Mountain Equipment Co-Op Get into Bed With Nike

"MEC started carrying four models of Nike's ACG shoes in its Halifax store this fall, and a total of ten Nike modles wil now be carried in MEC stores across Canada... what has tongues wagging ios a perceived clash of corporate cultures. Nike is a $10-billion global company; MEC is a $163-million co-op that claims not to be driven by profit. Nike is tha big bad brand, the villan of Michael Moore's 1998 film The Big One and Naomi Klein's 2000 book No Logo. MEC is the "anti-retailer," the little business started in 1971 by a bunch of hippie... Nike is cool, MEC is sensible. Anyone with the slightest social conscience boycotts Nike and buys MEC. So what do they do now?... If you look at it from Nike's point of view, the match couldn't be better. The company has enormous resources to spend on initiatives that could repair its corporate reputation. But it hasn't got an ounce of what Taschereau (a spokesperson for Nike) calls "trust capital." She admits that MEC could be a powerful legitimizer fopr the big label."

Well folk, nothing is sacred. For more info see Vancouver Magazine January/February 2004.