My instant reaction is, it isn’t shady cats working the line in the Memphis warehouse taking bribes to send these “A-List” resellers what would essentially amount to stolen goods.
It’s Nike. It’s part of the internal marketing plan. It’s Nike seeding loads of pairs behind the scenes to resellers to drive hype, prices, and perceptions of scarcity and value. It’s an ongoing, long-game brand-building tactic it will never acknowledge due to the backlash it would receive.
These limited-release products aren’t as much about making money on these one-off releases as they are halo products intended to keep the brand in the news, on everyone’s lips, and propping up the brand overall across all of its products and ongoing, more mainstream releases.
It’s plain as day, and we’re seeing it unfold in real time with the IIs: All these collabs and hype leading up to what will be, relatively speaking, a GR release this fall of the actual OG IIs. These tactics have literally just made one of the most unloved, throw-away signature Js—for DECADES—an instant sellout come October. Social media and the new hype culture have changed everything. And these people in Oregon are brilliant at exploiting it.
They publicly act like oh geez, this isn’t what WE want. BS. None of this is happening by accident or off the books by some rogues in a warehouse or factory. Benjamin Kicks practically just admitted it in that post, if you can even remotely read between the lines.
