Colin Kaepernick and Nike | The Innovator 25 Asia Pacific 2018
Innovator 25 NA Colin Kaepernick

Colin Kaepernick and Nike 

Football player/activist and sports retailer

In a polarized world that increasingly requires brands to take sides, it is hardly surprising that Nike — with its reputation for standing for something more than just selling running shoes — has gone bold in making Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback whose on-field protest against racial injustice launched the “take a knee movement,” the face of its latest high-profile ad campaign. “If people say your dreams are crazy, if they laugh at what you think you can do, OK, stay that way because what nonbelievers fail to understand is that calling a dream crazy is not an insult. It’s a compliment,” Kaepernick says to open the Nike spot.