Blackspotsneaker

September 11, 2003 10:29 AM

BlackSpotSneaker:Adbusters aims to take on Nike at their own game, by selling unionized, fair wage sneakers with the hopes of gaining marketshare that rival's Nike's multimillion dollar ad machine.
posted by mathowie (60 comments total)

If the drawing is correct they look like $60 low top Chuck Taylors. If they promise that the rendered blood will be made of the same molded rubber I would certainly have a go at them despite the lack of bargin involved.
posted by thirteen at 10:36 AM on September 11, 2003

This is a ground-breaking marketing scheme to uncool Nike. If it succeeds, it will set a precedent that will revolutionize capitalism.

That reads like fine parody.
posted by xmutex at 10:43 AM on September 11, 2003

I hope they do build to order shoes like Nike, so I can have a pair made up that are embroidered with "middle america will never understand my over-the-top diatribes."
posted by machaus at 10:43 AM on September 11, 2003

Matt, I'm glad you posted this. I've been agonizing over it, but I couldn't find a way to word it to prevent the eventual pile-on.

If the drawing is correct they look like $60 low top Chuck Taylors.

Absolutely. Made in a Union shop in Korea. Designed for only one thing: Kicking Phil's ass.

Preorders:

[e-mail]
posted by Shane at 10:48 AM on September 11, 2003

Oh, and, accusations of viral marketing are a good thing in this case, IMO.
posted by Shane at 10:51 AM on September 11, 2003

I like the idea in the sense that the public will choose if they want to wear a Nike or the Blackspot. I don't like the anticapitalism resentment, though. I'd rather have Nike progressively improve the working and payment conditions of its employees (and they have been doing just that ) than call for the banishment of a successful enterprise.

- Adbust Nike billboards in your vicinity

That's a crime, you know.
posted by 111 at 10:52 AM on September 11, 2003

Are a good thing because it's something you support?

Whatever.
posted by xmutex at 10:52 AM on September 11, 2003

Adbuster's marketing strategy = If you can't beat 'em, join 'em
posted by Down10 at 10:54 AM on September 11, 2003

I prefer this form of activism to the useless culture-jamming and wheatpasting. It's about time there was a concentrated effort to beat Nike at capitalism rather than in some misguided "recapture the streets" hoo-ha. I wish them well.
posted by Succa at 10:56 AM on September 11, 2003

Yep, normal hand-waving, brow-furrowed, excited, incredible AdBusters prose coupled with a lame idea and absolutely no chance of follow-through.
posted by jon_kill at 10:58 AM on September 11, 2003

How can you have a brand that's an "unbrand?" It's cool that they're using fair labor and all that, but it's so ironic it hurts. I guess making fun of ads isn't very profitable.
posted by agregoli at 10:58 AM on September 11, 2003

Great idea. You can't expect consumers to make ethical decisions if they don't have ethical options. It's even hard to make fun of, as the unfunny rips in this thread illustrate.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:02 AM on September 11, 2003

Embarassing words and phrases peppered throughout:

• Subvertisements
• Rethink the Cool (some sort of slogan, apparently)
• Jam Niketown
• Mindfuck marketing
• Unswoosher
• Launch the blackSpot revolution (to be coupled with some sort of redDot? I'm confused)
• Uncool (as a verb)
• Final challenge

Any one of these is enough to make an intelligent person cringe. You'd think AdBusters would figure that out.
posted by jon_kill at 11:05 AM on September 11, 2003

I predict these will be a huge hit, because there's nothing kids find cooler than sneakers made by unionized South Koreans!
posted by kindall at 11:07 AM on September 11, 2003

To quote a friend of mine from a long time ago, Adbusters seems to be (again) strategically bankrupt. I don't see this going anywhere.
Do they really even believe their own market share graph?? 10% in three years? Have they thought about the infrastructure necessary to fufill 10% of the athletic (?) shoe market?
posted by sinical at 11:08 AM on September 11, 2003

Shane, you seem to know whats what. Will the shoes have stylish blood on them?


I prefer this form of activism to the useless culture-jamming and wheatpasting. It's about time there was a concentrated effort to beat Nike at capitalism rather than in some misguided "recapture the streets" hoo-ha. I wish them well.

Succa knows all, tells all. I agree.
posted by thirteen at 11:09 AM on September 11, 2003

Like dudes you totall buy this shit and man if enough you dudes buy this it'll like fuck Nike beyond fucking believe dude; we'll smash the mother-effin machine and dude we'll totally, like, win. IT'S A WAR!!!@#!@ OMG!@##@
posted by xmutex at 11:10 AM on September 11, 2003

I predict these will be a huge hit, because there's nothing kids find cooler than sneakers made by unionized South Koreans!

Yeah, haha, all the kids in my local coffeeshop are hyped about these!

Waitaminnit, that's what Adbusters wants...
posted by Shane at 11:12 AM on September 11, 2003

I ordered a pair.
posted by spork at 11:18 AM on September 11, 2003

damn...some bitter farts in here...cynical to boot...at the very least, employing unionized workers is a good thing, as is giving people clear moral choices for their consumption decisions.

i pre-ordered mine (but the 499 number did not change).
posted by mapalm at 11:18 AM on September 11, 2003

I find their choice of South Korea uninspiring. If they intend to get 10% market share based on pity, they're gonna have to do better than that. North Korea, maybe...
posted by dougb at 11:19 AM on September 11, 2003

Another day, another AdBusters attempt to revolutionize capitalism.
posted by aladfar at 11:19 AM on September 11, 2003

Any one of these is enough to make an intelligent person cringe. You'd thinkAdBusters would figure that out.


Exactly. If I didn't know who was behind this I would have figured that this came right out of the marketing department of some clueless multi-national firm trying to be "hip."
posted by gyc at 11:21 AM on September 11, 2003

Uh-huh. Fight the power I guess.
posted by Yossarian at 11:23 AM on September 11, 2003

Doesn't this all seem like part of their black spot/dot campaign that was supposed to smear the nerve centers of capitalism, or some such nonsense? I hope they didn't smear them too much, or they might not be able to bring these shoes to market.

Actually, doesn't this seem more like one of those plans you had for your big sister's slumber party where you were gone totally run in and scare them with the fake spider?
posted by jon_kill at 11:25 AM on September 11, 2003

They should just post the design, material list, and fabrication instructions, and skip the factory production. As the 'busters say themselves, "Making a shoe - a good shoe - isn't exactly rocket science."
posted by jsonic at 11:26 AM on September 11, 2003

we'll smash the mother-effin machine and dude we'll totally, like, win.

OK, this was kind of funny. But really, I think this stands above most of adbusters efforts (which I find more clever than salient). How can selling shoes be called anti-capitalist? How can you knock the notion of greater consumer choice?

This goes to show that a lot of the people who always talk about the prescience of market capitalism--and its ability to solve all our problems--are full of shit when they talk about the market proposing alternatives. Are you actually in favor of sweatshop labor? It's like the people who talk about how the government shouldn't deal with poverty, the market should, and then live in a fenced-off castle and step on the accelerator whenever they see a poor person standing nearby.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:26 AM on September 11, 2003

Adbusters has been doing the same shit every day for 10 freaking years and it's still boring. Why is it that a few people in new york can put out a much more compelling magazine about essentially the same topic for a smidgen of the cost and a fraction of the annoying factor?
posted by dobbs at 11:30 AM on September 11, 2003

Adbusters are to advertising what ex-smokers are to non-smoking.

For once, I must say: I think I agree with 111.

I reckon there's just a teeny bit of irony in an organisation that's against mindless consumerism launching its own products, which are explicitly sold with a value proposition ("Be cool! Hurt Nike") other than their ostensible purpose ("shelter for your feet").

Hm. Shelter for your feet. Excuse me, I have to ring my agency...
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:22 PM on September 11, 2003

If these guys really want to change the world for the better, they should just quitely go about making a good, ethically manufactured shoe, and nip all of the anti-corporate rhetoric in the bud.

No shoe company should own a 10% market share. No company should.
posted by Pinwheel at 12:25 PM on September 11, 2003

Well, see, the Stayfree folks don't have the brand recognition, the marketing clout or the distribution to compete effectively. There may be irony in there somewhere, I can't tell.

They should just post the design, material list, and fabrication instructions, and skip the factory production.

I don't think an open-source approach like that will have too much effect, for two reasons:

- Building your own shoes requires labour. Even if the expertise is trivial, most people won't be willing to bother.

- Economies of scale. There's probably only a couple of bucks worth of rubber, plastic and leather in your Air Jordans at the price Nike pays, but could you even buy one pair's worth of materials? And if so, how much more would you wind up paying?

If you could conquer those two problems--and #1 is probably the hardest--then you'd scare the bejeesus out of Nike, et al. But even then, they'd still be in business, and probably wouldn't take a close look at their own ethics. Witness Microsoft vs Linux, for example.
posted by arto at 12:30 PM on September 11, 2003

"The swoosh versus the anti-swoosh. Which side are you on?" We're choosing sides now? Says who? No way. They're both poor excuses for shoes. "Unfortunately, too many shoe stores are primarily interested in sales figures, and lack basic insight into what they are selling... Keep in mind that neither the expensive price nor the latest design, are any guarantee that the shoes are 'best': famous brands do not always ensure highest quality!"
posted by ZachsMind at 12:31 PM on September 11, 2003

Adbusters' Black Spot campaign lost any shred of sympathy or interest I had when they, or one of their supporters, started spamming their press-release across Usenet.
posted by Hogshead at 12:35 PM on September 11, 2003

I'd rather have Nike progressively improve the working and payment conditions of its employees (and they have been doing just that ) than call for the banishment of a successful enterprise.

Actually, Nike has been successfully giving the appearance of improving worker conditions with very little real effects at all. NOW had a segment on labor in Thailand that talked a bit about Nike. Apparently, the changes include a requirement that every worker have a card stating their rights in English, which, if lost, they must pay 2 days worth of labor to replace. The new regulations are occasionally checked on, but the owners of the plants train employees to lie to inspectors, with the threat that if the contract is lost, then the workers will all be out of their jobs. Meanwhile, Nike and other corporations are turning more and more to 'home work,' where a middle man gives labor to women to take home, such as assembling shoes. These women get paid even less than they would at the factory.

So nice of the market to make everything right and good.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:53 PM on September 11, 2003

Pre-ordered mine. Sixty bucks is cheap for a slice o' performance art.
posted by me3dia at 12:54 PM on September 11, 2003

SharkJordans for $55 dollars. Hand made by schizophrenic dyslexic homeless Peruvians. No two pairs even remotely similar.
posted by sharksandwich at 12:58 PM on September 11, 2003

re: the shoes
of course it's impossible to organize a grassroots movement and "kick phil knight's ass". it's not like nike spends hundreds of millions in PR/endorsement deals/advertising budgets just because they have some spare money -- thriving (or at least surviving) in the sneaker market is very expensive business
but old soixante-huitard Kalle Lasn seems to remember very well that little slogan about demanding the impossible, or at least dreaming it
not to mention that Adbusters won't even need to make a single pair of Blackspots -- if they get a good number of pre-orders, the point's already madde. people are willing to buy shoes they've never seen, with a very plain logo and no brand name recognition, only to avoid sweatshop-made stuff

re: adbusters
as a magazine, the graphics are still interesting after all these issues (and it's not that easy to put out a glossy magazine with almost no text, month after month, about the same, very interesting but pretty narrow topic -- i.e., logos are bad, ads fuck with your brain, globalization sucks)

also, it's amazing how this allegedely radical, communistic, treasonous community routinely hates adbusters ideas, and -- thread after thread -- does not seem to mind too much issues like sweatshops and unfair trade. once again, one is appalled by what would happen if our resident Conservatives (or suburban progressives) actually met some hard-asssed, European anarchists or Leninists or -- God forbid -- squatters. defibrillators (not to mention garlic) would probably be needed

It's kind of healthy to try to remember that sweatshops are not only a Third World problem -- America herself is not sweatshop free today. Nor, of course, she was in the past : (Furman Owens, 12 years old. Can't read. Doesn't know his A,B,C's. Said, "Yes I want to learn but can't when I work all the time." Been in the mills 4 years, 3 years in the Olympia Mill. Columbia, S.C)

111 wrote: "I'd rather have Nike progressively improve the working and payment conditions of its employees (and they have been doing just that ) than call for the banishment of a successful enterprise. "
heh. "The executive director of Global Exchange, a San Francisco labor rights group, agreed. "Nike has been desperately trying to free itself from being the poster child for sweatshops," Medea Benjamin said. "Instead of putting resources into workers' salaries and independent monitoring, they put them into a PR scam."
by the way, do you expect Exxon to wean us from the dangerous addiction to Saudi oil?

fair trade, anybody?
posted by matteo at 1:11 PM on September 11, 2003

I'd buy them if they were good shoes. [shrug] I don't take much stock in advertising one way or another. I don't buy shoes to make statements other than "I finally got a new pair of shoes." I do object to nike's advertising on the grounds that it annoys me, but it does so in exactly the same measure if not method of the BlackDot shoe. Subvert the dominant paradigm? Whatever. Just gimme the damn shoe, for christ's sake. I'd be happier with them if they simply sold the shoe with NO marketing, ala Jones Soda, or were slyly making fun of advertising, like I HOPE this is...
posted by hoborg at 1:23 PM on September 11, 2003

re: adbusters
as a magazine, the graphics are still interesting after all these issues

I have to agree. I have bought AdBusters a couple of times, which is ironic as it is an expensive magazine about NOT buying things. Also, its short slogans and sound-bites smack distinctly of the advertising it condemns. For me, buying AdBusters is also exactly the type of impulse purchase that most consumers are frequently guilty of; yet I rarely buy anything on impulse or without a plan.

I find this irony and contradiction pleasant.
posted by Shane at 1:40 PM on September 11, 2003

I pre-ordered a pair. Not because I want to hurt Nike, but because it's damned hard to find shoes that are made in a manner that I find ethically suitable.

And maybe I'm just a shoe snob, but $60 for shoes seems damned reasonable to me.
posted by mosch at 2:12 PM on September 11, 2003

I keep waiting for a non-profit organization whose public service is: to provide good consumer products at the lowest possible price.

Manufacturing is about improving the product and streamlining the process, year after year. Imagine if every penny saved by improving the process went straight to a price reduction for the customer, and the only design goal was to make a decent product while keeping costs down.

Cars are the obvious example. Given the number of years manufacturers have been tackling the cost of production, cars should cost $5000. They don't, because manufacturers continue to redesign them and add new features. I'd bet, though, that there are a lot of people out there who would simply like a $5000 car that works.

Design it, make it, and sell it for 40 years without a redesign, I say. As long as it works.

Unfortunately, manufacturing requires significant captial investment. I certainly don't have the cash to start an auto plant. Nor does anyone else who's willing to take a chance on a real public service, apparently.

And consumers respond to marketing. If Adbusters manages to make a great shoe at a competitive price, they will still have to go to the lengths required to meet fashion demands, convincing people their product is the coolest shoe out there.

At that point, they may very well find their own costs as high as Nike's, and the temptation to use cheap labor will start to creep in.

Anything fashion-related sounds like a bad pilot for this.
posted by scarabic at 2:30 PM on September 11, 2003

I'm not a shoe connoisseur, but isn't there some sort of honest, hard-working, sweatshop-free underdog of the shoe-manufacturing world that AdBusters could throw their support behind instead of trying to reinvent shoes themselves?
posted by mmoncur at 2:45 PM on September 11, 2003

kaibutsu and matteo, of course people will keep pushing Nike in order to improve working conditions etc etc. But to pretend that nothing has been achieved or that Nike is only spending money in a "PR scam" is a bit of a stretch perhaps. It's the clueless "nothing corporations do is ever right" rhetoric, and people see through it.

Although corporate responsibility is an important aspect of business, Nike is in Indonesia, Pakistan etc to make a profit, not to colonize them or normalize the labor and social relations of those countries.

Anyway: the public now has yet one more choice. If you really consider Nike's presence, investment and offer of jobs in those nations to be a bad thing, don't buy Nike. But don't blame it for working as a capitalist organization trying to adapt to the already existing conditions in developing countries.

Thinking in terms of outdated, marxist falsehoods such as the tribal (formerly "asiatic") mode of production vs absolute and relative surplus values strikes me as a gross, vulgar overestimation of manual labor and a surefire way of misleading the poor into believing that they can earn high salaries simply by vilifying corporations.
posted by 111 at 3:03 PM on September 11, 2003

I'm not a shoe connoisseur, but isn't there some sort of honest, hard-working, sweatshop-free underdog of the shoe-manufacturing world that AdBusters could throw their support behind instead of trying to reinvent shoes themselves?

I don't think there is. That's their point, after all.

And yes, 111, not liking sweatshops makes one a Marxist. I think slavery is wrong, but only because Franz Fanon told me so.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 3:12 PM on September 11, 2003

It's the clueless "nothing corporations do is ever right" rhetoric, and people see through it.

vs.

don't blame it for working as a capitalist organization trying to adapt to the already existing conditions in developing countries

Okay, 111, pick one. Can/should/does Nike apply ethics to its offshore operations or not? You sound confused about whether corporations ought to have moral standards, or simply pursue business goals dispassionately.

I also think you're overestimating how much progress they've made in changing the work practices of their off shore subcontractors. I watched a lengthy KQED documentary about this last week, and it sounds like they've done some cursory surveys, and instituted some "guidelines" and "inspections" but have had little actual impact on the overtime pay, child labor & safety conditions of their subcontractors.
posted by scarabic at 3:24 PM on September 11, 2003

1. Who is gonna buy a shoe without at least seeing a better rendering of what the finished product will look like? Nobody but self-righteous gasbags who get on my case about owning multiple pairs of Dunks.

2. As much as I loathe Adbusters, this isn't a bad idea. IF ONLY it was somebody else besides Adbusters making the shoes.
posted by monkeymike at 3:47 PM on September 11, 2003

self-righteous gasbags

You called...? Oh! Yea, man, go cut up those Dunks! Geez, ya slavemaster...

Couldn't agree more with #2. If Adbusters blows any harder, they're going to lose vein in the forehead.
posted by scarabic at 4:11 PM on September 11, 2003

And yes, 111, not liking sweatshops makes one a Marxist.

Ignatius Reilly, I do not doubt it makes you a marxist or a communist sympathizer, but that's your problem. The roots of anti-globalization leftspeak and leftthink must always be denounced and highlighted in order to allow people the right to make informed choices.

Okay, 111, pick one. Can/should/does Nike apply ethics to its offshore operations or not? You sound confused about whether corporations ought to have moral standards, or simply pursue business goals dispassionately.

scarabic, Nike does apply ethics to its offshore operations. It could and probably will keep improving salaries and whatnot, but it cannot and will not turn Indonesia into Sweden overnight.

Moral standards differ widely; personally, I consider industriousness, honest ambition and the pursuit of profit and improvement deeply moral tenets. Corporations have employees, not slaves, and it's in their interest to keep ameliorating working conditions and conform to the ILO conventions, but corporations will not bear the burden of historical poverty, low productivity and bad governance.
posted by 111 at 4:11 PM on September 11, 2003

What? They couldn't find an American Union factory to make them? I can find a dozen empty factories that could be retooled to make these things...doing it in South Korea just adds to the globalization problem, doesn't it?
posted by nyxxxx at 4:12 PM on September 11, 2003

What? They couldn't find an American Union factory to make them?
Anyone have an idle guess how much those would cost?
posted by thirteen at 4:30 PM on September 11, 2003

111: Your laughable estimation of my fictional political leanings does not bother me. What does bother me--to the extent that you are a person with whom I come into contact on a community website and with whom I ought to be able to achieve some decorum or civility--is the clear implication that I am too much of a pussy to admit to my real opinions. I assure you that the only reason I am not singing the Internationale is that I am (get ready for this shocker) not a communist. Either point out an instance in which I have been afraid to voice 100% of my gut on a given matter or get a new dead horse to beat. You might hide behind a non-existent e-mail address and a thick layer of angry platitude, but don't assume that anyone else is as intellectually weak as yourself.

I want to apologize to everyone for taking 111's troll bait. For that lapse of judgment, I deserve to give up my autographed photo of Stalin American baseball cards.

/puts on Woody Guthrie record, cracks open Marx-Engels Reader, fellates Walt Whitman.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 4:54 PM on September 11, 2003

The Media Foundation may have gotten a little too big for its britches over the years--expanding its focus too broadly, that is. (The recent "Nghtmares of Reason" issue of Adbusters was particulary disappointing.) But this is exactly in line with what they've been doing all along. Attempting to use the tools of the trade against the trade (e.g., TV ads about media literacy). The sneaks just take it a little beyond positive propaganda/design/writing to action--albeit consumerist action. That's kinda the point. Good for them. More fair trade choices in the marketplace? Great.

Oh, and BTW, remember this classic from The Onion?
posted by micropublishery at 5:09 PM on September 11, 2003

I appreciate the response, 111.

Nike does apply ethics to its offshore operations. It could and probably will keep improving salaries and whatnot, but it cannot and will not turn Indonesia into Sweden overnight.

They've made an effort. It's not clear they've made a difference.

You're right, they're not going to turn Indonesia into Sweden overnight. But they don't have to do business in Indonesia.

Remember why this is even on Nike's radar: not because they're breaking Indonesian law, but because American customers want American values to prevail in the global factories that are producing products for them.

I think I'm agreeing with you in saying that Nike doesn't do anything illegal, perhaps not even immoral, but that they are under political pressure to be more humane. The only reason to apply this pressure is in the human interests of the workers in those countries. Good enough for me. I don't wear their stuff.
posted by scarabic at 5:15 PM on September 11, 2003

Price Make-up of a US$ 100 Sport Shoe
Made in Indonesia

nike faq
Where does Nike produce its shoes?

During the 1970's, most Nike shoes were made in South Korea and Taiwan. When workers there gained new freedom to organize and wages began to rise, Nike looked for "greener pastures." It found them in Indonesia, China, and most recently Vietnam--countries where protective labor laws are poorly enforced and cheap labor is abundant. Also in China and Vietnam, the law prohibits workers from forming independent trade unions. This was also true in Indonesia until 1998, when dictator General Suharto was overthrown. These three countries continue to be the major places where Nike shoes are made.

Does Nike run its own factories?

No, Nike does not own any of the factories where its shoes are produced; it contracts the work to various factory owners. Nike say it is in the business of "marketing" shoes, not making them. However, Nike dictates the terms to the contractor: the design, the materials, the price it will pay. While companies like Nike used to try to avoid responsibility for factory conditions by saying they were "just the buyer," the anti-sweatshop movement has made this excuse unacceptable and forced the retailers—who are, after all, the ones who make the greatest profit—take responsibility for the workers who make their products.

Why pick on Nike, if other shoe companies are just as bad?

First of all, we heard many, many complaints from Nike workers and local labor groups. The AFL-CIO office in Indonesia, for example, said that Nike factory workers filed more complaints about wage violations than any other shoe company. In the first two years that Nike was in Vietnam, one factory official was convicted of physically abusing workers, another fled the country during a police investigation of sexual abuse charges and a third was under indictment for abusing workers, as reported in The New York Times.

Secondly, it's important to pick a company that can afford the cost of improvements. Nike is so profitable and sells its shoes for such high prices that it can well afford to double the workers' wages without increasing the retail price.



and of course, the Miami Herald's investigation on Florida farmhands

Florida is America's second-richest agricultural state. But for the farmhands who labor along the lowest rung of the food chain, the riches are a mirage.

Their world is filled with sweatshop hours, slum housing, poverty pay and criminal abuse. At its extreme, it includes modern-day slavery in a state where oranges adorn license plates and tourists pull in for a free cup of juice when they cross the border.

The brutality in North Florida has an unusual, bitter twist, a Herald examination has found. While most farmworkers in Florida and nationwide are undocumented Mexicans who have trekked through the desert in search of fortune, the laborers who toil unnoticed in hamlets like East Palatka and Hastings are mostly poor black Americans.

They are recruited by crew-chief contractors who serve as middlemen between the farmers who grow crops and the laborers who pick, package and sort them. These bosses can control nearly every aspect of the workers' lives: their housing, their food, their transportation and even their paycheck.

In interviews with The Herald, farmworkers told harrowing stories of life in a hot stretch of North Florida farm country that welcomes passersby with signs saying ''Jesus is Lord, Welcome to Hastings'' and ``Florida's Potato Capital.''

Many were recruited from gathering spots for the homeless -- soup kitchens, parks and shelters in Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa. They say they were lured with vows of good pay, sprinkled with promises of partying and $15 in cash when they reached the farm.

What they didn't know: They would live in slum housing, work long hours for scant pay, and, in several cases, have to pay back $1 of interest for most every $1 loaned to them to buy food -- including the $15 that first lured them into the van.

posted by matteo at 6:08 PM on September 11, 2003

sorry, the first link is wrong:

here it is:


Price Makeup of a 100 $ Made in Indonesia Sport Shoe
posted by matteo at 6:13 PM on September 11, 2003

I'm kinda astounded that any of you can even consider ordering a shoe online that you've never seen before. Maybe it's just me, but I find shoe buying an agonizing process of searching for a shoe that a) doesn't look hideous (something that's harder and harder these days), and b) actually fits my foot. Given that every company seems to make shoes slightly different sizes, the idea of buying a shoe sight unseen is just absolutely astounding to me. Heck, I'm badly overdue on buying a new pair of shoes right now because I find the process so annoying.

Now, admittadly, it really doesn't help that I really need a 12.5, and most stores don't carry half sizes above 12, but I really can't be the only one out there that finds getting a shoe that fits comfortably to be a tough process.
posted by piper28 at 10:48 PM on September 11, 2003

piper28, apparently, to some people, AdBusters is a well-established and trusted brand, to some other people it's the opposite, to most people it's "who?" ...and stop bragging about your big feet.
posted by wendell at 11:32 PM on September 11, 2003

Not precisely a new idea. This has been around for a long time :Customatix

From their company info :

"CMAX can't do much about the decadence in the valley; but we can, and are, doing something about the working conditions for the shoe crafters who make your shoes. CMAX has signed an exclusive manufacturing agreement with Dean Shoes Company, a Taiwanese shoe manufacturer with facilities in Taiwan, China, and Vietnam. While ensuring that our shoes/your shoes, will be built exclusively in a state-of-the-art factory in Shenzhen, China, this relationship also guarantees the worker's environment and compensation will be sane and legitimate. "

I have read excellent reviews of their footwear. The above may or may not be true, but I offer it nonetheless for information's sake.

With regard to the whole 'union workers in South Korea' thing, I have some serious doubts there. Very few shoes are actually made in Korea anymore, and the ones that are usually made in factories employing migrant 'guest workers' from China and South East Asia who are often treated more or less like slaves. Contracts, from Nike and otherwise, to produce sneakers are taken by Korean middlemen - legendary for their greed and rapaciousness - who then contract for cheap labour in factories in places like China and the Philippines, taking a cut in the process and further squeezing down the wages received on the factory floor. This is a way for the multinationals to deny that they directly employ people at slave wages - they merely contract to the middlemen, who do all the dirty work.

'Union workers in South Korea' sounds like bullshit to me, but I may be wrong.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:48 AM on September 12, 2003

Just buy New Balance. They're much better quality shoes, similarly priced, made by a domestic workforce.
posted by jonvaughan at 4:59 AM on September 12, 2003

Well, I saw my first spam about this today. Whatever else I might think about the idea, using spam to promote it immediately files it under idiotic.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:24 AM on September 14, 2003