Monday, November 23, 2009

Adidas apologizes for misrepresenting KENTE, GHANA and AFRICA


This is a follow up from my previous posts about Adidas stealing from Africa :Click here to read how adidas stole fron Ghana
It pays to speak up - people of africa please patent, copy right and protect your heritage.

Dear Mr Kwabena,

Thank you for contacting adidas regarding the Jeremy Scott, Originals by Originals shoe Nizza 2 Hi; and for correcting us on the incorrectly referenced Kente cloth. We regrettably made an error in the copywriting process when describing this shoe. I can assure you that this was not meant to be disrespectful in any way, but a simple human error when creating copy which would be used to describe the shoe.

We have begun to correct this where we can - ie adidas.com/originals, Press Materials etc.

We have also contacted all of the communications and PR managers in our local markets to advise them of the change and act accordingly. Any future stories from adidas should correctly reference the Kente cloth which inspired the design.

We're very proud to work with external design partner Jeremy Scott and also to be able to reference and be inspired by materials, designs and styles from around the world and we're also reverential in crediting the origin of the design correctly.

In this instance, Jeremy Scott sent us the design with the correct name, but in our process of writing the description a typo was made. We have now tried to correct this mistake.

Thank you again for calling this to our attention.

Kind regards,

Tom Ramsden
Senior Communications Manager - adidas Originals