The partnership between Adidas and West has been terminated

Adidas Dissolving the Relationship with Ye: An Example of How to Never Veterate a Celebrity and How to Avoid Disturbing It

Adidas put a partnership under review in October after he wore a white Lives Matter T-shirt. The phrase is used by White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Adidas moving away from Ye is his latest fallout in the business world since he began unleashing his inflammatory comments. Creative Artists Agency dumped him, too, after the fashion house ended its relationship with him.

Adidas has partnered with West since 2013, when the company signed his brand away from rival Nike. In 2016 Adidas expanded its relationship with the rapper and it was dubbed the most significant partnership ever between a non-athletes and an athletic brand.

Shares of Adidas fell about 5% in Frankfurt. Adidas said it will release additional information about the financial implications of dissolving its partnership with Ye in its upcoming earnings report on November 9.

There is a growing list of brands that distance themselves from West. Balenciaga and Vogue publicly cut ties last week, and on Monday, talent agency CAA dropped West as a client. A documentary about West is being put off by the production company.

The story of Ye is an example of how vetting celebrities should be done and how to avoid those who are controversial or unstable.

There’s room for tension in fashion but it has to never cross the line of decency and basic respect for humanity. Companies or brands that fail to heed this will get stung, especially if they become overly reliant on a difficult personality to drive their business,” he added.

The Adidas-Adi-Puma Deal – A Possible Way to Distain the Corporate World: Comments on “Ye’s Recent Discourses”

The rap superstar’s partnership with German sportswear giant helped make him a billionaire and vaulted his brand to a global audience.

“Ye’s recent comments and actions violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” the company said in a statement.

The company is the latest to shun Ye after a string of remarks, including that slave trade was a choice and that he would rather his kids didn’t know Hanukkah in the first place.

Brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler had been members of the Nazi party and toward the end of World War II, their shoe factory was converted into a munitions plant for the war effort.

The two had started manufacturing footwear, including spiked shoes, in Bavaria during the 1920s and were propelled to international fame after the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where legendary Black U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens won four gold medals wearing a pair of track spikes from the Dassler brothers.

An acrimonious rift between them led to the two splitting off: Adolf Dassler, known as Adi, founded Adidas in 1949. And his brother, who went by Rudi, started rival shoemaker Puma across the river from Adidas’ operation.

Under German law, inciting hatred against people of a certain race or religion, including denying the Holocaust and spreading Nazi propaganda, is criminalized and can be punishable with prison time.

Ye decided to purchase the conservative-friendly company Parler after social media companies took away his accounts. The transaction has not yet been made public.

The rapper has said he intends to build his own “Yecosystem,” which would include his own factories and retail stores as a way of fully separating himself from the corporate world.

The Yeezy Kicks: Why Do Consumers Don’t Buy These Low-Loss Models? An Expert’s Report on Adidas

Retail experts say it is not a viable strategy to destroy unsold items because of the financial loss and possible backlash.

“There’s no way to get out of this gracefully or profitably,” Matt Powell, a footwear retail expert who has worked with Adidas, said. The question is, how can they make the bad things go away?

All of the work is extremely labor intensive, and can only be done one shoe at a time. It’s very costly to go through this process.

Consider a foam runner with sculpted lines and a black finish. Adidas could try to sell its own version of the foam runner, but consumers may still associate the shoe with its former designer.

Repurposing products at a deep discount could affect a brand’s reputation. So companies look to smaller markets, likely in developing countries, to make a profit without hurting their image in big consumer markets such as the U.S. and Europe.

There is still a chance that smaller markets won’t be interested in discounted products given its reputation, so removing the Yeezy labels is still important to this strategy.

On the other hand, Fisher said donating the goods “is much better for reputation and for sustainability,” and it would be a viable option for Adidas if it decided not to turn a profit.

But the controversy has appeared to fuel demand for Yeezy sneakers through other sellers. Last week, John Mocadlo, chief executive of Impossible Kicks, a large online reseller of high-end sneakers and clothing, said demand for the shoes had surged 30% since around last October.

While the company’s global sales grew 1% last year, it saw a 36% annual sales decline in China — its biggest single market — due partly to the nation’s now-ditched zero-Covid policy.

The chief executive officer said in a statement last month that the company would be transitioning to being a more profitable and growing entity in the next year.