Review: Who's Afraid of Niketown?
Who's Afraid of Niketown? Nike: Urbanism, Branding and the City of Tomorrow
Friedrich von Borries
available in German or English
Episode Publishers, available from Amazon for £16.99
What is Nike? von Borries asks. Is Nike a religion, an ideology or a political movement? Nike proffers a cult, a lifestyle, a basical attititude through which we can attune the maxims guiding our behaviour. Nike speaks of revolution and propagates the images of another, better world. More than a mere manufacturer of sports articles, Nike sells more than shoes and sweatshirts. Nike is a proposal for experiencing my own self the way I would like to.
Nike is a brand, and it wants to sell products.
This unusually and compulsively readable analysis of Nike brand culture discusses not only Nike's intentions, but the way the world reacts to Nike's involvement. For example, in Toronto, Nike tried to sponsor an art gallery, allowing artists to exhibit free of charge, with the only stipulation being that no non-Nike logos could be shown in the space. The artists rebelled and filled the space with branded bags. Nike shut the gallery within a few weeks. In Berlin Nike tried to set up a basketball court in a gang-heavy area - a court paved with recycled sneaker soles. Artist Marc Bijl put a cast concrete Nike logo on the court. It was removed. Bijl blacked out all the Nike logos and ad copy, and replaced it with Adidas logos.
Von Borries indicates that Nike's urban advertising strategies go so far as to create alternative realities. One might even say alternative unrealities. But it comes to a simple question: is everything Nike does automatically wrong, because of their corporate goals and methods? It is an interesting accomplishment of von Borries that he's managed to make that a question to chew on for a bit.
