Converse has apologized after viewers compared an advertisement featuring K-pop artist Karina to Ku Klux Klan and lynching imagery. A star-shaped spotlight illuminated her white skirt as she held black sneakers. The company said it had removed the image and ended its statement with a promise: “This should not have happened and we will do better.”
The removal addresses the image already published. The harder question concerns the next decision: what will the organization become capable of recognizing and preventing that it failed to recognize here? A new appointment, training program or approval procedure might help. Choosing one is a start.
In 2012, I argued in The Washington Post that basic market research should have stopped Adidas’s shackle sneaker. The design included ankle cuffs and chains; Adidas canceled its release after comparisons to slavery. Fourteen years later, I am less interested in repeating the advice than in understanding what would make it effective.
What the response leaves unanswered
Professional guidance already exists. The Association of National Advertisers’ ethics code recommends measures including staff training, appropriate stakeholder participation and research drawing on varied backgrounds. These are useful starting points. Their presence in a code leaves open the question of how well an organization applies them.
Previous controversies have also produced concrete responses. After H&M’s 2018 hoodie controversy, South Africa’s Human Rights Commission reported that the retailer had implemented training for office and store managers there. Gucci expanded its Changemakers program after its 2019 sweater controversy, announcing community funding and scholarships.
Balenciaga announced an image board and changes to its content-review process after its 2022 advertising controversy, which included children photographed with teddy-bear bags wearing harness-style accessories. In a subsequent Vogue interview, Demna, then the brand’s creative director, acknowledged that controls had already existed, involving people inside and outside the organization. They “just did not spot what was problematic.”
That admission gives us reason to ask what a review is expected to detect and whether the people conducting it can recognize the problem. An additional approval may help, depending on what it is designed to detect and who is empowered to act. Training, councils and policies may contribute to improvement, but the accounts documenting them do not establish how successfully they prevented subsequent failures.
The authority to act on a concern
For a company promising to improve, the first obligation should be diagnosis. Was relevant knowledge missing? Did someone identify a concern that never reached the decisionmaker? Did the brief exclude an important audience? Was the final image materially different from what had been reviewed? Each answer suggests a different intervention. Selecting a remedy before answering those questions risks investing in the wrong one.
I have worked inside institutions when decisions drew criticism and when a partner’s work needed to be challenged. During one project with an outside partner, I objected to a proposed image because I believed it misrepresented its subject. We were close to publication. I explained the concern and made clear that my organization would distance itself from the project if the image was used. The partner did not use it. Two conditions made that objection actionable: the knowledge to explain how the image misrepresented its subject, and the standing to say what my organization would do about it. Neither is automatic. Both can be built.
That experience is why “understand the context” needs to be specific. Review should examine what the work depicts, alters or leaves out; whether its factual and historical foundations hold; and whose knowledge is needed to judge it. A visual choice can compromise the integrity of a portrayal. Anticipating audience reaction is only part of that assessment.
One intervention does not establish a reliable system. It does show the kind of decision a system should make possible, including when the work comes from a respected partner and publication is imminent. The final version needs to remain open to challenge. Earlier approval cannot settle questions raised by a later change.
Leaders should build informed challenge into how creative work is conceived, developed and approved. That requires clear responsibility, access to relevant expertise and authority to pause or redirect the work. The organization also has to stand behind that authority when acting on a concern means delaying a launch, absorbing additional expense or challenging a valued partner. Representation, research and subject knowledge should inform the review. An employee’s identity cannot make that person responsible for anticipating every reaction from an entire community.
How would we know it worked?
The standard needs limits. No review can guarantee universal approval, and controversial work can be intentional and defensible. I would ask whether the organization is becoming better at identifying reasonably foreseeable, consequential problems while there is still time to address them. For a global brand, that assessment should consider audiences beyond the original market.
That gives improvement something to be measured against. If the weakness was cultural or subject knowledge, test whether reviewers recognize relevant risks in unfamiliar material. Replaying the advertisement that caused the crisis proves very little; everyone now knows the answer. Use realistic examples and criteria established beforehand, compare results with an initial assessment, and examine whether reviewers can distinguish a substantive concern from an unconventional idea that deserves to proceed.
If the weakness was escalation, examine subsequent campaign decisions. Were concerns raised before production or publication? Did they reach someone empowered to act? What changed because they did? I would treat a sample reviewed by someone independent of the campaign team as stronger evidence than a count of employees who completed training.
Outcomes matter, too, but “no more controversy” is a poor measure on its own. Fewer complaints could reflect fewer campaigns or less attention. A later, unrelated controversy would not automatically invalidate an earlier remedy. The relevant question is whether comparable failures become less frequent or severe across comparable work, with evidence that the revised practice contributed.
Making commitments checkable
Outside scrutiny can make commitments more concrete. Prada’s 2020 settlement with New York City’s Commission on Human Rights, following its Pradamalia merchandise controversy, required a senior officer to review its advertising and products sold in the United States. It also required the company to maintain its advisory council for at least six years, report on its progress and submit to two years of monitoring. The same Commission reached an agreement with Gucci in December 2020 requiring training for its New York City employees, continued consultation with community leaders and experts, and updates to the Commission on its progress. Those obligations made implementation more checkable. They did not themselves prove that creative judgment improved.
A public account of improvement should make that distinction. State what changed, what has been assessed, what the evidence supports and what remains uncertain. A company need not have all those answers in its first apology. It should be able to explain what it is investigating and when it will report back.
What survives after the pressure passes
Durability belongs in the assessment. Does the relevant expertise remain available when budgets tighten? Does the authority to challenge work survive a leadership change? Is the practice still used across later campaign cycles? A program can evolve or be replaced; the capability it was meant to develop should remain. Otherwise, the company has demonstrated a temporary response to pressure.
This raises a question for the profession as well: which corrective measures have proved useful enough for other organizations to adopt? Agencies, associations and marketing schools should follow the remedies beyond their announcement, examining what improved decisions, what proved insufficient and what others can use. Individual companies remain responsible for their own work, including whether they learn from failures elsewhere.
Converse should be judged on what changes in its own work and whether those changes endure after the immediate pressure passes. Some of the most consequential decisions may never become a public story: an image withheld, a partner challenged, a concern resolved while the work could still change. Doing better should mean that its next audience benefits from what the company learned without having to teach it again.
S O U R C E S
Association of National Advertisers. “ANA Ethics Code of Marketing Best Practices.” Section 3, “Inclusive Marketing Principles.”
https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/accountability-ethics-code
GQ. “Gucci Announces Sweeping Program to Combat Racism in Fashion.”
https://www.gq.com/story/gucci-changemakers
New York City Commission on Human Rights. “2020 Settlement Highlights.” Prada entry under February; Gucci entry under December.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/enforcement/2020-settlements.page
NPR, published by KUER. “Adidas Cancels Its ‘Shackle Shoes.’”
https://www.kuer.org/2012-06-19/adidas-cancels-its-shackle-shoes
People. “Converse Apologizes for ‘Deeply Upsetting’ Sneakers Ad with Imagery Likened to the KKK and Lynching.”
https://people.com/converse-apologizes-for-deeply-upsetting-sneakers-ad-12128977
South African Human Rights Commission. “Media Statement: SAHRC Provides Feedback on Progress by H&M on Diversity and Inclusiveness Programme.”
https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news-2/item/1594-media-statement-sahrc-provides-feedback-on-progress-by-h-m-on-diversity-and-inclusiveness-programme
Vogue. “Demna on the Record: The Balenciaga Designer on the Brand’s Controversy and His Path Forward.”
https://www.vogue.com/article/demna-addresses-balenciaga-controversy
Vogue Business. “Balenciaga drops lawsuit, Demna apologises amid campaign controversy.”
https://www.vogue.com/article/balenciaga-drops-lawsuit-demna-apologises-amid-campaign-controversy
The Washington Post. “Business advice: Lessons in social responsibility from the Adidas ‘shackle shoe.’”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/business-advice-lessons-in-social-responsibility-from-the-adidas-shackle-shoe/2012/06/26/gJQAvWG44V_story.html
Editorial note: This essay was written by Shrita Hernandez and edited with the assistance of AI. The argument, analysis, and final judgment are the author’s own.