Nike: The Greek Goddess of Victory
Nike is one of the top brands that we remember when it comes to any sports shoe. From casual running to powerlifting, Nike caters to both athletes and ordinary people who love sports. Nike, derived from the Greek Goddess of Victory, came to light during the early 1980s when it signed a signature deal with the basketball star Michael Jordan.
This move created a new trend in shoe designs called the “Jordans” – Inspired by Micheal Jordan for Nike, that resonated with people. What was a mere shoe that was used for sports had become a sneaker sensation, a form of art, in New York City. Since the Jordans, Nike had been skyrocketing in popularity, sensation and money, disrupting legendary brands such as New Balance, Onitsuka Tiger, Converse, and Adidas.
Feet on the ground:
What caused this change? And how did they connect with the audience?
Nike focused its direction initially towards athletes of track and field, for running and jumping events. It tested its shoes on aspiring athletes for free and gathered immediate feedback to improve its shoes. Immediate feedback meant asking if the leg was hurting right after a sprint or a pole vault event. People were literally on their feet to gather feedback. Apart from that, during the early days, salesmen used to walk up to coaches and athletes with their latest shoes and convince them despite their customers wearing an alternate brand called Converse! (Converse as a shoe brand was one of the first entrants of the basketball shoe market.) Most sales were done at the track grounds, at the universities and in person to ask and try on their shoes for free. There was a cobbler around the corner of the place as the shoe needed repairs after its wear and tear.
They made shoes comfortable at first, with its first-of-its-kind jelly-like midsole which was inspired by a waffle – an English breakfast made with egg and dough.
The first shoes were given to athletes from Universities in Oregon, USA, which typically looked like this.
The patterns and the frictional endurance were directly inspired by the shape of waffles and its texture.
Nike, had gone a mile ahead, by understanding the movement of the game, the pressure involved at various points, the ankle placements and pressure pads for various other sports, the feet size, and experimented around with insole materials. All that hassle to create the best comfort for the user of the shoes.
Meet The Jordans
Michael Jordan back then, was a candidate most brands failed to capture, but Nike had a different lens altogether. The team at Nike noticed his uniqueness in making basketball look like art, more than just a sport. Michael Jordan was Nike’s target for its legendary game-changer shoes. They made ‘The Jordan Ones’, keeping the personality and the character of Michael Jordan with a type of leather that was durable, and flexible during complex movements of basketball. The sentiment of the audience made sales hit the roof, which created a wave amongst non-basketball fans of Jordan. Everybody wanted a pair just to walk around and look cool.
The Man Behind the Shoe?
Nike, had anticipated one of their product lines to be centered around a celebrity, Michael Jordan. Nike was one of the first sports brands to ever collaborate with a Star basketball player. All of the Jordan releases depicted the character of Michael Jordan. The creator, Tinker Hatfield, even decoded the nickname of ‘Black Cat’ without asking Michael Jordan.
Tinker goes through his experience of curating the perfect shoe. He talks about his fear of not being able to meet customer expectations after his 5th Jordan shoe, as people didn’t buy much. Lucky for Tinker, he knew that he was being biased by his expertise.
Once he realised that creative art is a reflection of self, he started to make the best shoes. Top shoes were sold at more than a lakh rupees in India, and the least priced was at ten thousand rupees. Despite the price range, people bought them.
Looking ‘Back into the Future’
But is that all Nike has done? There is more. The shoe that had appeared in Back to the Future (parts one and two) was a vision of Nike to launch something similar once the technology had arrived – The ‘Self-lacing shoe’- which requires no human intervention to tie a shoe with laces. The movie Back to the Future came out in 1985 had a special shoe on set, which depicted a shoe from 2017, i.e., from the future (fictionally). What had been just a mere concept, came to life, during 2016, when the technology had evolved. The self-lacing shoe became a peek into the future of Nike’s shoes.
Manage Change, Manage Nike:
Nike as a company had a set of rules to run the company – called Nike Principles. Rule number 3 – ‘Perfect results count–not a perfect process, Break the rules; Fight the law’.
Doing the right thing and not who is right. Most often during team meetings and other discussions, we tend to become biased towards experience and age, missing out on the larger picture of what is right.
Rule number 5, says ‘Assume nothing’, which indicates not to be fixated or assume anything based on preconceived notions and ideas.
Nike, then, after its success with Jordans, made the biggest collaboration with Apple Inc, with its Watch series. Its collaboration enabled people to adapt to an active lifestyle by tracking their calories, runs, and exercises that kept them healthy.
Not only that, Nike launched its community app where people with the same sports interests can meet up and play. Nike has created an ecosystem of athletes and ordinary people who love sports.
The Greatest Game:
Their entire management was a metaphor for a team sport. Everyone played their part and played offense together. They acknowledged the fact that this is going to be ugly, i.e., difficult to maneuver through the competition if they had not worked as a team. The idea of Nike being one of the greats is because they have been playing their greatest game, knowing what the fans would love (the audience/The user of the product). Once captured the hearts of the users, Nike has been winning ever since. They just do it.
Connecting the dots with Design Thinking and Design The Thinking® :
What stood apart from other companies was Nike’s will to keep trying to make better shoes for athletes by empathizing with them. Designing for comfort was the primary focus of Nike, which kept their brand strong. Reliable, comfortable sport shoes for everyone – an all-purpose shoe. From connecting to a basketball player, who soon to become a celebrity and to ergonomically understand the science behind foot and foot movements in every sport to make an all-functional shoe was the game-changer for Nike.
Through their human-centric approach, Nike was able to capture audiences who had never heard of Nike. That was the power of creating an influence with empathy.
Tinker Hatfield, as the sole designer of the Jordans and as a creative director – who is also a visual presenter of Micheal Jordan, had several challenges in coming up with the shoe, but with Design The Thinking®, he was able to overcome those biases.
His expertise made him not rely on other inspirations and his ego prevented him from seeking beyond his comfort zone.
Overall, he acknowledged the fact that he was returning to his previous designs which wouldn’t work on Nike’s portfolio. Tinker had applied ‘Design the Thinking®’ to re-structure his thinking process by acknowledging his expertise bias, his fears of not being able to deliver and his limiting beliefs to try and experiment with upcoming designs.
Expertise, if gone overboard, cognitively blocks the person from seeking and acknowledging new perspectives from others and would be biased or would favor his knowledge over any other. He/She would completely agree with whatever experience they had carried and only accept what ‘works’ for them. This expertise ‘bias’ would prevent someone from seeking new inspirations, and as a creative artist, one has to be open to ideas and inspiration.
Ego is mainly an emotion triggered by expertise, ego is the feeling of ‘I know it all’. This arises when someone challenges the expertise. The underlying thought process makes or pushes someone to their uncomfortable space, their unknown unknowns. Hence, ego and expertise typically hinder growth potential.
Tinker did not stop with the Jordans, he was also part of coming up with a futuristic shoe for movies, as mentioned earlier about Back to the Future. Visualization is one the reasons why Nike is perhaps the best athletic shoe brand in the world. Nike knew what they wanted and where they were going. Their business is Change. And change through empathy and understanding the end-user.
Sources: www.nike.com; Shoe Dog, Phil Knight and ‘Abstract’, Netflix documentary, Tinker Hatfield
