Nike recently made headlines by creating an ad campaign with controversial figure Colin Kaepernick. The move instantly blew up on Twitter, generating thousands of videos of angry people burning Nike products. Even President Donald Trump, an outspoken critic of Kaepernick, tweeted, “What was Nike thinking?”.

Whatever they were thinking, they knew this was going to generate hype in one way or another. But this was still a bold move for them to throw away a more traditional “Just Do It” campaign for their 30th anniversary in favor of one starring a more political figure like Kaepernick. Clearly, Nike made a calculated decision for this campaign, which is fine.

If there’s one thing people like to talk about more than sports or politics, it’s sports and politics combined. With issues such as the naming of the Washington Football Team, the famous “deflate-gate” with Tom Brady, and more recently, the penalization of Serena Williams for yelling at a referee, controversy within sports is becoming more and more common. Phil Knight and the other people at Nike know this is true and obviously knew that this would generate attention, and more importantly, sales.

And sales are extremely important for Nike, as they are currently engaged in a war between themselves and German athletic wear company Adidas. In 2016, Nike lost the spot for top-selling shoe to the Adidas superstar for the first time in a decade. While Nike has still maintained the lead over Adidas in terms of overall sales, Adidas has been gaining more and more popularity, especially among a younger generation.

Coincidentally, 2016 was also the year Colin Kaepernick began his protest of kneeling during the national anthem to call attention to racial injustice in America. What started as a small matter then grew into a national movement, stretching across all sports and teams. Kaepernick is now a free agent in the NFL, which some (including Kaepernick) suggest is due to collusion by NFL owners.).

Now Nike is launching an ad campaign starring Kaepernick with the tagline, Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. While they are still a billion dollar company, Nike has sacrificed with this ad campaign. After it’s reveal, their stock dropped 3%. But the risk paid off. Statistics show Nike’s online sales have increased by 31% from labor day weekend to September 4th.

This comes as no surprise, as according to data from Adweek and Cone Communications, Millennials, who make up $2.45 trillion in spending power, care about Corporate Social Responsibility from companies they buy from. In fact, 70% will spend more on brands supporting causes they care more about, and 57% of consumers will boycott a brand that doesn’t support their social beliefs. This is great, as we shouldn’t be mindless consumers letting companies do & say whatever they want. As the customer, we have a responsibility to keep companies in check.

For companies in 2018, putting your political views front and center is a risk that seems to pay off for most. In the future, expect a stream of companies that opt to use marketing campaigns with political figures instead of more by the book ads for the general public. Although they should be warned, as we can’t forget the backlash that companies such as Pepsi released for ads about protest and “The Movement”. But companies who calculate and consider all the variables when making a decision like this as Nike did, will find this tactic to be a touchdown.