Racialized Marketing in the Athletic Apparel Industry: The Convergence of Sneaker Promotion and Black Culture in the United States

Abstract

As the United States economy shifted to post-Fordist production models in the late twentieth century, the athletic apparel industry (specifically the brands Nike, Adidas, and Reebok) modified its promotional strategies. Whereas the industry traditionally touted the materiality and functionality of its products, the 1980s saw a substantial increase in marketing that aimed to inculcate products with symbolic characteristics and popular cultural associations. In particular, the industry deployed Black culture, and competed to associate their products with Black athletes, styles, and cultural signifiers. While this modification in promotional tactics yielded unprecedented growth for the industry, the images and messages communicated in this marketing served to exploit Black communities and reinforce the rampant biological and cultural racisms of the Reagan era. Engaging primary accounts from newspapers, magazines, interviews, advertisements, archival catalogues, and oral histories, this paper traces the historical shift towards racialized marketing through the athletic apparel industry’s quintessential commodity: the athletic sneaker. Overall, I argue that scholarly analyses of technology must critically engage how goods are promoted and distributed in order to holistically comprehend the social, cultural, and political implications of sporting technology.