Sport bags and polo T-Shirts lines recently developed by Adidas for the Hong Kong market have unleashed widespread debate and strong reactions in China mainland. The famous sportswear company has, in fact, misused the Chinese flag combining some of its elements with the company’s own logo.

These products, as the company claimed, were meant to celebrate China for the upcoming Olympic Games, rather than to profit by reflex by the very well recognizable national stars on red background, but Chinese consumers seemed not to be sharing this point of view.

As a matter of fact, more than 80% of the Internet users surveyed by the popular portal Sina.com declared their irritation about the way the national flag had been used for commercial purpose, and almost 50% of them expressed their intention to boycott Adidas products in the future.

Adidas has immediately withdrawn the incriminated products, which luckily were never sold on the mainland, from the Hong Kong market. Moreover, given that the commercial use of the national flag is forbidden by the Chinese law, the company has released an official statement to express its more sincere apologies to the Chinese government and people. We just wonder how long the company will need to pay its due in order to recapture those consumers who have promised not to buy its products anymore.