Adidas has announced that it will terminate its partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West in the wake of his antisemitism controversy. Gap has already removed all of the Yeezy products from their line, with Footlocker following suit.
Maddy Brown has the story.
Adidas announced this morning that they will be terminating their deal with Ye, the artist formally known as Kanye West, after public disapproval of his recent antisemitic remarks continue to grow.
For over two weeks, Ye has continued to post antisemitic tweets, comments that have spurred rising pressure for Adidas to cut ties with the rapper.
In a statement released early this morning, Adidas said they “do not tolerate antisemitism or any other sort of hate speech.”
The partnership between Ye and Adidas has proved to be lucrative for both parties. The release of Adidas Yeezy sneakers on June 27th sold out online in the U.S. in only 12 minutes. The partnership, which lasted for nearly a decade, earned the artist nearly $100 million per year. By cutting ties with Ye, Adidas has stated that they are losing $246 million this year.
The decision to end their deal comes after companies like Balenciaga and the talent agency CAA announced the severing of their partnerships with Ye.
These are the consequences of increasingly erratic behavior from Ye. Although the influential artist is no stranger to controversy, his recent antisemitic comments in social media posts, interviews, and his adoption of the white supremacist slogan “White Lives Matter” have drawn increasingly widespread criticism.
What does this mean for Adidas? How will their business, brand and vision be impacted? We spoke to Professor Hank Wasiak, from USC’s Marshall School of Business, about how Adidas’ decision to cut ties with Ye has affected their business.
Hank Wasiak: Well, it affects it a lot because it takes a a a product line, a brand, an attitude, a niche, and something that they’ve had. And they don’t have that anymore. You know, and Nike is a brand that is very much into that. I’m not going to say controversial space, but the advocacy and activism space in another way. So they’ve got to really do some things that are going to fill in that niche.
Professor Wasiak believes that Adidas is going to have to take a closer look at customers’ desires in the wake of Ye’s dismissal from the brand.
Hank Wasiak: What Adidas has got to do is say, I have a customer base that I’m not serving anymore with this. And every single brand does, everything is geared towards making, selling and serving. And I reverse the order serving and selling that customer. So they’ve got a heck of a lot of research and discussion and soul searching to do there. It’s got to be customer focused first.
Despite the chaos, Professor Wasiak sees a way forward for Adidas after the controversy.
Hank Wasiak: So it needs it needs a really good, strong strategic look at how they’re going to replace not only that brand in that volume, but that’s a, you know, brand with a specific target audience that it appeals to. And they will now be not represented with that target. And so they’ve got to really step back and look and see how are they going to address it with some consumers that might say, why are you doing this?
For Annenberg Media, I’m Maddy Brown.