One of the most valuable company in the world Nike was created by a failed athelete phil knight . a person who failed to became pro athelete .
Nike is one of the most valuable sports brand in the world . with market value of $113.570 Billions . generate $51.36 Billion revenue in 2024 with net income of $5.700 billion .
Key points
- How company started ?
- How Nike company started ?
How Blue Ribbon company started ?
Phil knight is one athelete who wants to become professional athelete and want to represent USA in olympics . he is good runner but not great . that’s why he cannot achieve his goal . at age 24 he decided to quit his goal but he want to be connected with sports that’s why he decided to sale shoes.
At that time German company have dominance in USA shoes market. but japanese companies now grow and give tough competition to German companies. Phil knight decided to do business with japanese company . that’s why he buy ticket of Japan and go to meet Onitsuka tiger owner.
Onitsuka tiger company owner impressed with Phil knight and give USA west side distributor contract to him . now phil have deal that he can sale Onitsuka tiger in west USA.
This is the start of company. In January 25 , 1964 phil knight and his coach Bill Bowerman founded Blue Ribbon sports later it called Nike .
The idea was simple Phil order shoes from Onitsuka tiger and sale in west USA . in the first year phil sale 1300 pair of shoes and grossing over $8000 . next year sale is increce and grossing rise from $8000 to $ 20000 .
Basically Phil knight handle sales and Bill Bowerman handle quality of shoes . Bill Bowerman suggest to Onitsuka tiger about design, quality and other things . but now tension between blue ribbon sports and Onitsuka tiger increase , because Onitsuka tiger takes time to supply shoes and this thing create obstacle for sales . also some other reason and that is Onitsuka wants 51% ownership Blue Ribbon sports.
Nike Inc
That’s why contract between Blue Ribbon sports and Onitsuka tiger come to end in 1972 . Phil already have plane for Blue Ribbon sports . phil now change the name of company and now it’s called Nike . and also deigned new logo for company by Carolyn davidson. however the first time logo used in June 18 , 1971 .
This is how the company created . this company do some extra work for creat dominance in sports industry . now we see how really company grow from small company to most popular sport’s brand in the world .
How Nike become so successful ?
Today we see Nike as Great sports brand , but this image of brand are not made overnight but it take time and also alot of efforts and stretegy to become popular Sport’s brand .
let’s see what Nike do and how he achieve great success .
- Best marketing strategies
- Sign great atheletes
- Advertisement
- Internet and social media access
- Sale vision
- Variety of products
- Contacts with sport’s events
- What is Gross domestic product? All about it|
- How Reliance company started and grow from scratch?
- Toyota Inc | How started and grow from small country Japan|
- Financial crises 2008 | full detail|
- Meta platform
1 . Best marketing strategies
1 Sign Great atheletes
Nike mainly focus on branding their image with marketing . for this they use great athelete.
for an example the first celebrity sponsor was romanian tennis player liie nastase and the first track endorser was Steve prefontaine .
Michel Jordon sign contract with Nike in 1984 for $2.5 million . Nike wants to earn $3 million for three year’s but in first year they earn $126 millions from Air Jordon shoes . with help of athelete they get benefits and sales increase .
After that they sign many great player like cristiano ronaldo for $1 Billion life time contract, salena williams and other athelete .
this is beneficial for Nike to use image of player’s for own good .
2 advertisement
Nike also hire Widden+Kennedy as their advertisement maker for television . and this is great decision taken by Nike . they receive Emmy awards for best commercial in 2000 and 2002 .
With help of great athelete and making great achievement Nike create one image in sports lover . they show that everyone will be encouraged fro what they do and Nike respect all those who try to become best . this help alot for sales increase .
3 internet and social media access
Nike also one of the first user’s of internet and social media . Nike knew that one day this internet take over world and if they want to show who they are really than they need to access internet and social media . and Nike do it very well with the help of internet and social media they create an image of Nike as great sport’s brand .
4 sale vision
Nike never show you how good quality products they sale or anything about products , buy instead they say how they respect athelete and other person who are doing work and being best version of themselves .
this is the main things Nike sale vision not just products .
For an example ” Just do it ” campaign 1988 . Nike make advertisement and show they give respect to all those who try hard for their goals and want to do something great . it is not only about winning but just do it whatever inspires you . and still today this is the one of the best marketing campaign in history of business . it create new image of Nike in people’s mind .
From this campaign Nike get dominance in US market and sales increase from $877 millions to $9.2 millions .
2 . Variety of products
Nike offer variety of products to his customers . Nike mainly famous for his shoes but also Nike sale jerseys , shorts , cleats , baselayers , jeans , skirts etc . Nike not just only sale shoes but all kind of sports equipments and apparel . but first product of was track running shoes .
Nike have variety of products like Nike 6.0 , Nike NYX , Nike SB shoes , cricket shoes Air zoom Yorker , Air jordan XX3 and various products .
This thing give advantage to Nike because of this kind of variety Nike able attract more customers . snoosh mark is popular in youth and it is symbol of vision, personality that’s why everyone want’s to buy Nike products .
Nike time to time release different kind of new products like Air jordan in 1984 , Air zoom vomero in 2006 , Nike vaporify in 2017 and also Nike release plus size clothing line 1X to 3X in 2017 . Nike have vast variety in products .
3 . Contracts with sport’s event
We all know about london olympic when Nike take advantage of this event and earn million dollars . Nike sponsor alot of sports event’s like sign 8 year deal with NBA in 2015 , commercial partnership with Asian football confederation in 2012 and Nike is officially ball supplier of premier league form 2001. So basically Nike sponsor many sport’s events for brand image .
Nike also make uniform for FC Barcelona , PSG , liverpool, Brazil National football team , portugal , France , England and Netherlands national football team . also Nike was official sponsor ok indian cricket team from 2005 to 2020 .
Nike spend $11.5 billion on marketing and enforcement contract in 2018 . this is how much Nike spend money for maintain their brand value and make more popular .
This stretegy help Nike to grow and adapt in every nation, because in different nation different player are famous and in some country football is most popular sports and in some country different kind of game is more popular. but Nike give sponsorship contract to every sports athelete who is popular .
Conclusion
Once Steve jobs said that he inspire by Nike marketing . because Nike never show how good quality products they sale instead they show their vision . and this thing make difference between Nike and other sports brand’s .
Like all other company Nike start from scratch but in today Nike is the one of the most popular sports brand’s in the world . all this thing achieve through planning, marketing , and create brand name .
We all learn from Nike that if you think different from other and if you have clear goal you can achieve whatever you want . always be smart and move forward with stretegy and planning . use every obstacle for growth and overcome it like Nike did with criticism .