I have referenced this early-January-2021 act of public fluffing from Forbes several times since then (here, here, and here for example) but I will reproduce is here once again for convenience:
DISPATCHES FROM FORBES’ ‘CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER AND EDITOR’: Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists above, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet. Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away.
[Emphasis added]
Well, he did just say “biggest” and not “most commendable” or anything pointing to a figure of merit that hints as quality or honor. In which case, maybe he and I can agree that they are just the biggest whore/fluffer in the bunch. (As I said back in early 2021 on this topic: It should be shocking to you that the chest thumping threats from Forbes above are not already their standard practice in doing their job. Maybe that touted “brand” is just a bunch of fluff. From this point on, I guess I am forced to consider Forbes nothing but a bunch of fluffers.)
It’s no secret that Forbes magazine has largely betrayed its capitalist foundation by becoming a megaphone for some of the most vile left-wing, cultural Marxist tripe in the media ecosphere. But a new scandal did show that its top leadership didn’t completely abandon free markets when it suited their own interests.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane was fired after “the company discovered that he had received a payment of about $6 million from the founder of a firm that does business with the magazine.”
The author cites this as a “duplicitous violation of journalistic ethics” but, again, I see this at nothing more than “consistent execution under the ethics of media whoredom.” But I will say that it does surprise me just how easily so many companies have voluntarily flushed those carefully crafted brands down the crapper during this Era of Intellectual Unseriousness in America. Target did a fairly good job of it a decade ago…I cannot tell you if they have recovered or not since I no longer do business with them and no longer take any notice of them at all. Alas, here is another one from recent headlines that fell off my consumer radar long ago…but an interesting demise just the same:
Nike stock fell to a 12-year low Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, closing at $40.18 — nearly 80% below its all-time high of $177.51, reached in November 2021. …
What makes Nike’s unraveling especially striking, however, is that it was predictable. In fact, the warning signs were identified five years ago — not by a Wall Street analyst or retail industry expert, but by sports writer Ethan Strauss, who recognized a dramatic shift in Nike’s once-iconic advertising.
“Michael Jordan’s commercials were so good that, as he nears age 60, his sneaker still outsells any modern athlete’s.” … The newer ads focused on social activism, identity politics, and progressive cultural messaging. They delivered political and social messages. He pointed to Nike soccer advertisements rejecting “toxic masculinity,” a Euro Cup campaign emphasizing inclusion and social causes, and basketball advertising celebrating women partly by denigrating men. His contention is that Nike had stopped “marketing greatness” and begun “marketing resentful insecurity.”
Nike’s story has become a case study in the oft-repeated maxim, “Get woke, go broke.”
In 2018, NIKE made an abrupt pivot into woke marketing.
They tried to make a hero out of Colin Kaepernick for disrespecting the American flag.
They paid Kaepernick a staggering $25M and dished out a fully guaranteed multi-year contract.
In 2018, NIKE made an abrupt pivot into woke marketing.
They tried to make a hero out of Colin Kaepernick for disrespecting the American flag.
They paid Kaepernick a staggering $25M and dished out a fully guaranteed multi-year contract.
The message was loud and clear: if you hate America, NIKE wants you repping their gear.
By 2020, NIKE was all in on woke. Giving executive positions to DEI hires and making marketing campaigns that resembled Bernie Sanders campaign events.
Tragically, they forgot Michael Jordan’s sage advice: Republicans buy sneakers, too.
Nike’s executives watched in horror as their stock prices systematically collapsed.
Nike became a a bigger cautionary tale of woke marketing than Bud Light.
Today, Nike’s demise culminated in a mind blowing 77% collapse in less than 5 years.
A once iconic American company is now on life support as Republicans sit back and laugh.
Nike went woke. Now they’re broke.
And they richly deserve every single bit of it.
Again, more than a decade in the making…deserved and unsurprising. The more interesting side of this is the cases of brand suicide emerging now as the tide of woke-ism is clearly going out. I suspect that is due to the rot and structural weakening within corporate leadership organizational charts…another of my pet topics…and one that will take decades to correct (if it ever does). But I will leave that diatribe for another time.
the philo t. custis institute 