It’s been a long while since I have posted an article from our friend Tom Cassidy….now in his defense he sent me this one about a month ago, but I have been bad at getting it posted. So I will apologize to our friend and definitely thank him for this great story. Since Tom worked for Nike for many years, his perspective is that of an insider which is always interesting. I am still a big Nike fan and I cannot imagine another brand being able to top them for a very long time! Welcome back Tom and thank you for your patience!! -Julia

The Evolution of an Iconic Brand
 
A short story regarding the evolution of the Nike brand over the years and where I see it going in the next ten years is like asking for a novella to match War and Peace. However, the boss has given me my marching orders, and I must try to please.

The brand started out much like many companies: a few entrepreneurial spirits banding together to chase their passion and dreams. That is what Phil Knight, Jeff Johnson, and Bill Bowerman set out to do. Little did they know the impact they would have on sports specifically, and even on society in general.
 
The swoosh has evolved over the years as must be done to survive, but there remains one constant throughout time: a focus on performance and function first.
 
The early years were full of excitement as the brand chased Adidas (those ”krauts”, as Rob Strausser used to always refer to them as in his motivational speeches). Then something funny happened: Nike caught and surpassed Adidas in the US in the early 1980′s and all of a sudden was the numero uno. The seepage into the next phase had begun. This would be a phase which began with a tremendous boosting of confidence and eventually giving way to arrogance.
 
The line between confidence and arrogance can be very fine, but the distinction is very easy to identify. When a company is confident, they know their own capabilities while remaining aware that it is a competitive world which requires one to be on top of all facets of their game to succeed. When a company is arrogant, it loses sight of the competition and instead begins to feel that it can do whatever it wants and will still find success. We used to call it “drinking the koolaid”, and by the early to mid 80′s, the drink was overflowing in the land of the swoosh.
 
In the case of Nike, two things happened to crash the koolaid party. Michael Jordan was in the second year of what would turn out to be a pretty decent career. He had made a huge splash his rookie season. I can still remember a Dallas TV sports broadcaster, Dale Hanson, beginning each nightly segment with how many days it was until Michael Jordan and the Bulls would be in town. Since they only played in Dallas once per year, it was a big deal. With the game not scheduled until February or March, Dale’s early reminders were around 100 days. Every night he subtracted another day.
 
Everyone knows what Michael did for basketball. In his rookie year, Michael’s signature footwear, the “Air Jordan” was introduced, and a star was born off the court as well.
 
Nike decided to capitalize the following year by bringing the same shoe back in about 12 colors, and also offering a less expensive canvas version with the philosophy that if someone was to knock off the Air Jordan, then it might as well be Nike. About 10% of Nike’s business for the year was based upon the Air Jordan footwear, apparel, and accessories. A huge success, right?
 
Not so fast. Michael broke his foot the second game of the year. Without the free nightly advertisements from the sports reports and the hi-lite clips keeping MJ front and center in the consumer’s mind, the demand for the Air Jordan line plummeted. I recall the leather shoes, originally priced at an unheard of $79.99, selling for as low as $19.99 as retailers tried to move the dead product from their stores. Nike also had cancellations to deal with, and this left them with more inventory than they could ever imagine. The hottest thing since sliced bread became chopped liver overnight, and the swoosh became tarnished.
 
Near the same time, Reebok came out with a shoe called the Freestyle. The introduction of the original shoe did not receive near the fanfare as the Air Jordan. However, a huge movement had started to build, and with their eyes on the market, Reebok was ready to capitalize.
 
The Freestyle hit the market with a soft, glove leather like upper. There was nothing in the athletic industry with this type of material, and the female consumer unleashed an appetite in the athletic industry perhaps never seen before and definitely not since then. Reebok followed with all kinds of pastel colors for both the high and low top Freestyles, and the boost in sales catapulted them to the top spot.
 
Every great story has a crossroads, a fork in the road, a path which must be chosen. There are many times when the choice made is the wrong one, and that story is usually buried along with the brand. In this instance, Nike had many choices to make, and the talent which had helped to propel the brand to the top once again shined through it all.
 
They first decided not to copy Reebok and the Freestyle shoe. Nike came out with their own aerobics line, and although it barely put a dent in the Freestyle frenzy, Nike remained true to their core values: performance and function first. The aerobics boom eventually subsided, and whereas Reebok was making comfortable shoes which did not hold up well under aerobic activities, Nike continued to focus on how to make the shoes perform better with more support and cushioning.
 
The athletic market was reshaped when Nike introduced the Air Revolution campaign in 1987 with a line of ten styles all using the “Air” technology. The marketing of the air story hit the right chord with the consumer, who had grown tired of the soft leather shoes unable to meet their needs. Thus began the brands second surge to the top, a position Nike has not relinquished in all the years since. There have been many challenges along the way, but Nike is more powerful today than anyone ever dreamed possible.
 
Fast forward to now and the next ten years. Nike is interwoven in sports and culture. There are brands that are able to sustain successful businesses in certain areas of athletics, but nobody comes close to Nike’s ability to be relevant in almost all categories.
 
The future will be different in many ways, of that we can be certain. I am also certain Nike will continue to be an integral part of the landscape as the world of sports and the billions of dollars of business continue to move forward. It is as if the brand is a primary color now. Eliminating the brand would be like eliminating blue or red from the color palette in our society.
 
As long as Nike continues to challenge itself to provide better performance and functional products for the athletes, and as long as we as a society revere competition in individual and team settings, the brand will continue to thrive and evolve with the world.

-Tom Cassidy