Converse Cancels All Its Social Media Ads After a Racism Backlash It Cannot Outrun
Five days after pulling a Chuck 70 x Karina ad that critics said resembled KKK robes, Converse is pausing every social post and marketing push it has, as Nike faces a Congressional Black Caucus request for a meeting.
Converse is done posting anything for a while. The Nike-owned brand is pausing all marketing, social media ads included, for the rest of the week, according to a Bloomberg report on the fallout, five days after pulling a Chuck 70 X campaign that critics said echoed KKK robes.
The ad, part of a collaboration with Aespa's Karina, showed the lower half of a model in a white, calf-length skirt that read to a lot of people as a hood and gown rather than streetwear. Converse pulled it and apologized within days, saying "we got this wrong," but the apology did not close the story: the Congressional Black Caucus called the campaign "deeply disturbing and disappointing" and said it plans to request a meeting with Nike executives.
Going dark on marketing entirely, not just deleting one ad, is the tell that this is not a routine creative miss. Converse was already down 13 straight quarters, including a 34 percent drop last quarter, and a brand that fragile does not get to treat a national controversy as a one-week story; it has to prove the pause bought something more than a news cycle.
Source: Bloomberg
Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →
