Nike Offers 9 Ways To Personalize Pride For Your Feet – Forbes

Just as Christmas comes every December, for the LGBTQ community every June is Pride Month. Yes, even during a pandemic. Some marketers call Pride “Gay Christmas,” given how many businesses redecorate their logos with rainbows, hoping to rein-in more of that queer money this time of year. And leading the way on that gay sleigh—or is it “slay?”— is once again, Nike.

Its 2021 Be True collection goes on sale today in the U.S. at nike.com, and at select retail stores. In a statement posted online, Nike says the rest of the world can get theirs starting June 15. Prices were not made available at press time.

What makes this year’s Be True collection unique is that consumers can customize theirs to represent their own gender identity and/or sexual orientation, as soon as they pull them out of the box.

Nike offers this option on its four new footwear selections—the Blazer ’77 Low, the Air Max Pre Day, the All Out Utility Slide and the Infinity React Run 2.

Nike describes its Be True 2021 Blazer ‘77 Low as a sneaker with “classic simplicity” highlighting “the bright and bold hues on the Swoosh,” but you might just call it a sneaker that’s mostly white on top, pink on the bottom with a rainbow stripe along the sides.

Look closer, however: Each pair comes a baggie containing nine flags with Velcro patches that can be attached to the heels. One choice is the Transgender Pride flag designed by out Navy veteran Monica Helms.

The other eight interchangeable flags represent lesbians, bisexuals, genderqueer individuals, pansexuals, asexuals, agender and intersex individuals, plus there’s the flag designed by Daniel Quasar, also known as the Progress Flag. This flag incorporates black and brown stripes representing race, and the white, pink and blue stripes of the Transgender Pride flag, into a chevron intersecting the traditional, six-color Pride flag designed by Gilbert Baker.

The Velcro patch on each shoe is large enough to showcase more than one flag, such as a lesbian flag and a transgender one, or both bisexual and the Progress Pride flags, or any combination.

“In 2021, the team behind the Be True collection wanted to look beyond the rainbow and create a more inclusive collection,” a Nike spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The goal was to more broadly represent the LGBTQIA+ community, create better visibility and inspire further education.”

The other three options for 2021: The Air Max Pre-Day “features a bold, blue hue and colorful gradient Swoosh.” It’s very blue.

The All Out Utility Slide features “a dual-layered foam sole and zip pocket on the fanny-packet-inspired strap ensure storage for small essentials and comfort no matter where life takes you.” It’s black and hot pink.

And last is the Nike Infinity React Run 2 Be True running shoe, which the company says provides “more strength and support in the toe, eye-stay and foxing, and with more breathability in areas like the vamp and the midfoot.” It’s mostly black but features a closely-stitched rainbow pattern woven into the shell.

Nike also offers number of Pride-themed apparel, ranging from T-shirts to hoodies and shorts, just like its competition. And as usual, there is a lot of competition.

The Competition

Just to name a few: Adidas offers a Pride collection of four pairs of footwear starting at $70, with its top sneaker selling for $180. Reebok has four available now on its website, with two more coming soon, ranging from $40 to $170, along with other Pride-themed apparel. Puma has two big names backing the brand this year: Out actress and model Cara Delevingne co-designed its 2021 Pride collection, featuring three types of footwear ranging from $30 to $100. Puma also signed Breanna Stewart, the WNBA star and one of Sports Illustrated’s Sportspersons of the Year, as a spokesperson. As ESPN reported last month, the multiyear shoe deal guarantees the out gay Seattle Storm forward and activist her own signature sneaker. Unfortunately, it’s not yet available for this Pride month.

The Pink Dollar

The LGBTQ community is a prized demographic, and not just at this time of year. Five years ago, Forbes.com reported “the pink dollar” accounted for 14% of all disposable income in the U.S. In putting a price tag on that percentage, Witeck Communications estimated that the LGBTQ market processes $917 billion in buying power in the U.S., according to its 2016 report.

But buyer beware: As Forbes.com has reported, several major corporations trying to court LGBTQ consumers are simultaneously supporting forces that are anti-LGBTQ. Research shows customers of companies that do more than court the community one month out of the year, and support LGBTQ rights, are more likely to be loyal.

According to out nonbinary journalist Mary Emily O’Hara, writing in AdWeek in July 2020, the 14th annual LGBTQ consumer research survey by Community Marketing & Insights found 80% of respondents in the U.S. said brands that support LGBTQ equality “will get more of my business this year.” And 73% had made a purchase over the past year at least partially because of a company’s LGBTQ-inclusive outreach, employment practices or supportive political stance.

In that same 2020 survey, the more than 34,000 respondents were asked which brands they favored, and it should be noted Nike was the only sports apparel company among the top 13 named. In alphabetical order, they were:

• Absolut
• Amazon
• American Airlines
• Apple
• Delta Air Lines
• Disney/ABC
• Google
• Nike
• Starbucks
• Subaru
• Target
• TomboyX
• Wells Fargo

All this attention by big business has unfortunately perpetuated a myth that gays and nearly everyone else who identifies as LGBTQ is affluent, something which is not supported by actual research. As David Rae reported in Forbes.com in April 2020, the reality is that there are more poor queers than rich ones. According to a 2019 Williams Institute analysis, about 22% of LGBTQ adults in the U.S. live in poverty compared to an estimated 16% poverty rate for straight and cisgender Americans. Researchers found U.S. poverty rates of cisgender bisexual women and transgender adults (each 29%) far exceed those of other groups: In particular, Black (40%) and Latinx (45%) trans adults are more likely to live in poverty than trans people of any other race.

For those consumers, the choice is between celebrating Pride with $170+ footwear and putting food on the table for their families.

Giving Back

For that reason and more, Nike is one of the brands that puts a big chunk of the money it earns from its apparel back into the community. In 2021, Nike is donating a total of $625,000 to 18 LGBTQ organizations. According to a statement by Nike, each grant recipient is an organization with a focus on advocacy in sports, creating safe spaces and elevating the history of the LGBTQ community; Several specifically support intersectional communities, including the Human Rights Campaign. “Since 2017, Nike has provided more than $2.8 million in financial and in-kind support to LGBTQIA+ causes to advance inclusion and celebrate the passion and pursuit of sport by all athletes.”

For its part, Puma says 20% of the proceeds from the sales of its Pride collection—with a maximum donation of $500,000—will go to the Cara Delevingne Foundation, a project of the Giving Back Fund in support of LGBTQ charities worldwide.

According to Footwear News, Adidas financially supports Athlete Ally, which champions LGBTQ inclusion in sports, and the U.K. non-profit Stonewall, but those donations are not tied to product sales. The site also reported Reebok is donating $75,000 to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project this Pride Month.

Read about other footwear and apparel brands giving back to the LGBTQ community by clicking here for the full report from Footwear News.

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