What Ever Happened To… The Air Force One?

Did anyone notice a colossal push by Nike to promote the AF1′s 25th Anniversary? Of course you did. It was ‘cool’ as we know it: limited edition versions, parties with cool DJs, art stuff, underground designers, cool blogs with exclusive announcements going ‘ape’ (as they say), art stuff, limited edition stuff, stuff. But was the campaign ‘cool by numbers’? Did the worldwide orgasm-of-cool campaign have any effect on sales though? We’re not too sure. Have you seen the kids in your office been standing around a freshly opened box of AF1s recently in amazement?

We doubt it.

If you think about the parties, the designers, the exclusives, you start to wonder if the the whole thing was dreamt up by Nathan Barley. Lots of execs as W+K & Nike finger clapping themselves about how in touch they are with youth culture.

One of the main problems could have been because they knew how to do it rather than why they should do it. Nike has developed a strong relationship with underground artists, designers and party makers – getting these guys to be involved with the 25th Anniversary campaign was so easy, all they had to do was email them all. Which is what they probably did. And if you’re a designer or an artist or a party maker and Nike comes to you with some cash, you’ll probably say yes.

There was nothing from the heart about the campaign, it was all about ‘cashing in’ from the Nike execs to the limited edition designers.

But of course, we might just be a little blind to what’s going on. So fearing that, we asked a couple of our contributors to submit their thoughts anonymously. They said:

HP: “I haven’t noticed too many kids wearing them. and ive been thinking about the same question myself… i think this new AF1 has shifted way too far away from the original AF1, and im sure nike did that on purpose. the original started out as a bball performance shoe, but as sneakers evolved, better performing sneakers came along, and took the place of what the original AF1 was used for, thus pushing it into a lifestyle market instead of basketball. this new AF1 is not a lifestyle shoe. its a basketball performance shoe. as i do not play basketball, i havent noticed any changes on the court if there have been, but as far as on the street, people are still wearing the original AF1 they have always worn, and i dont think there will be any shifts in the street. if you know anyone who plays basketball you should ask them, because that is the real place a change will take place. and im sure this huge push of the AF1 25 was done in response to nike’s poor sales of bball shoes.”

AH: “According to Mr. Jeff Staple, sales were pretty bad. Personally I thought marketing around the shoes were well executed. I went to the HK event as it was cool. The new 1thology site is awesome. Strategy is good too: Present the sneaker as an object coveted throughout hip-hop history. As important a part of the culture as anything else. Within the Sneakerhead community, the buzz was huge. Every street lifestyle blog has something abt an AF1 event. Maybe it was the shoes themselves (the anniversary series). or that the sneaker trend is dying. or that when you try to make something “cool” it just isn’t cool anymore. I’d like to know what happened too.”

Here’s the Jeff Staple clip. Skip through to about 2m10s:

So what happened and who made the mistake? W+K recently got fired as Nike‘s ad agency – was it because of the poor sales of AF1s? Maybe Nike shouldn’t be looking to blame external suppliers for the way they react to their brief but take a look at what’s happening in their hearts too.

What do you guys think?