THOUGHTS
JEFF WOULD CREATE MAILING LISTS WITH DETAILS OF EVERY CUSTOMER AND PERSONALLY FIX THEIR SHOES. HE DIDN'T MAKE CUSTOMERS. HE MADE FANS.
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Reading time: 3:30 min
JEFF WOULD CREATE MAILING LISTS WITH DETAILS OF EVERY CUSTOMER AND PERSONALLY FIX THEIR SHOES. HE DIDN'T MAKE CUSTOMERS. HE MADE FANS.
Have you ever heard of Blue Ribbon Sports Shoes?
What about Onitsuka Tiger Shoes?
Probably not.
But you have heard of Nike.
In the early 1960s, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman started a shoe company called Blue Ribbon Sports. Phil was a passionate, middle-distance runner, and Bill was his running coach. Phil bought the rights to sell the Onitsuka Tiger running shoe to sell an affordable yet still high-quality shoe to athletes. Before long, they took on their first employee, Jeff Johnson, in sales. Remember his name, it's important (and you will know it if you have watched the film 'Air').
Jeff would sell Blue Ribbon Shoes at track meets and create mailing lists with details of every customer, their shoe size and personal details. He sent them birthday cards, had dinner around their homes and personally fixed their shoes. All their sales were word of mouth. He didn’t make customers. He made fans.
Armed with some glue and an idea he had for a new type of sole, Bill came up with some rough prototypes and showed them to their supplier, Onitsuka, who liked them and adapted them for production for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico. Bill and Phil came up with the name 'Aztec' (to link it to the games). Unfortunately for them, Adidas had a shoe called the Azteca. So they chose 'Cortez' instead because, as Bill puts it, it's 'that Spaniard who kicked the sh*t out of the Aztecs!’
Hmmm, that comment hasn't aged well.
The Cortez became a best seller. However, the relationship between the supplier (Onitsuka) and distributor soured, and in 1971, Blue Ribbon Sports started producing their own shoes.
The first shoe Blue Ribbon Sports sold under their own brand, was a football boot. To differentiate it from the Onitsuka Tiger shoes they were selling, Blue Ribbon Sports needed something bold and graphic on their shoe. Phil was a fan of Adidas's three stripes on their shoes and wanted something as distinctive for his. They spoke with Carolyn Davidson, a designer whom Phil Knight knew, who came up with numerous proposals for a graphic symbol/logo for the shoe for the paltry sum of $35* based on Phil's brief to 'give it movement'.
The Nike name did not exist at this point. The logo (symbol) wasn’t called the swoosh either and neither was it supposed to be a wing from a Greek goddess of victory. It was just a graphic on a shoe football boot.
Initially, the 'swoosh' wasn't even liked, but Blue Ribbon Sports had a deadline for the boot they were producing in Mexico and the logo had to be sent off.
The football boots also needed a name. They needed their own brand. Ads were being made and the name Phil Knight came up with (Dimension 6) wasn't popular.
Luckily, Jeff Johnson came into the meeting late and said he had a dream about a name, and that name was Nike, the winged goddess of victory. It made the shortlist of 3 names: Dimension 6, Falcon and Nike.
The vote went to Nike.
The identity came first, and the name after.
Blue Ribbon Sports then made their own version of the Cortez complete with shoosh. Like the Onitsuka version, it also became a best seller, and after some legal wranglings, both companies continued to sell the shoe.
The Nike Cortez was the shoe worn by Forest Gump when he went on his run across the USA in the film that gave Tom Hanks his first Oscar.
Sometimes, things just work out.
Later in 1971, Blue Ribbon Sports became Nike. Caroline Davidson combined the name and the tick and continued to work with the newly minted Nike.
Nike's focus was always on running. They made great products by runners for runners. The business grew.
But up to now, the advertising was always about the shoes. Not what they did with them.
This was about to change.
In 1976, Nike hired an ad agency (John Brown and Partners) to create their first campaign:
‘THERE IS NO FINISH LINE'.
The ad connected with customers on an emotional level. Nike talked like a serious runner. People wrote to Nike to ask for a “There is no finish line” poster. It was the same ethos in advertising that the company already had with Jeff Johnson going to track meets. They knew their customers, they helped their customers achieve their goals.
It wasn’t about the shoes any more, it was about what you did with them.
They BECAME the MOTIVATIONAL running shoe brand. They showed they understood their customers.
Motivation became part of Nike’s brand character in the same way that logic is to Spock and magic is to Harry Potter. It was infused in their DNA.
Know who you are and why you do it. This is the core of your brand's character.
Make sure everyone in the company knows it.
Make sure your customers know it.
Make it distinctive.
Be true to your brand character across all your communications.
Nike does.
IBM does.
You should too.
To quote Nike: Just do it.
* Years later, Carolyn Davidson was presented with Nike stock as a thank-you for her work on the symbol. Some estimate that stock is now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
