May 18th, 2023 by Diane Conklin under Business - General, Business Strategy, Marketing. No Comments.
I wanted to see the movie “Air” when I saw the first advertisement. It was available this weekend on Amazon Prime, so Sunday evening, I watched it.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you take the time to watch it – at least once.
If you own a business, are in marketing, or are a basketball fan, you’ll take something away from it. Probably many things.
Nike recognized the potential of Michael Jordan early on, and they invested heavily in promoting him and his shoes. They invested more than ever before when they signed Michael Jordan, developed this shoe just for him (as an incentive for him to sign), and made history by agreeing to give him a percentage of all sales of his shoes. This had never been done before in sports.
One reason for the success of the Air Jordan brand was Nike’s marketing strategy.
Nike recognized the potential of Michael Jordan early on, and they invested heavily in promoting him and his shoes. They invested more than they ever had before when they signed Michael Jordan, developed this shoe just for him (as an incentive for him to sign), and made history by agreeing to give him a percentage of all sales of his shoes. This had never been done before in sports.
They also created limited-edition shoes and clothing lines that collectors and fans highly sought after.
The most any division of shoes had ever made by Nike before Air Jordan’s, was $3,000,000 – that was all their running shoes. In the first year, Air Jordan’s was available, they sold $162,000,000 worth of shoes.
According to the information at the end of the movie, Michael Jordan now makes $400,000,000 a year in residual income from Nike on Air Jordan products (that is the only line he gets an override on). Nike and Michael Jordan benefited greatly from this mutual relationship.
In the same way, we, as business owners, can most times benefit from relationships with other businesses to do joint ventures and collaborate on things.
One of the other big things that stuck out to me in this movie is what happens in a business when risk is involved. Some people consider risk a bad thing, something not to do. Others look at risk as a calculated necessity that has the potential to take you where you want to be…and beyond.
Sometimes, your comfort level with risk changes depending on where you are in your business life. In this instance, the CEO of Nike had become a bit less willing to take risks as his company grew.
As I’ve often said, comfortable is, or should be, the scariest place to be.
Are you comfortable?
Or are you still pushing the envelope?
To Your Success –
To Your Success –
Tags: Air Jordan, business, Coaching, Complete Marketing Systems, Diane Conklin, entrepreneur, joint venture, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Michael Jordan, Nike, promotions, Relationship Marketing, residual income, Strategy.
