Today’s oh-so-timely guest blog is authored by Laura West, Peppercomm’s Head of Analytics. Btw, we’d love to know your take on the Nike campaign, so comment at will…

There are any number of ways to evaluate Nike’s Kaepernick campaign. Some call it: “shrewd.” Others say it’s “a bold statement.” The president called it “a terrible message.” Pundits say it’s “a calculated risk.”

Is Nike’s ad a success? What do the facts say? There is always a friendly bit of data pointing at an answer we may like, no matter our political/social opinions:

• Fact: The President of the United States has denounced Nike’s ad
• Also fact: Lebron James has lauded it

• Fact: #NikeBoycott was trending on Twitter on Tuesday
• Also fact: #Nike and #JustDoIt were trending on Wednesday

• Fact: Nike’s stock dropped on Tuesday
• Also fact: so did its competitor’s, Adidas’

As most people in the industry have come to appreciate, it is not an isolated bit of data that leads to true insight. It is contextualized data; not “there were this many mentions” but “there were this many positive/negative mentions.” And not “someone denounced the company” but “X influencer or X% of the target audience denounced the company.” The context is determined by the prioritized goals.

Is the most valuable metric sales? If so, the ad may have been a bad decision (since Morning Consult reports that purchasing consideration is down). Is the most valuable metric the amount of buzz generated? In this case, the move was an unquestionable success (generating more than $43 million worth of media exposure according to Bloomberg).

Morning Consult reported that Nike’s favorability has dropped by double digits since the campaign announcement. However, if Nike cares most about what certain athletes think of the company’s move, then favorability among more general audiences may not be the most important data point, since success would be measured according to this elite audience’s reaction.

So, how would you measure success?