Nike, Inc.

From ArticleWorld

Nike Inc is a fortune 500 US company, most famous for its range of athletic shoes, and other sport accessories. It also markets and manufactures sport drinks. The strength and influence of Nike can be fathomed by the fact that it ropes in, not only stars of the sporting world, but also sponsors national teams for its promotional and advertising campaign. Some of the big names associated with Nike are, legendary tennis star John McEnroe, and national football team of Brazil and Portugal.

Timeline

The story of Nike began in 1962, with the presentation of a paper by Phil Knight, pointing out the economics of Japanese technology to produce quality athletic shoes. Blue Ribbon Sports is formed and markets the Japanese Sports shoes-“Tiger” in the western US. The high profile publicity campaigning practice of Nike took roots right from those days, when the legendary track coach Bill Bowerman joined in to endorse Tiger shoes, and to further innovate designs for better performance. Soon, Jeff Johnson joined BRS. Johnson began by selling shoes at the venues of high school track and field events. With the opening of the first retail outlet of BRS, the company was incorporated in 1967.

“Waffle” shoes came into being as a result of experiments of Bowerman with liquid rubber. “Swoosh”, the famous logo was designed in 1971. The continuous innovations created a whole new range of sports shoes and the company rechristened as “Nike”.

Nike shoes were first launched prominently in the Olympic Trials for Track and field events, in 1980. Soon after, John McEnroe was signed as its first star campaigner. Air cushioning technology, invented by Nike, was used on the basketball courts for the first time. “Just do it” the famous slogan was coined and is still synonymous with Nike.

Brazilian football team and Tiger Woods, the famous golfer became the brand ambassadors of Nike in the nineties.

It’s in the year 2000 that, Nike sales in rest of the world exceed its sales in the US for the first time.