Seven Oaks Magazine.

"phil knight had a dream. he'd sell shoes. he'd sell dreams. he'd get rich. he'd use sweatshops if he had to. then along came a new shoe. plain. simple. cheap. fair. designed for only one thing: kicking phil's ass."

So goes the opening salvo in a marketing war of words with the twin aims of knocking Nike from its sport shoe empire perch and launching a very new and special type of sneaker, the 'blackspot'. Ah, you think, yet another pretender to the sport shoe throne; doubtless promising revolutionary mid-sole technology, unique air-sole heel units and all other manner of bells and whistles designed to entice the hapless sports shoe consumer away from Phil Knight's Nike.

But no, this isn't an attempt by Adidas or Reebok or any of the other major brands at throwing off Nike's extremely lucrative pitch. Instead, the blackspot (which resembles the classic Converse Chuck Taylor shoe - more of which later), is the brainchild of Kalle Lasn, a sexagenarian Estonian and the brains behind Adbusters (the Vancouver based anti-consumption magazine). A major player in the 'culture jamming movement' which essays corporate hegemony and consumerism by parodying contemporary advertising (so that Absolut Vodka becomes Absolute End or Absolute Hangover), Lasn has decided to up the culture jamming ante by choosing to forego the comparatively safer pastures of advertising parody for the altogether more competitive world of shoe manufacturing.

"We're pitting our activist, anti-logo cool against Nike's swoosh, which I sense is losing momentum fast, and we're going to give it a death blow" Lasn told the Globe and Mail last year. According to Lasn, the blackspot or 'unswoosher' (which eschews the Nike swoosh in favour of a black spot anti-logo) will deal a further blow to a Nike which has already been put on the ropes by the current demand for old school trainers being manufactured by the likes of Adidas and Puma. Putting perhaps overly-ambitious questions of toppling Nike to one side, the unswoosher launch could not have been more auspicious, coming hard on the heels - no pun intended - as it did of Nike's acquisition of Converse's popular Chuck Taylor shoe. Although only basketball historians need concern themselves with the career of the one time Akron Firestone player, most students of popular culture need not be reminded of the cultural and social associations evoked by the eponymously named shoe. Where Adidas and Puma are proving popular because of their retro styles, the Chuck Taylor remains the authentic standard-bearer of alternative cool for a generation of politically aware twenty and thirty-somethings weaned on a rebellious jukebox of the Ramones and Nirvana. When it comes to sneakers, there is none more old school than the Chuck Taylor. It is no small accident that Adbusters decided to plump for a shoe already in the market, and even less of a surprise that they settled on a shoe loaded with cultural value which had only recently fallen into the hands of their arch nemesis Nike.

Yet isn't there something a little remiss about the magazine which launched Buy Nothing Day and campaigns against the evils of consumerism entering the consumer commodity fray? Despite nodding to Nike's history of sweatshop labor in its blackspot sales pitch, Adbusters isn't so much concerned with the evils of sweatshop labor as it is with the huge signifying weight of brands and the notional ideas of empowerment attached to them (for Nike's "Just do it!" think "just screw it!"). More concerned with uncooling the Nike brand than with shady work practices, Lasn's main goal is to supplant the pseudo-empowerment of the Nike brand with the sense of empowerment afforded from creating a business climate more sympathetic to anti-corporate values.

Naomi Klein, while not commenting specifically on the Adbusters venture, remains unconvinced of the value of anti-marketers getting into the game they ostensibly critique. "Publications that analyse the commercialisation of our lives have a responsibility to work to protect spaces where we aren't constantly being pitched to. This can be undermined if they are seen as simply shilling for a different 'anti-corporate' brand."

It's a fact not lost on the big brand houses. Speaking at last year's Institute of Grocery Distribution annual convention, Unilever chairman Niall Fitzgerald observed with no small amount of wry bemusement that anti-branding activity has led to a peculiarly anomalous state of affairs. Taking both Klein and Adbusters into his sights he noted that "there are also 'anti-brands' which claim to be a rejection of the whole brand concept. I saw with amusement that the No Logo logo - if you follow me - became a brand in its own right. There is also a training shoe whose whole identity is based on it not being made by Nike. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!". Fitzgerald, whose Unilever portfolio ranges from Ben and Jerry's ice cream to Calvin Klein fragrances added that "new brands like Fairtrade, which make specific promises about the product and its ingredients, are simply developments in a long history of brand development. The values which underpin them are very similar to our own Ben and Jerry's, which in many senses is a 'campaigning', 'cause related' brand." Although now ostensibly in the hands of The Man, Ben and Jerry's has lost little or none of its baby boomer countercultural value. It matters little that the ice cream of choice of Grateful Dead fans the world over now comes to us courtesy of Unilever. As Thomas Frank, author of "The Conquest of Cool", observes, the most effective brand identities are those which take on the trappings of a movement for social justice - real or imagined. Nike didn't turn around its poor public image by properly addressing issues related to its use of sweatshop labor but by hitching its marketing wagon to a street "authenticity" than not even its critics could hope to refute - in this instance, girl's high school basketball. As Frank has pointed out, the most these girls can hope to get is perhaps a college scholarship, which in itself is positive and hardly proof of selling out.

Nonetheless, determined individuals like San Francisco-based activist Marc Kasky give the lie to Lasn's bold assertion that old style "pure" activism can only hope to yield ever diminishing returns. Last September Nike paid $1.5 million to settle charges that it lied about its dependence on sweatshop labor first brought by Karsky five years ago under California's unfair competition law which bans false claims and advertising. Claiming a defence of free speech under the First Amendment, Nike argued the fairness of using a law intended to protect consumers from false advertising claims being applied to news and press releases. Kasky, who agreed to drop the suit after becoming convinced that Nike had improved factory conditions and external checks and balances, countered by arguing that the First Amendment did not extend to any false statements whose purpose was to make products more acceptable to consumers made in any forum. Loose change to Nike perhaps, but a welcome windfall for the Fair Labor Association (FLA) who intend to use the money to address issues of independent monitoring, worker education and public reporting.

Formed in 1999 as part of a Clinton administration task force on the apparel industry, the FLA is a non-profit organization that combines the efforts of industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), colleges and universities to promote adherence to international labor standards and improve working conditions worldwide. Last June the FLA published its first public report of independent audits of labor practices in around 50 factories in 30 countries across five continents. Participating companies (Adidas-Salomon, Eddie Bauer, Levi Strauss & Co., Liz Claiborne Inc., Nike Inc., Phillips-Van Heusen and Reebok International Ltd.) pledge to adhere to the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct throughout their global manufacturing operations, and to agree to systematic independent monitoring of factory conditions with results to be posted on the FLA website for public review. Although the labor, health and safety violations uncovered in the Philippines (Levi Strauss) and Vietnam (Adidas) hardly make for light reading (arbitrary suspensions for being sick and disciplinary measures for visiting the lavatory outwith stipulated times), labor movement advocates do believe the initiative offers up some promise of hope for the future. Some unswoosher critics question Adbusters decision to go after Nike as opposed to those companies still yet to sign up to the FLA initiative.

Certainly, it remains to be seen whether Lasn's blackspot brainchild is ill-conceived personal vendetta against Nike's Phil Knight or a bold visionary leap into the anti-branding future. Lasn's very singular mix of courageous chutzpah and playful polemic defy questioning, but only time will tell whether the blackspot is a sustainable business venture or a platform from which the garrulous Adbusters lynchpin can participate in his favoured pastime of Nike baiting. Conscientious consumers tired of the lack of ethical alternatives to the big brands can only hope that the former is the case.

Thus far, Lasn has been able to talk the walk, it remains to be seen whether the unswoosher can walk the talk.