第一篇 Passage One

Nike, from Small Beginnings to World Giant

Nike is one of the most powerful marketing companies in the business world today, but it had very small beginnings. The global giant company with revenues in 1996 of $ US6.4 billion and profits of $ 553 million started in the 1960s with the company’s founders selling cheap Japanese sports shoes to American high school athletes at school track meetings, using a supply of shoes they kept in their car. One of Nike’s founders, Phillip Hampson Knight had been a top athlete when he was at the University of Oregon. He moved on to become a student at Stanford Business School, but retained his interest in sport. At Stanford he brought his enthusiasm for track sports to his studies, writing a paper on how to create a cheaper, better running shoe using Japanese labor, which was cheaper than American.

Subsequently, Knight visited Japan and discovered a manufacturer who fitted the model of the ideal firm—Onituska Tiger Company, which made its own inexpensive, high-quality running shoes.

Back in the US, Knight got to thinking that he could actually put his knowledge into practice, and make money. He suggested to his old college track coach, Bill Bowerman that they could work together using their skills and interests in sport and business, and capitalize on the cheaper cost of sports shoes from Japan. In 1964 they each contributed $500 to import Tiger shoes, which Knight began selling from his car at high-school track meets.

Worried that the Japanese company might find a more established distributor, Knight and Bowerman developed their own brand name, Nike, named after the Greek winged goddess of victory. They paid a local design student at Portland State University $35 to create the famous “Swoosh”logo, and Bowerman created the innovative pattern called the waffle-sole design, by using his wife’s waffle iron to impose the pattern on the sole of the shoe. By 1972 Nike began designing its own shoes and was contracting production out to factories in Asia. With excellent timing and a fair share of good luck, the founders of Nike were perfectly placed to cash in on America’s sports leisure boom during the 1970s, when millions of Americans began jogging and running as part of their personal campaigns to keep fit and healthy.

To reinforce its dominant worldwide presence, Nike spent $US 642 million in 1996 on advertising and promotion. But at the heart of its constant campaign is the star athlete, a principle that was put in place early in the huge American company’s marketing plans.

In 1973, the newly formed company implemented its first, and most important marketing strategy, endorsing its first star Steve Prefontaine who in turn used and praised Nike footwear. Other endorsements came soon after that, such as leading American tennis player Jimmy Connors who won the Wimbledon and the US Open Grand Slam tennis tournaments in 1974 wearing Nike tennis shoes. In 1985, the man who would become one of Nike’s biggest successes, Chicago Bulls rookie basketball player Michael Jordan, endorsed his first line of “Air Jordan” shoes. The endorsements by star players, encouraging ordinary consumers to buy the sports gear of the stars and dream of being champions themselves, saw Nike selling close to $US 1 billion worth of running, basketball, and tennis shoes in 1986, while creating their first sports clothes under the Nike label. However, this was not sufficient when rival shoe manufacturer Reebok began to present shoes as a fashion symbol for the trendy people who exercised regularly at health gyms. In the year between 1986 and 1987, Nike’s sales dropped 18 percent and profits sank by more than 40 percent. Knight had to look urgently for a way to prop up the Nike image. Consequently, to give Nike a new image, an advertising agency, Weiden & Kennedy, created commercials and promotional ideas around Michael Jordan and the controversial black movie director Spike Lee. The commercials focused on Jordan as the man whose hard work and fancy shoes enabled him to fly. They create a mood, an attitude, and then associate the product with that mood. In the advertising world, this is called image transfer. It was designed to suggest that the world’s leading athletes—Nike also uses World Number One tennis player Pete Sampras and Chicago Bulls basketball star Dennis Rodman—prefer Nike.

Nike modeled its marketing around entertainment, fashion, and attitude, an approach that was much admired by the young consumers. Knight had taken sports shoes and athletic apparel and transformed them into a status symbol, something which other companies such as carmakers, watch makers and fashion designers had done with the famous European brand names such as Rolls Royce, Rolex, Chanel and Dior. In 1996 Advertising Age, an advertising publication, gave Nike its Marketer of the Year award for advertising excellence.

The effect of Nike’s well-financed and clearly focused marketing strategies has been that Nike has become the dominant brand in the global sports shoe field, with an overall 35 percent market share; and retailers generally say that Nike accounts for 70 percent of their total athletic footwear sales. To keep on top of the market, Nike puts out new models of shoes for every season: new baseball shoes in the spring, new tennis shoes in the summer, and new hiking shoes in the autumn. Year-round sellers, such as basketball and running shoes, are freshened up with design changes every three or four months. On average, Nike puts out more than one new shoe style every day. The result: in 1995 and 1996, Nike’s sales and profits grew 71 percent and 80 percent respectively. Meanwhile, Nike’s closest rival Reebok grew just nine percent in the same period.

课文词语 Words and Expressions from the Test

marketing companies 销售公司

revenues 总收入; 收入项目

capitalize on 投资于; 为……注入资金

a more established distributor 一家更有实力的经销商

Swoosh logo 耐克公司的注册商标

the innovative pattern called the waffle-sole design 一种创新的式样—“模压底”

contract production out to factories in Asia 在亚洲工厂签约生产

cash in on 从……获益; 谋利

endorse 签字背书; 签约

the sports gear 运动服装; 衣服和装饰品

Reebok 锐步鞋业公司

the trendy people 赶时髦的人

to prop up the Nike image 提高耐克的形象

freshen up 变新鲜; 增加新的力量