Deciphering The Legendary Story Of Nike, A Shoe Giant

In the spring of 1985, millions of television viewers in the United States saw such an ad: a basketball rolled to the end of the court, waiting for a handsome young man to dress easily.

A failure athlete

In 1938, an ordinary boy was born in the United States. Like most of his contemporaries, he liked sports, basketball, baseball and running. His name was Phil Knight. As an ordinary young man, he was very familiar with sports cards such as Adidas and Puma. But what is unexpected is that this ordinary young man has created a new brand of Nike, and even surpassed Adidas's dominance in sports.

Nat always liked sports, and his high school papers were almost all about sports. Even the universities chose University of Oregon, the headquarters of American track and field.

Although nite likes sports, he is just a mediocre 1 mile runner. His worst score is 4 minutes and 13 seconds. He almost didn't enter world class athletes (with a score of 4 points). There are too many people like him.

But fortunately, we will not see a great entrepreneur today.

In Oregon, Knight met his lifelong mentor, his coach Bill Bowerman.

Bowerman broke the world long run in 50s.

So, he designed several sports shoes carefully.

He found several shoemaking companies, but no one paid any attention to him. The stubborn Ballman simply asked himself for a cobbler and learned how to make shoes. At a sports meeting, his athletes wore shoes made by himself and looked ugly but light and comfortable, and they ran out of a better position than any other match.

After graduation, Knight continued to study for MBA at Stanford University, while Bowerman continued to track and field coaches and design sneakers in universities.

In 1960, Nate graduated.

In a survey report, he mentioned that many famous sportsmen and ordinary sportsmen had a common goal: to beat Adidas, so that more and more athletes put on the high quality and low price running shoes Tigers produced by Japan (Tiger). After graduation, nite decided to go to Japan to find an opportunity.

At the exhibition in Japan, Knight met Tiger sports shoes manufacturer in Japan. He claimed to be from the United States "blue ribbon sports company". Just when Tiger needed an agent to enter the US market, he gave the agent to the young lad.

Nite, who got the agent, immediately found Bowerman, and the two of them invested $500 to form a real blue ribbon sports company, becoming the sole distributor of Tiger sports shoes in the United States, and began their initial business.

This "Blue Ribbon" is the predecessor of Nike.

At the beginning of Nike's glory, there was no barn, and nite put his stock in the basement of his wife's father's home. He and Bowerman had two people in charge of finance, one pipe design, and a very tacit understanding.

Facts have proved that his prediction of the market is correct. The cheap sports shoes sell well, and in the first year they sell $8000 worth of goods.

In 1968, Cortez shoes, which had been changed by Ballman, became the most popular sport shoes of Tiger.

Knight and Bowerman decided to start a company of their own, named Nike, which is based on the name of the Greek god of victory.

The name NIKE is very auspicious in the eyes of Westerners, easy to read, easy to remember, and very loud.

They soon launched the "Nike" brand of sports shoes, and designed a beautiful logo.

Nike's famous "tick" trademark is very eye-catching and attractive, as well as the kind of movement that sports shoes and other sports products should have, symbolizing strength and speed.

In order to promote publicity, knight and his wife printed Nike T-shirt on the Olympic Games preliminaries, but the people who saw it asked, "who is Nike?"

But in the competition, it was very small, and the marathon athletes who were persuaded to use the new shoes got fourth to seventh, while those who wore Adidas shoes won the top three in the preliminaries.

In the sports shoe industry, Nike is facing fierce competition.

Knight and Bowerman realized that if you can't develop new products that are better than today's products, there is no hope of increasing market share.

Moreover, so far, American shoe makers have produced far more foreign shoes than Adidas, which is not the former Federal Republic of Germany.

On a Sunday morning in 1975, Bowerman fiddled with a urethane rubber in the iron mould of waffles and made it into a new type of sole. The small rubber round nails on the waffle like shoes made the shoe more elastic than other popular shoes in the market.

This seemingly simple product improvement has become the starting point of knight and Bowerman's career.

In 1976, Nike jumped to $14 million from $8 million 300 thousand a year from the previous year.

It developed like wildfire, and the company spent a lot of money on developing new style running shoes.

In these improvements, Nike air cushion has left a deep impression on people.

The Nike air cushion is used to embed the inflatable pad in the heel part. It is a trump card in the shoe making technology of the company.

It can maintain a longer elasticity than foam sponge or rubber.

Comfortable and smooth.

Nowadays, almost all the authentic Nike sports shoes produced by Nike are inlaid with such air cushions.

Interestingly, consumers do not know the secret, but this is precisely Nike's high quality, high performance and high quality.

What shall I do?

The sales planners took a lot of brains in advertising.

Soon, a very distinctive and attractive advertisement appeared.

There are two windows in the heel of a Nike shoe. People can see the Nike air cushion on the soles through the window.

This advertisement has attracted the attention of consumers and made them see clearly that Nike is superior to other sports shoes.

In the next two years, Nike's sales increased by two times.

By the end of the 70s, Nike had nearly 100 researchers, many of whom had degrees in biology, chemistry, experimental biology, engineering technology, industrial design, chemistry and a variety of related fields.

This strong research force has developed more than 140 different styles of products, many of which are the most innovative and state-of-the-art in the market.

These styles are designed according to different foot types, weight, speed, training plan, sex and different technical level.

These products of different styles, different prices and multiple uses attract thousands of runners, making them feel that Nike is the most complete running shoe manufacturer, and millions of runners of all kinds and all kinds of abilities have this idea.

Relying on the concept of never ending enterprise, in 1979, by planning new product launch and strong marketing, Nike reached 33% market share, and finally squeezed into the "iron triangle" built by Adidas, Puma and Tiger, and became a sales star.

By 1981, its market share even reached 50%, far ahead of Adidas, and knight himself ran into Forbes's most coveted 400 of the richest Americans.

Nike culture "sports, performance, free and free sportsmanship" is Nike's pursuit of personalized corporate culture.

This distinctive corporate culture is an anti traditional corporate image. Nike is a pioneering company with adventurous spirit. In the location of their green Oregon company, a well-designed culture has been developed. An old Nike manager once recalled: "it's like working in an environment full of brotherhood and affection.

Colleagues drink together, talk about sports, and call themselves active and anti traditional characters.

Every 6 months, nite's management team meets to discuss strategies.

This noisy party is known for its tit for tat.

Knight always encourages confrontation and even encourages confrontation. He also accepts loud criticism from others like others.

Nike's location, like campus, has forests, jogging paths, lakes and soccer fields.

Knight hopes to create a peaceful working environment. He thinks the world is chaotic enough. Working hours should be as free as home.

In Nike's famous advertising strategy, it also shows the vitality different from others.

The type of athletes Nike is looking for is different from Adidas. They are independent, strong personality, grumpy and offensive.

For example, tennis star Mcenroe, people always see him lose his temper on the tennis court and argue with the authority.

Agassi, a tennis player, wears a beard and has a long and untidy hair. He shorts jeans as tennis pants, and this cowboy tennis pants has become a characteristic product of Nike.

With these big sports stars, Nike sports shoes are no longer just sports shoes, but become idols and symbols of social status.

In 1984, Nike began to rebuild its image with the strategy of advertising spokesperson.

He signed a 5 year contract with Jordan, giving Jordan conditions including Nike's stock and Jordan's name on Nike sneakers with unprecedented courtesy.

Almost everyone thinks this is a fool's talent, but a spokesman.

But NAT insisted on doing so, and Jordan's influence on Nike was enormous.

Jordan embodies vitality, prestige, superb athletics level and inspiring sportsmanship. His weight exceeds the mark of any Nike ideal.

With the help of Jordan, Nike has created a new brand, "AirJordon", which produces colorful shoes and matching garments from Nike.

"Flying Jordan" is not only a successful advertising campaign, but also a victory in the brand war. In the first year, the sales volume is as high as 100 million dollars.

The first time Jordan wore such sports shoes was banned by NBA officials, who thought it was against the Union's dress code.

Nike is keenly aware that this is a good time to carry out public relations activities, so an advertising campaign was launched to claim that "flying Jordan" was banned because of its revolutionary design.

As a result, Nike and Jordan flew on the front cover of countless newspapers, and NBA was besieged.

The event ended in favor of Nike.

Many people will think about advertising with athletes, but the most successful one is only knight.

Also known as the "just do it", the first "Just do it" hero is Craig Branciu, a track and field athlete sitting in a wheelchair. The slogan is the white words appearing in the black background.

The slogan does not read, but it evokes the resonance of a generation.

It reminds people of a fat person who has postponed his weight loss plan. Busy staff have been disrupted by other activities and people who have been dreaming of sports but interrupted by various business.

It seems that Nike is urging people to take exercise and act immediately to achieve it.