A great lesson in business leadership, crisis management and creativity.
Natalia Roś, a journalist from Laba
Nike is one of the largest and most recognizable footwear, sports equipment and clothing brands in the world. According to the Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands 2022 study , Nike is the 13th most. Also valuable brand in the world, worth an estimated $109 billion, up 31% compared to 2021 and up four positions. The dominant position is emphasized by the huge gap to the nearest competition – brands: Zara (83rd place) and Adidas (89th place). It is estimated that
Nike has about 60% market share.
The Nike brand has rightly become an icon of pop culture. Shoes with one of the most recognizable trademarks were worn by Michael Jordan and Marty McFly from the Back to the Future series . Despite this armenia mobile phone numbers database the beginnings of the company did not anticipate such success. Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, spent years developing a business that teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. For the first eight years, the word “failure” accompanied him in his daily life. He describes his actions in the book The Art of Victory .
The memoirs of the founder of Nike are an inspiring memoir of an entrepreneur. In it, he shows that obstacles should never stand in the way of achieving a goal. As a graduate of business, he remembers the beginnings as a constant. Also struggle with the problems associated with running a business. His adventure begins in Oregon, where at the age of 20 he lives with his parents. He has a talent for running. However, frustrated by his inability to break the magical four-minute mile, while studying. Also at the University of Oregon, Knight turns his attention to business. His biggest dream was to sell Japanese running shoes in the United States. To fulfill his dream, he goes to Japan.
Coach William Bowerman (first from left) talks. Also with Phil Knight (second from left), Mark Robbins and Steven Schell, University of Oregon, 1958. Source: commons.wikimedia.org
First steps in sales
The Asian country was a spiritual awakening for Knight. In his book, he writes that he spent hours sitting on benches in the gardens, reading about. Also the dominant religions in Japan, Buddhism and Shintoism. He admires the concepts of kensho (seeing the true nature of things) A Story and satori (enlightenment that comes in the blink of an eye, blinding). These ideas turned out to be the foundation on which he later based the philosophy of the Nike brand.
When Knight meets with the Japanese shoe company Onitsuka, he takes the first step towards building his empire. He offers to sell their shoes to the Japanese on the American market. He establishes a company in 1962, which he calls Blue Ribbon, and begins trading Japanese Tigers. After returning to Oregon, Knight tries to get the company up and running. However, it turns out that he encounters his first serious challenge – he has no shoes to sell.
The Tigers didn’t appear until almost a year later, but when he saw them, he simply fell in love with them. In his book, he recalls that he had never seen such works of art in his life. Phil Knight feels that he has a sense of aesthetics and a great. Also imagination, but he lacks someone with whom he could develop the company technologically. He experimented in the garage and tried to improve the shoes, but did not achieve the expected results. So he joined forces with
William Bowerman, an athletics coach
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Birth of Nike
The brand persona was an American runner. That’s why in latvia, google searches about inflation have increased by 350% Knight achieved his first successful transactions at sports competitions, selling. Also shoes straight from his car trunk. The former athlete knew his environment very well, and. Also in particular what runners expected from a product that should help them achieve even. Also better results. The sales location turned out to be a bull’s eye. Knight also strongly believed in the philosophy of running (running was not as popular back then as it is now). He writes in the book that he was always aware that if people got out and started running, the world would become a better place. He also strongly believed that the shoes he sold were much better suited for running than any other.
The beginnings of Blue Ribbon (the forerunner of Nike) are a real battlefield. Knight and his salesman, Jeff Johnson, have to fight the . Also competition at every turn A Story (other American distributors of Onitsuka), banks . Also that do not want to give them loans, and the Adidas brand, with which Knight, as he himself emphasized, had an . Also unhealthy relationship. He did not have a good opinion of the company, which for several decades dominated the footwear market and, as he himself put it, had the arrogance of a monopolist. Throughout this time, Phil Knight combined his work at Blue. Also Ribbon with his work first as an encyclopedia salesman, a corporate. Also accountant, and later as an accounting lecturer at an American university. However, he finally decided to focus all his attention and all his strength, as well as budgets, on developing his own company.
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In retrospect, this move paid off. Sales in 1968 were 150 thousand, and a year later – 300 thousand US dollars. Knight became a full-time CEO. In order to become independent from the Japanese supplier ej leads he found alternative. Also factories and manufacturers of his shoes. He developed a business to sell football and soccer shoes. And here is where the business creativity of the founder of Nike is clearly visible. He came up with a new brand in order to become independent on the market.
He started with a logo that had to stand out from the striped Adidas and Onitsuka products. He briefed the aspiring graphic designer that he. Also wanted to represent the idea of running and athleticism, but also convey a sense of movement. After several attempts and feedback from Phil, the artist created an iconic. Also logo that resembled a wing to. Also some, a gust of air to others, and everyone affectionately called it the “swoosh,” which refers to the sound a runner makes when they pass another. Also runner on their way to the finish line. Carolyn Davidson received a thank-you note for her work, and a check for $35, and years
later she received a share of Nike’s stock.
Phil Knight in his book mentions that he didn’t have a good first impression of the logo. He simply didn’t like it, but he didn’t have time to improve it, and all he did was quickly send it to the factory, which was already producing new products. How wrong he was. The Nike logo is currently A Story one of the most recognizable symbols and is considered an example of the best design at many universities. The Nike Swoosh can be recognized in the blink of an eye as something positive, dynamic and, despite the passage of time, modern.
Evolution of the Nike logo
At the same time, work is underway to come up with a company name, but it was not Phil Knight who came up with it, but his salesman – Jeff Johnson. Knight claims in the book that the name came to his employee in a dream. It had all the features that make a good name stand out – it was short, had two syllables, a strong sound and was easy to remember. And although there were such alternatives as. Also Falcon and Dimension Six, Phil Knight eventually decided on Nike, a name referring to the goddess of victory, because in sports there is nothing more important than winning. There was also a belief that it was Nike that gave warriors strength on the battlefield. Although even if you don’t have much knowledge of Greek mythology, the symbol and name still generate associations appropriate for the brand.
Like many minimalist designs, Nike’s branding has stood the test of time. It is easy to read, dynamic and empowering. It fuels motivation,
ambition and potential. This is A Story influenced by the following elements:
-
Shape The fluid graphic was intended by Knight’s team and the designer herself to represent the wing of the goddess Nike, though more people now associate the symbol with the momentum with which athletes run.
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The Color The logo appears on different colors all over the world. Phil Knight wanted to stand out from the beginning, so he chose orange as the background for his white sign. Today, you can often see red in the logo.
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Font Sometimes the logo appears with the word Nike, and sometimes with the claim – just do it . The name and slogan use Futura Bold font, while the name itself is always written in bold letters, which additionally allows to emphasize the brand. The letter “K” in Nike is slightly tilted to be more visible.
According to Sotheby’s , one of the first, if not the first, Nike shoe models were the so-called “Moon Shoes” from 1972. The pair was designed and manufactured for the Munich Olympic athletes. The shoes were handmade by Bowerman himself, who used his wife’s waffle iron as a mold for the rubber waffle soles. This created a new sports shoe sole that had the right grip on the one hand, and was lightweight on the other.