Adidas Draws Criticism from Asian American Community

It was less than a month ago (3/29/06) that I wrote "Yes I have to admit it, I love a good community backlash every once in a while." Well I can say that again.

On Saturday the San Jose Mercury News ran a story on an Asian American community response to a limited edition Adidas shoe that was deemed offensive. Knight Ridder and the Associated Press passed this story around their wires during the past few days giving broader national reach to an otherwise small story.

Adidas is apparently on the receiving end of a backlash from Asian American community activists over a limited edition, boutique-line of its shoes that feature a goofy and stereotypical image of an Asian man.

In teaching master's degree students about the challenges of marketing products to ethnic groups I often use case studies like this one to demonstrate how a product that is perceived as minor and hip within the scheme of the major corporation can derail its efforts to maintain a customer base in a huge ethnic community.

This also seems to me to be an example of a major brand seeking public input and seeking to create a sense of community involvement in, or ownership of, the brand and taking a (deserved) public relations hit. This case appears to comes back to a positive plan to infuse the brand with greater creativity. In this case artists and trendy clothing boutiques (such as HUF in San Francsico) given an opportunity to design special shoes and clothing for Adidas.

Why would a major corporation risk it? Given the propensity with which groups of Americans boycott entire corporations based upon their treatment of minorities or their political giving (see a major article by Richard S. Dunham titled "Companies in the Crossfire" in this week's edition of BusinessWeek Magazine about this), I wonder why Adidas opens itself up to potential community backlashes especially when the risks appear to far outweigh the benefits. One news report says only 1,000 pairs of the shoes are available, while I'd presume that Asian Americans likely spend millions of dollars on Adidas products. While I doubt Adidas will gain a surge in sales among its alertnative lines, this controversy certainly opened my mind to the large number unique shoes Adidas and other companies are working with designers to offer in the U.S.

In scrolling through blogs posts on this subject I have discovered at least one blogger, Japundit, posted about this in mid-March and Adrants quickly posted after that. More recently, Poplicks posted a couple hundred words on it that amounts to a defense of Adidas but concludes with the following: "it really is a spanktacular shoe but giving the choice between my wardrobe and respecting a friend, there's no question what's far more important."