Take, for example, NBCUniversal: In 2024, it launched new accessibility features around the same time Shane Gillis hosted “Saturday Night Live.” He used the R word multiple times in his opening monologue. You can create the most accessible products in the world, but if you don’t understand and care about our community, you’ll lose your investment fast. That’s precisely what happened with Nike.

 

While I’m always cheering for more disabled people to be in full-time creative roles, that’s not enough to solve this. A sign like “Walkers tolerated” doesn’t come from one person. It passes through: a brief, copywriter, strategist, designer, account lead, creative director and client review.

 

Dozens of people touched this before it hit the window, but none flagged it.

 

The creative community needs to treat disability fluency as the baseline of creative competency, because it is. Just like I need to understand nuances and best practices so I don’t accidentally create something full of microaggressions around race or gender, the creative community needs to understand the nuances and culture of disability.

 

Here’s what baseline fluency would have caught on the Nike sign:

 

How Boston Marathon history shapes disability inclusion

 

The sign went up about a week before Marathon Monday in a city where, in 2013, a bomb at the finish line produced a generation of amputee runners. Fifty years prior, Bob Hall cajoled the Boston Marathon’s race director into letting him onto the start line and the Boston Athletic Association formalized the wheelchair division in 1977. Boston became the first World Marathon Major to institutionalize wheelchair racing, and more than 1,900 wheelchair athletes have competed there since.

 

The Boston Marathon has an entire inclusive ecosystem: the Wheelchair Division with its own qualifying standards and prize money, a Para Athletics Division, an Adaptive Program for Runners, a Handcycle Program and Duo Teams. Runners with vision impairments race with up to two guide runners. Para athletes get their own staging areas, their own bus load-ins, their own classification processes.

 

Why ad copy language matters for disability culture

 

“Tolerated” isn’t a neutral word in the disability community. It’s the word that sits at the top of every policy fight about disabled people’s right to exist in public space for the last fifty years. Using it casually in ad copy is the disability equivalent of using “blind spot” casually in a DEI conversation. It lands hard because it has history.

 

Nike wanted competitive pride, but the line they wrote wasn’t rooted in celebration of athletic excellence; it was rooted in exclusion. Meanwhile, Nike is in the middle of a running comeback. The brand has been losing ground in specialty running to Brooks, Hoka, On, New Balance, Asics and Saucony. The “Walkers tolerated” sign didn’t just alienate disabled runners, but anyone beginning to see themselves as an athlete. Those are exactly the customers Nike is trying to win back.

 

How Nike’s competitors responded to the disability backlash

 

The brands that moved fastest are also the brands gaining on Nike in specialty. Brands that can read the room on disability and inclusive language now have a real window for cheap, fast, high-resonance moves. Brands that can’t are going to be left in the dust.

 

Within 72 hours of Nike’s sign going viral, five competitors moved. Asics put up a billboard 1 mile from the finish line outside Fenway Park, reading “Runners. Walkers. All welcome,” Ecco went bigger—billboards across Boston reading “No run intended. Walk your walk,” plus a giveaway of 100 pairs of sneakers to everyday walkers and marathon spectators, and on-route cheering stations for “runners and walkers alike with equal enthusiasm.”

 

Altra posted on Instagram: “Run. Walk. Crawl. Go where you’re celebrated. Not where you’re tolerated. Good luck to everyone running (or walking) Boston on Monday.” Hoka kept it simple: “No matter what pace, we fly together.” Adidas—the title sponsor of the Boston Marathon, whose spotlight Nike was trying to steal with this guerrilla activation, commented directly on adaptive runner Robyn Michaud’s Instagram post with a single line: “Every pace has a pace.” Five competitors in three days, and four of them don’t even have adaptive product lines. Nike does.

 

Why brands must treat disability inclusion as a cultural imperative

 

This is the cleanest case for our Purple Framework I’ve seen: you can invest millions into accessible products and still lose the disability community overnight if your cultural understanding hasn’t kept pace.

 

The fix isn’t complicated: give your teams enough time and cultural grounding to actually care about what they’re making. I absolutely do not think that any of the creatives on this project sought out to alienate 25% of the population with $13 trillion in spending. Culture moves fast. While we encourage everyone to co-create with the community, the way we prevent cultural faux pas while working at lightning speed is by giving everyone the same frameworks to self-correct.

 

None of this is rocket science. The frameworks needed to audit are learnable in a day, and we often deliver it to teams in microdosed portions. It’s the same cultural fluency a good creative has always been expected to develop. Disability is only represented in 1% of ads, so while it’s understandable that this is a growth area for most creatives, it begs the question: what are brands doing to fix it?

 

Strategic inclusion is not just a matter of “being a good person.” The people who worked on this ad are likely all wonderful, kind people who would never want to hurt people with disabilities. But those of us who create content create culture—and we need to treat disability as more than a compliance checkpoint and embrace it for the multifaceted, multidimensional community that it is.

 

Kelsey Lindell is the founder + CEO of Misfit Media, a disability culture consultancy that helps the world’s greatest storytellers and creative teams get strategic inclusion right.

17447: Overreaction Of The Week.

 

Another sign that the Apocalypse is upon Adland.

 

Advertising Age reported Nike—yes, Nike—got kicked for cultural cluelessness stemming from Boston Marathon advertising that read, “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated.”

 

Online backlash charged Nike displayed “lack of inclusivity and elitist athletic view.”

 

It’s a wonder no one thought walkers referred to mobility aids for adults—otherwise, the outrage would have included accusations of ageism.

Nike removes ‘walkers tolerated’ sign following backlash as rivals post more inclusive views

 

By Adrianne Pasquarelli

 

Nike landed in hot water this week for an ad outside its Boston store ahead of the Boston Marathon on Monday. The sign, which read “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated,” invited broad online backlash for its lack of inclusivity and elitist athletic view. Nike removed the sign on Friday and issued a statement.

 

“We want more people to feel welcome in running—no matter their pace, experience or the distance,” the sportswear giant wrote in a statement provided to Ad Age. “During race week in Boston, we put up a series of signs to encourage runners. One of them missed the mark. We took it down, and we’ll use this moment to do better and continue showing up for all runners.”

 

“Many people taking on the marathon next week will walk all or part of it. For them, what does a message like this say? Does it inspire, or does it exclude?,” wrote Dr. Hussain Al-Zubaidi on Instagram. Others noted the importance of all types of marathon participants.

 

“To every midpack mom, every charity bib, every comeback story, every person who started late, every person who finished slow and cried anyway. You are not tolerated. You are the point,” wrote Theresa Seitz, author of “Built to Finish,” on Instagram.

 

It was a rare advertising misstep from a brand that has typically celebrated all athletic achievements with its “Just Do It” mantra. It also opened the door to rivals to step in and promote their support for all types of runners. Both Hoka and Altra posted messages of inclusivity following Nike’s backtracking.

 

Nike has struggled in recent years to resonate with customers eager for innovation. A turnaround strategy under CEO Elliott Hill has yet to show meaningful effect. The company reported flat revenue of $11.3 billion for its most recent quarter and forecast a 2% to 4% revenue decline for the current quarter. Earlier this month, Hill reportedly told staffers he was tired of talking about fixing Nike. “I want to move to inspiring and driving growth and having fun,” Bloomberg reported he said.

16959: BHM 2025—Nike.

From Hypebeast…

 

On-Foot Images of the Nike SB Dunk Low “BHM”

 

Paying homage to Black cowboys and their contributions to the American West.

 

Nike brings history to life with its latest release, the SB Dunk Low “BHM,” designed for Black History Month 2025. This special edition honors the often-overlooked legacy of Black cowboys and their vital contributions to the American West.

 

The sneaker stands out with a “Tourmaline” green upper made from soft suede. Bright “Monarch” orange piping and a “Baroque Brown” heel panel add a bold, rugged look. A striking red outsole and black Swoosh provide contrast, while golden-yellow satin liners add a touch of elegance.

 

Every detail ties back to its cowboy-inspired theme. Thick, rope-like laces and lasso-shaped heel branding pay homage to iconic cowboy tools, while the heel showcases Western star embroidery reminiscent of cowboy boot designs. Inside, the insoles depict a cowboy silhouette riding through a sunset-lit desert, a motif mirrored on an accompanying yellow handkerchief. The handkerchief is inscribed with the phrase “What’s gonna happen is gonna happen,” encapsulating the resilience and spirit of cowboy culture.

16910: Biggest Brands Deliver Biggest Brand Fails.

Like Advertising Age, Campaign presented Biggest Brand Fails of 2024, including culturally clueless contenders not mentioned by Ad Age:

 

Apple

 

Apple hit a stumbling block this year with two campaigns that failed to land as intended. The first, “The Underdogs: OOO (Out of Office)” was part of Apple’s “Apple at Work” series and featured a comedic storyline of a scrappy American team navigating their first overseas business trip in Thailand. The film, created by Apple’s in-house team, highlighted how the brand’s suite of products—Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro—helped the team overcome challenges like translation, 3D design, and remote collaboration.

 

Despite its polished production and humorous tone, the ad drew criticism for its portrayal of Thailand as a backdrop for Western business antics, with viewers even saying it made the “the brand feel old.” Some noted that the setting and local culture were reduced to clichés, with little integration into the storyline beyond being a convenient location. Critics accused Apple of perpetuating stereotypes, with some suggesting that the ad failed to authentically represent Thailand or engage with its vibrant culture.

 

Nike

 

Nike’s Olympics campaign, “Winning Isn’t for Everyone,” narrated by the unmistakable Willem Dafoe and starring sports legends like Kylian Mbappé, Serena Williams, and LeBron James, was supposed to be a showstopper. Instead, it served up a marketing flop in China thanks to one baffling creative choice—a close-up shot of a Chinese table tennis player licking her paddle. Yes, licking.

 

Social media went into meltdown mode, with Weibo logging over 3,000 mentions—62% of them scathing. Critics didn’t hold back, calling the ad “cringe” and accusing Nike of peddling stereotypes. While some defended the ad as an artistic choice, others questioned why anyone thought zooming in on paddle-licking would inspire anything but secondhand embarrassment. The backlash has left Nike scrambling for answers. The campaign became a classic example of creativity gone rogue. For a brand that prides itself on pushing boundaries, Nike was reminded that not every bold shot needs to make it off the storyboard. The moral of the story? If your campaign includes licking anything sports-related, just don’t.

Brands historically heralded as the platinum standard garner Biggest Brand Fails awards…? Yep, the apocalypse is upon Adland.

16539: BHM 2024—Nike.

 

For BHM 2024, Nike is poised to release Kobe 6 Protro BHM. However, the latest edition has not yet landed at Nike.com…

16453: Continuous Incontinence From Culturally Clueless Character.

Sir John Hegarty posted commentary at LinkedIn, comparing the business and branding of Reebok versus Nike. His conclusion: Continuity beats reinvention.

 

The statement also applies to the perspectives held by Hegarty—and the White advertising agency he founded—regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion.

16205: Expanding Heat Shields & Hot Air.

 

AgencySpy posted on the latest heat shield maneuvers from The One Club and Allies in Recruitment (aka AIR). Hey, if adidas went after Black Lives Matter for logo-related copyright infringement, surely Nike must be considering legal action in this scenario.

 

The One Club and Allies in Recruiting Expand Equify Diversity Certification Program

 

By Kyle O’Brien

 

The One Club for Creativity and Allies in Recruiting (AIR) have expanded their Equify diversity training and certification program to help both senior executives and staff create more inclusive and equitable practices in their organizations.

 

Equify was developed for AIR in 2020 by James Kinney, global chief people officer at Media.Monks—who recently launched the Advertising Alliance for Mental Health—and an AIR founding partner and board advisor, to establish foundational best practices for inclusion education across organizations. AIR became part of The One Club in July 2022.

 

The audio program—with closed captioning available—goes into detail about diversity, equity and inclusion and how it affects work culture. Equify uses clear examples to cover topics across generations, cultural and gender identity, accessibility and ableism, sustainability and more to unite, mobilize and create changemakers within an organization, according to The One Club.

 

Equify is designed for everyone from senior executives, hiring managers, talent and HR teams, to any employee who participates in hiring or wants to create a more inclusive culture in their workplace. It is designed to bridge the knowledge gap between how organizations hire talent, and how diverse talent can be supported, included and retained.

 

The global program now includes two separate courses, each structured like a podcast. The new Equify 2.0 spans 11 chapters, addressing subjects including environmental, social and governance and DEI, how and why to collect diversity data, and mental health and diversity. The courses reflect Kinney’s engaging personality, taking an enjoyable, relatable approach to the subject matter.

 

“I’m in war mode, and in a war mood, in order to get DEI and culture back on track.” said Kinney in a statement. “We’ve made so much meaningful progress, but now is not the time to go to sleep on the mission. Our industry is shifting by the day, and Equify gives us a common language of belonging and a knowledge base to unify. This moment and the new era of creativity is about knowledge, facts and growth, not fear.”

 

The initial program has already been well received by the industry.

 

“In the last few years, we’ve seen so many impactful but disconnected DEI efforts in our industry,” said Dani Herrera, director, recruitment operations and DEI at R/GA in a statement. “I see Equify as a cornerstone and the foundation of DEI knowledge that pushes our industry to achieve sustainable, collective, and meaningful change.”

 

Mabel Liang, senior talent acquisition partner at Nike, added that Equify breaks the content down into short sessions with a theme and structure like a podcast, making it easy to listen to at someone’s own pace.

 

“True long-term change requires education for all members of an organization,” said Kevin Swanepoel, CEO, The One Club in a statement. “We’re proud to work with AIR on this expanded Equify program designed to build a shared foundation of diversity and inclusion knowledge, understanding, and best practices for both leaders and teams at agencies and brands.”

 

Equify is the latest in a line of DEI programs available from The One Club, including the annual Where Are All the Black People diversity conference and job fair, One School free portfolio program for Black creatives in the U.S. and U.K., and global creative boot camps.

10650: BHM 2023—Nike.

 

Nike presents Future Movement: Black Well-Being—starring Kevin Durant as well as star athletes and artists. 

 

15852: LeBron James Traded To Magic…?

 

Magic Fruity Pebbles—a limited edition breakfast cereal—boasts a mega-promotion featuring Nike and LeBron James. The campaign underscores the lack of diversity in Bedrock. And wouldn’t it have made more sense to use Magic Johnson or an Orlando Magic player?

 

Then again, do professional athletes really eat breakfast cereal that magically turns milk purple? Whatever happened to Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions?

 

Hey, wait a minute—how many cereals does King James play for?

 

15216: Not A-OK With AKQA BS…

Adweek spotlighted a Nike film from AKQA that allegedly celebrates Black women, featuring Brazilian singer Ludmilla and dance troupe The Turmalinas Negras. Celebrating Black women by showing a song and dance routine? Wow. How stereotypical original. The piece demonstrates that AKQA is just as capable as its new sister, Grey, of producing patronizing pap. Oh, and AKQA is hardly qualified to trumpet itself as a gender defender. Perhaps someone should inquire about how AKQA celebrates Black women in its own hallways—keeping in mind that the subsegment is woefully underrepresented in the field.

 

Nike Celebrates the Power of Dance and Enduring Strength of Black Women

 

Film by AKQA uses choreography to tell a story of ‘birth, connection, roots, protection, recognition and awakening’

 

By Sara Spary

 

Nike has launched a beautifully choreographed film titled “The Awakening in Dance: An Experience in Motion” to celebrate Black women and encourage new generations to explore different forms of sport and movement.

 

The spot, which features Brazilian singer Ludmilla and dance troupe The Turmalinas Negras, was created by AKQA and Think Eva, with direction from Juh Almeida.

 

It aims to show the “empowerment and manifestation of Black culture” through dance, according to AKQA said, with the choreography designed to show six important moments: birth, connection, roots, protection, recognition and awakening.

 

Members of the Nike Training Club will also have access to exclusive content that explains the steps of the choreography via short videos so they can reproduce the movements and “connect with the transforming power of dance” as part of the campaign.

 

The ad is Nike’s latest work centered around the theme of black empowerment.

 

In May, at the height of Black Lives Matter protests, the brand released a 60-second ad titled “For Once, Don’t Do It” from Wieden+Kennedy Portland that took direct aim at racism.

 

“Don’t pretend there’s not a problem in America. Don’t turn your back on racism,” the earlier ad said. “Don’t accept innocent lives being taken from us. Don’t make any more excuses. Don’t sit back and be silent.”

14902: BHM 2020—Nike.

The 2020 Nike Black History Month collection has launched. All Kobe Bryant gear has sold out completely.