Report: Poll Shows Nike's Colin Kaepernick Ad Hit Target Audience

Nike's ad campaign with Colin Kaepernick hit the company's 18-to-29-year old male target audience.

A new poll shows that Colin Kaepernick's "Just Do It" ad for Nike hit the brand's target audience, while some consumers' thoughts of the company changed, according to ESPN.

The Harris Poll surveyed 2,026 people last week to gather how people perceived Nike after launching the ad with Kaepernick to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the "Just Do It" campaign.

According to results ESPN released from the poll, 17% of people surveyed said they saw Nike "in a negative light." When asked the same question in December 2017, "virtually no one thought of Nike negatively," per ESPN. The number of people who could "imagine living without Nike" dropped from 33% to 24% last week.

ESPN also reports that 21% of people surveyed said they would stop buying Nike products, 19% said they would purchase more from the brand and 29% of 18-to-29-year-old males, Nike's target audience, said they would buy more products.

"Nike took a strategic risk to alienate some customers in order to appeal to their core base of 18-to-29-year old males," John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll, told ESPN. "It was a calculated move to become a more polarizing brand and it seems to have worked."

Out of those that said they would stop wearing Nike, five percent said "they tore the Nike swooshes off their clothing," seven percent said they got rid of their Nike products and 12% told their friends to do the same, reports ESPN.

Nike has not commented on the ad since its debut. Along with billboards in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the ad aired on last Thursday's NFL regular season opener on NBC.