JISCMail - DISABILITY-RESEARCH Archives

Date:         Fri, 27 Oct 2000 19:24:55 -0400
Reply-To: Americans with Disabilities Act Law <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Americans with Disabilities Act Law <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Frederick A. Shotz" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      NIke Update and Call to Action - Long
Comments: To: ADA EMPOWERMENT <[log in to unmask]>,
          Advocacy List <[log in to unmask]>,
          [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>

Dear List Members and Friends;

This long e-mail will update you as to the offensive Nike advertising
campaign and will ask your support and action in seeking an appropriate
response from Nike. If you have not seen the ad you can go to
http://www.ebility.com/pics/channel/nikead.gif
to see this ad.

If you think that this ad just ran in one magazine you are incorrect. Nike
has supplied me with the list of magazines in which this ad has appeared.
They also told me that this ad has run in September, October, and November
issues of these magazines. The list of magazines is Men's Fitness, Adventure
Travel, Outside, Blue, National Geo Adventure, FHM, Stuff, Backpacker,
Climbing, and Trailrunner. That is 10 magazines that each have national
distribution. NIke, in response to our outrage has pulled the ad from 10
additional magazines in which this ad was supposed to run. Those
publications are Blue Ridge Outdoors, Sports Etc., Competitor, City Sports,
City Sports NW, Metro Sports, Rocky Mtn Sports, Twin City Sports and Windy
City Sports. This was a large advertising campaign. It costs approximately
$25,000 per magazine per issue for this size ad. That means that for each
month that this ad was intended to run in all 20 magazines the cost would
have been about one half a million dollars. As I said above this ad ran in
some magazines in September, October, and November and would have run in all
of their December issues.

It's great that Nike has pulled the ad and written a brief apology. However
that does not repair the damage done by this ad. Hundreds of thousands of
people have seen this ad and many more will still see it before all of the
copies of magazines carrying this ad end up in the trash. That means that
hundreds of thousands of people will have been exposed to this offensive
stereotype of people with disabilities who use wheelchairs. Every person who
already carries negative stereotypes of people with disabilities and who
sees this ad will have had that negative beliefs reinforced and supported by
the Nike ad. Picture the corporate human resources person who reads that ad
on Sunday and then on Monday interviews a person using a wheelchair for
employment. Will the ad color the perception of the applicant for
employment? Will the ad decrease the chance of that person being offered the
job? You bet!

The ADA was written and passed because people with disabilities face
discrimination in this country. The ADA was not written to provide business
to builders of ramps or to lawyers. The ADA was passed because of the
negative and discriminatory attitudes held by the general public towards
people with disabilities. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed one
hope was that the law would, over time, help people to change their negative
and discriminatory attitudes towards people of color. That same hope is
embodied in the intent of the ADA. By people with disabilities having the
opportunity to participate in all levels of society, over time, the negative
and discriminatory attitudes of much of the general public will change.

I know of no research that can tell us how much attitudes towards people
with disabilities have changed in the 10 years since the passage of the ADA.
A few polls that have been conducted seem to suggest that we are making some
progress. Thirty six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
there is still a great deal of work to be done in changing negative
attitudes towards people of color. One of the focuses of groups such as the
NAACP has been to have the negative stereotypes of people of color removed
from entertainment and advertising. That focus is due to their conclusion
that such stereotypes in entertainment and advertising perpetuate the
negative attitudes towards people of color.

I believe that this Nike ad can undo any positive changes in the attitudes
of people towards people with disabilities in those people exposed to this
ad. The focus of this advertising campaign is the sports oriented segment of
society including the "jocks" or our society. Efforts of the last 10 years
to change the negative attitudes of this population group will easily be
undone by this ad which plays right into the attitudes towards people with
disabilities in this group. Picture an ad that painted people of color as
lazy , shiftless, and of criminal intent. Now picture that ad being focused
on the segment of society most likely to have held that attitude in the
past. Is there any question that many of those people would return to their
prior attitudes with that kind of support of their prejudicial attitudes?

It is going to take far more than a short apology and an appearance on a
disability oriented radio show (a show that is listened to by people with
disabilities but not by the general public) to undo this damage. It is going
to take an advertising campaign as large as this advertising campaign was
supposed to be to repair this damage. My proposal is that the advertising
agency that created this advertisement provide people with disabilities with
an advertising campaign that presents a pro disability posture and a pro ADA
posture. This work should be done for free as an apology to people with
disabilities. The advertising developed by this ad agency should be as
sophisticated as the ads they develop for Nike.

The next part of my proposal is that Nike pay for the placement of these ads
in national magazines that have circulations equivalent to the circulations
of the magazines in which the offensive ad has run. The pro disability, pro
ADA ads should be placed in the number of magazines and for the number of
issues that equals the run of this offensive ad. So, if the offensive Nike
ad ran in 5 magazines for 3 months, 2 magazines for 2 months and 3 magazines
for 1 month, and all magazines had circulation of 100,000 then Nike would
run the pro disability, pro ADA ads a total of 22 times in magazines with
average circulation of 100,000. Keep in mind that this is just an example,
the number of runs of this offensive ad is not yet known nor is the
circulation of the magazines in which it ran. Such an advertising campaign
would equal the cost to Nike of running the offensive ad campaign. If we
pick the publications to focus on populations likely to change their
attitudes by exposure to these ads we can balance those with reinforced
negative attitudes with people who have increasing positive attitudes.

The last part of my proposal is based on an idea first presented by Marcie
Roth of the National Council on Independent Living. Marcie suggested a
substantial donation to the Spinal Cord Injury Network. Considering that
this offensive advertisement targeted people with spinal cord injuries I
believe that Marcie's idea is excellent. Since Nike has withdrawn this
offensive ad from 10 magazines for no less than one month in each magazine
Nike has saved somewhere in the area of $250,000 based on an average cost of
$25,000 per magazine per month. Since Nike was planning to spend this money
promoting negative attitudes towards people with disabilities it seems only
fair that they contribute this money to an organization that supports the
people attacked in this offensive advertisement.

It is possible that my dollar numbers are a little high as Nike may get
better advertising rates based on how much advertising they do. It is just
as possible that my numbers are low and that their financial commitment to
this offensive advertisement could be as high as one million dollars.
Whatever amount Nike spent and planned to spend on an advertisement that was
degrading to people with disabilities and that supported negative
stereotyping is the amount that Nike should commit to helping to improve
attitudes towards people with disabilities and towards an substantial
financial apology to people with spinal cord injuries.

If you agree with my position on this issue and if you believe that my
proposal is reasonable then your support is needed. Nike needs to hear from
hundreds if not thousands of us. Each one of us needs to tell Nike that we
want them to pay for a pro disability advertising campaign equal to the anti
disability campaign that they ran. Each one of us need to tell Nike that
they need to apologize to people with spinal cord injuries by making a
substantial donation to the Spinal Cord Injury Network. Don't feel that we
are asking too much. The money that I am suggesting Nike spend to right this
wrong is less than they would spend advertising their products on television
on one Superbowl game. For a company the size of Nike this is not a great
deal of money. It is enough money however that they will think long and hard
before running such an ad campaign again.

Please send an e-mail to Nike supporting this proposal. Please forward this
e-mail to everyone you know. Please forward this e-mail to every disability
related list and discussion group to which you are a member. We must let
Nike know that they cannot damage our progress in changing attitudes towards
people with disabilities and then simply say I'm sorry and walk away from
the damage they have caused.

To write to Nike please send your e-mail to Lee Weinstein, Director U.S.A.
Communications, NIke, Inc. The e-mail address is [log in to unmask]
When Lee comes to work on Monday let's greet him with a couple thousand
e-mails in his inbox. If you want to phone Lee Weinstein on Monday his
telephone number is 503-671-3080. You can also call the office of the C.E.O.
of Nike, Philip Knight, at 503-671-6453.

Again, in your e-mails and calls please tell Nike that you expect them to
pay for an advertising campaign that will help to undo the damage done by
their offensive ads. Tell them that you expect them to apologize to people
with spinal cord injuries by making a substantial donation to the Spinal
Cord Injury Network. Ask everyone you know to join you in sending Nike this
message.

Sincerely yours,

Fred


--
Frederick A. Shotz
President
Association of Disability Advocates

Disability Rights are Human Rights