Capitalizing on the Anti-Capitalist Movement

By Alicia Rebensdorf, AlterNet. Posted August 7, 2001.

An angry mob gathered around a train station, passing out photocopied flyers and shouting protests against an unjust company. Scrappy stickers were slapped on billboards, directing passers-by to a crudely designed website. The company they were railing against was a frequent target of grassroots activism: Nike. And the group running this guerilla-style anti-advertising campaign? None other than Nike itself.

It's been over a decade since Nike's beloved swoosh first came under attack by labor activists. Organizations like Adbusters, Global Exchange and NikeWatch have waged high profile campaigns to make that curving icon associated with slave labor as firmly as with Michael Jordon. Activists have manipulated logos, performed street theater and marred billboards in order to "jam" the Nike brand.

Nike's recent soccer ads in Australia, however, have appropriated both the techniques and the language used against them. The campaign involved posting billboards that boasted "The Most Offensive Boots We've Ever Made," pseudo-marring them with stickers that read "Not Fair Mr. Technology," and even creating a fake grassroots protest group called Fans Fighting for Fairer Football (F.F.F.F). Although this fuzzy people-power group had "banded together for a single cause that they believed was fair and just," they were not activists fighting for fair working conditions; these were "actorvists" arguing that Nike shoes gave their wearers an unfair advantage.

How clever! How hip! That Nike, they sure can co-opt their critics with irreverent cool!

"It took hard work to link the words 'Nike' and 'sweatshop' in the public mind," says Kalle Lasn, director of Adbusters. But now, he says, "without significantly changing its labor practices, Nike gets a chance to mock its critics, with the public laughing along."

Though Nike may pass their latest stunt off lightly -- like it is, to qoute their other advertising campaign, "just play" (tee-hee, you're it!) -- this is no game of tag. Instead, it's another chapter in the age-old story of corporate marketers co-opting a cultural movement. But this is commodification with a twist -- because, essentially, Nike is trying to capitalize on the anti-capitalism movement.

Anarchy, after all, is sooo in. Black Bloc protesters strut their stuff on the nightly news, with their drums, explosions, and black hoods framing attractive, twenty-something faces -- hell, it's better than MTV and reality television put together! And you couldn't ask for better demographics. Demonstrations in Seattle, Quebec and most recently Genoa have been a hit with the 18 to 35 year olds; the audience the police are shooting at is precisely the one corporate advertisers are shooting for.

While extreme in its co-optation of protesting techniques, Nike is hardly the only company jumping on the anti-corporate bandwagon. Apple, IBM and the Gap have all played with protest-chic. Apple has imposed their "Think Different" slogan onto billboards of Cesar Chavez, Malcolm X, and -- most recently -- young, red-flag waving militants. The Gap has seized on the graffiti aesthetic by dressing their windows in fake black spray paint that reads "Freedom" and "We the People." They've even hung anarchist flags alongside their sweatshop-produced low-riding jeans.

Meanwhile, IBM has made a more literal move to the streets. Their recent Linux campaign involved spraying stencils of Peace, Love and the Linux Penguin logo on city sidewalks. They have gotten flak for their graffiti -- Chicago fined them several thousand dollars and San Francisco officials decried it as vandalism -- but that can only reinforce their hip, anti-establishment image. It's only a matter of time before Old Navy begins peddling gas mask patterned handkerchiefs (you've got to get this look!) and the Home Shopping Network makes the Black Bloc's monochromatic look available to you, 24 hours a day, in your choice of ebony, sable or raven.

An exaggeration? Perhaps, but not without precedent. The corporate machine has proved itself capable of folding the prickliest of cultures into its embrace. Punk. Afro-centricism. Civil Rights. Virginia Slims straddled the Cosmo crowd while it spouted the feminist slogan "You've come a long way, baby." Benetton appropriated anti-racist imagery to hippify its brand and the Pillsbury Dough Boy rapped, proving even biscuits can benefit from hip-hop's trendiness. Companies continuinally pan a movement, commodify its cool, strip its substance and use it to enhance their own logo.

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