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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike,_Inc.
Nike, Inc. (
/ˈnaɪkiː/; NYSE: NKE) is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area. It is the world's leading supplier of athletic shoes andapparel[3] and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$18.6 billion in its fiscal year 2008 (ending May 31, 2008). As of 2008, it employed more than 30,000 people worldwide. Nike and Precision Castparts are the only Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state of Oregon, according to The Oregonian.
/ˈnaɪkiː/; NYSE: NKE) is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area. It is the world's leading supplier of athletic shoes andapparel[3] and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$18.6 billion in its fiscal year 2008 (ending May 31, 2008). As of 2008, it employed more than 30,000 people worldwide. Nike and Precision Castparts are the only Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state of Oregon, according to The Oregonian.
The company was founded on January 25, 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Philip Knight,[1] and officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1978. The company takes its name from Nike (Greek Νίκη, pronounced [nǐːkɛː]), the Greek goddess of victory. Nike markets its products under its own brand, as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Air Jordan, Nike Skateboarding, and subsidiaries including Cole Haan, Hurley International, Umbro and Converse. Nike also owned Bauer Hockey (later renamed Nike Bauer) between 1995 and 2008.[4] In addition to manufacturing sportswear and equipment, the company operates retail stores under the Niketown name. Nike sponsors many high profile athletes and sports teams around the world, with the highly recognized trademarks of "Just do it" and the Swoosh logo.
Origins and history
Nike, originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), was founded by University of Oregon track athlete Philip Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman in January 1964. The company initially operated as a distributor for Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger (now ASICS), making most sales at track meets out of Knight's automobile.[5]
The company's profits grew quickly, and, in 1967, BRS opened its first retail store, located on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, California. By 1971, the relationship between BRS and Onitsuka Tiger was nearing an end. BRS prepared to launch its own line of footwear, which would bear the Swoosh newly designed by Carolyn Davidson.[6] The Swoosh was first used by Nike on June 18, 1971, and was registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on January 22, 1974.[7]
The first shoe sold to the public to carry this design was a soccer shoe named Nike, which was released in the summer of 1971. In February 1972, BRS introduced its first line of Nike shoes, with the name derived from the Greek goddess of victory. In 1978, BRS, Inc. officially renamed itself to Nike, Inc. Beginning with Ilie Năstase, the first professional athlete to sign with BRS/Nike, the sponsorship of athletes became a key marketing tool for the rapidly growing company.
The company's first self-designed product was based on Bowerman's "waffle" design. After the University of Oregon resurfaced the track at Hayward Field, Bowerman began experimenting with different potential outsoles that would grip the new urethane track more effectively. His efforts were rewarded one Sunday morning when he poured liquid urethane into his wife's waffle iron. Bowerman developed and refined the so-called "waffle" sole, which would evolve into the now-iconic Waffle Trainer in 1974.
By 1980, Nike had attained a 50% market share in the U.S. athletic shoe market, and the company went public in December of that year.[8] Its growth was due largely to "word-of-foot" advertising (to quote a Nike print ad from the late 1970s), rather than television ads. Nike's first national television commercials ran in October 1982, during the broadcast of the New York Marathon. The ads were created by Portland-based advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, which had formed several months earlier in April.
Together, Nike and Wieden+Kennedy have created many print and television advertisements, and Wieden+Kennedy remains Nike's primary ad agency. It was agency co-founder Dan Wiedenwho coined the now-famous slogan "Just Do It" for a 1988 Nike ad campaign, which was chosen by Advertising Age as one of the top five ad slogans of the 20th century and enshrined in theSmithsonian Institution.[8] Walt Stack was featured in Nike's first "Just Do It" advertisement, which debuted on July 1, 1988.[9] Wieden credits the inspiration for the slogan to "Let’s do it", the last words spoken by Gary Gilmore before he was executed.[10]
Throughout the 1980s, Nike expanded its product line to encompass many sports and regions throughout the world.[11]
Products
Nike produces a wide range of sports equipment. Their first products were track running shoes. They currently also make shoes, jerseys, shorts,baselayers, etc. for a wide range of sports, including track and field, baseball, ice hockey, tennis, association football (soccer), lacrosse, basketball, and cricket. Nike Air Max is a line of shoes first released by Nike, Inc. in 1987. The most recent additions to their line are the Nike 6.0, Nike NYX, and Nike SB shoes, designed for skateboarding. Nike has recently introduced cricket shoes called Air Zoom Yorker, designed to be 30% lighter than their competitors'.[16] In 2008, Nike introduced the Air Jordan XX3, a high-performance basketball shoe designed with the environment in mind.
Nike sells an assortment of products, including shoes and apparel for sports activities like association football,[17] basketball, running, combat sports, tennis, American football, athletics, golf, and cross training for men, women, and children. Nike also sells shoes for outdoor activities such as tennis, golf, skateboarding, association football, baseball, American football, cycling, volleyball, wrestling, cheerleading, aquatic activities, auto racing, and other athletic and recreational uses. Nike is well known and popular in youth culture, chav culture and hip hop culture for their supplying ofurban fashion clothing. Nike recently teamed up with Apple Inc. to produce the Nike+ product that monitors a runner's performance via a radio device in the shoe that links to the iPod nano. While the product generates useful statistics, it has been criticized by researchers who were able to identify users' RFID devices from 60 feet (18 m) away using small, concealable intelligence motes in a wireless sensor network.[18][19]
In 2004, they launched the SPARQ Training Program/Division.[citation needed]
Some of Nike's newest shoes contain Flywire and Lunarlite Foam to reduce weight.[20]
On July 15, 2009, the Nike+ Sports Band was released in stores. The product records distance run and calories expended, keeps time, and also gives runners new programs online they could try running.[clarification needed]
The 2010 Nike Pro Combat jersey collection will be worn by teams from the following universities: Miami, Alabama, Boise State, Florida, Ohio State, Oregon State, Texas Christian University, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh. Teams will wear these jerseys in key matchups as well as any time the athletic department deems it necessary.[21]
Manufacturing
Nike has contracted with more than 700 shops around the world and has offices located in 45 countries outside the United States.[23] Most of the factories are located in Asia, including Indonesia, China, Taiwan, India[24], Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Philippines, and Malaysia.[25] Nike is hesitant to disclose information about the contract companies it works with. However, due to harsh criticism from some organizations like CorpWatch, Nike has disclosed information about its contract factories in its Corporate Governance Report.
Human rights concerns
Sweatshops
Nike has been criticized for contracting with factories (known as Nike sweatshops) in countries such as China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico. Vietnam Labor Watch, an activist group, has documented that factories contracted by Nike have violated minimum wage and overtime laws in Vietnam as late as 1996, although Nike claims that this practice has been stopped.[26] The company has been subject to much critical coverage of the often poor working conditions and exploitation of cheap overseas labor employed in the free trade zones where their goods are typically manufactured. Sources for this criticism include Naomi Klein's book No Logo and Michael Moore documentaries.
During the 1990s, Nike faced criticism for the use of child labor in Cambodia and Pakistan in factories it contracted to manufacture soccer balls. Although Nike took action to curb or at least reduce the practice, they continue to contract their production to companies that operate in areas where inadequate regulation and monitoring make it hard to ensure that child labor is not being used.[27]
In 2001, a BBC documentary uncovered occurrences of child labor and poor working conditions in a Cambodian factory used by Nike.[28] The documentary focused on six girls, who all worked seven days a week, often 16 hours a day.
Campaigns have been taken up by many colleges and universities, especially anti-globalisation groups, as well as several anti-sweatshop groups such as the United Students Against Sweatshops.[29] Despite these campaigns, however, Nike's annual revenues have increased from US$6.4 billion in 1996 to nearly US$17 billion in 2007, according to the company's annual reports.
A July 2008 investigation by Australian Channel 7 News found a large number of cases involving forced labour in one of the largest Nike apparel factories. The factory located in Malaysia was filmed by an undercover crew who found instances of squalid living conditions and forced labour. Nike have since stated that they will take corrective action to ensure the abuse does not continue.[30]
As of July 2011, Nike stated that two-thirds of its factories producing Converse products still do not meet the company's standards for worker treatment. A July 2011 Associated Press article stated that employees at the company's plants in Indonesia reported constant abuse from supervisors.[31]
Environmental record
Nike tries to counteract the detrimental effect with different projects. According to the New England-based environmental organization Clean Air-Cool Planet, Nike ranks among the top three companies (out of 56) in a survey of climate-friendly companies.[34] Nike has also been praised for its Nike Grind program (which closes the product lifecycle) by groups like Climate Counts.[35]One campaign that Nike began for Earth Day 2008 was a commercial that featured basketball star Steve Nash wearing Nike's Trash Talk Shoe, which had been constructed in February 2008 from pieces of leather and synthetic leather waste from factory floors. The Trash Talk Shoe also featured a sole composed of ground-up rubber from a shoe recycling program. Nike claims this is the first performance basketball shoe that has been created from manufacturing waste, but it only produced 5,000 pairs for sale.[36]
Another project Nike has begun is called Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe program. This program, started in 1993, is Nike's longest-running program that benefits both the environment and the community by collecting old athletic shoes of any type in order to process and recycle them. The material that is produced is then used to help create sports surfaces such as basketball courts, running tracks, and playgrounds.[37]
A project through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found workers were exposed to toxic isocyanates and other chemicals in footwear factories in Thailand. In addition to inhalation, dermal exposure was the biggest problem found. This could result in allergic reactions including asthmatic reactions.[38][39]
Beatles song
Nike was criticized for its use of the Beatles song "Revolution" in a 1987 commercial against the wishes of Apple Records, the Beatles' recording company. Nike paid US$250,000 to Capitol Records Inc., which held the North American licensing rights to the recordings, for the right to use the Beatles' rendition for a year.
Apple sued Nike Inc., Capitol Records Inc., EMI Records Inc. and Wieden+Kennedy for $15 million.[43] Capitol-EMI countered by saying the lawsuit was "groundless" because Capitol had licensed the use of "Revolution" with the "active support and encouragement of Yoko Ono Lennon, a shareholder and director of Apple."
According to a November 9, 1989 article in the Los Angeles Daily News, "a tangle of lawsuits between the Beatles and their American and British record companies has been settled." One condition of the out-of-court settlement was that terms of the agreement would be kept secret. The settlement was reached among the three parties involved: surviving Beatles George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr; Yoko Ono; and Apple, EMI and Capitol Records. A spokesman for Yoko Ono noted, "It's such a confusing myriad of issues that even people who have been close to the principals have a difficult time grasping it. Attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic have probably put their children through college on this."
Nike discontinued airing ads featuring "Revolution" in March 1988. Yoko Ono later gave permission to Nike to use John Lennon's "Instant Karma" in another advertisement.
Minor Threat advertisement
In late June 2005, Nike received criticism from Ian MacKaye, owner of Dischord Records, guitarist/vocalist for Fugazi and The Evens, and front man of the defunct punk band Minor Threat, for appropriating imagery and text from Minor Threat's 1981 self-titled album's cover art in a flyer promoting Nike Skateboarding's 2005 East Coast demo tour.
On June 27, Nike Skateboarding's website issued an apology to Dischord, Minor Threat, and fans of both and announced that they have tried to remove and dispose of all flyers. They stated that the people who designed it were skateboarders and Minor Threat fans themselves who created the advertisement out of respect and appreciation for the band.[44] The dispute was eventually settled out of court between Nike and Minor Threat. The exact details of the settlement have never been disclosed.
On June 27, Nike Skateboarding's website issued an apology to Dischord, Minor Threat, and fans of both and announced that they have tried to remove and dispose of all flyers. They stated that the people who designed it were skateboarders and Minor Threat fans themselves who created the advertisement out of respect and appreciation for the band.[44] The dispute was eventually settled out of court between Nike and Minor Threat. The exact details of the settlement have never been disclosed.
Chinese-themed advertisement
In 2004, an ad about LeBron James beating cartoon martial arts masters and slaying a Chinese dragon with martial arts offended Chinese authorities,[who?] who called the ad blasphemous and insulting to national dignity and to the dragon. The advertisement was later banned in China. In early 2007, the ad was reinstated in China for unknown reasons.[45]
Nike 6.0
The company rolled out a new campaign in June 2011 called "Nike 6.0" that was aimed at extreme sport athletes. As part of the campaign, Nike introduced a new line of T-shirts that include phrases such as "Dope", "Get High" and "Ride Pipe" – sports lingo that is also a double entendre for drug use. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino expressed his objection to the shirts after seeing them in a window display at the city's Niketown and asked the store to remove the display. "What we don't need is a major corporation like Nike, which tries to appeal to the younger generation, out there giving credence to the drug issue," Menino told The Boston Herald. A company official stated the shirts were meant exclusively to pay homage to extreme sports, and that Nike does not condone the illegal use of drugs.[46] Nike was forced to replace the shirt line.[47]
Sponsorship
Main article: List of Nike sponsorships
Nike pays top athletes in many sports to use their products and promote and advertise their technology and design.
Nike's first professional athlete endorser was Romanian tennis player Ilie Năstase. The first track endorser was distance runner Steve Prefontaine. Prefontaine was the prized pupil of the company's co-founder, Bill Bowerman, while he coached at the University of Oregon. Today, the Steve Prefontaine Building is named in his honor at Nike's corporate headquarters.
Besides Prefontaine, Nike has also sponsored many other successful track and field athletes over the years, such as Carl Lewis, Jackie Joyner-Kerseeand Sebastian Coe. However, it is the signing of basketball player Michael Jordan in 1984, with his subsequent promotion of Nike over the course of his storied career, with Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon, that proved to be one of the biggest boosts to Nike's publicity and sales.
During the past 20 years especially, Nike has been one of the major clothing and footwear sponsors for leading tennis players. Some of the more successful tennis players currently or formerly sponsored include: James Blake, Jim Courier, Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Martín del Potro,Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras, Marion Bartoli, Lindsay Davenport, Daniela Hantuchová, Mary Pierce, Maria Sharapova, and Serena Williams.
Nike was the official kit sponsor for the Indian cricket team for five years, from 2006 until the end of 2010. Nike beat Adidas and Puma by bidding US$43 million.[48][49]
Nike sponsors some of the leading clubs in world football, including the national teams of India, France, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United States, and Malaysia.
Some of the world's top golf players are sponsored by Nike, among them Tiger Woods, Stewart Cink, Lucas Glover, Michelle Wie, Trevor Immelman, and Paul Casey.
Nike also sponsors various minor events including Hoop It Up (high school basketball) and The Golden West Invitational (high school track and field). Nike uses web sites as a promotional tool to cover these events. Nike also has several websites for individual sports, including nikebasketball.com, nikefootball.com, and nikerunning.com.
Nike is a major sponsor of athletic programs at Penn State and has decided not to abandon that relationship in the wake of the Penn State sex abuse scandal.[50
The 'Swoosh'
History
The Nike "swoosh'" is a design created in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, while she was a graphic design student at Portland State University. She met Phil Knight while he was teaching accounting classes and she started doing some freelance work for his company, Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS). While most people would regard the symbol as a check mark, the Nike swoosh was created when Carolyn was frustrated about not being able to create a "new" "fresh" logo she drew a quick check on a paper and then from that day the "Swoosh" was born. For seven years after its founding in 1964, BRS imported Onitsuka Tiger brand running shoes. In 1971, BRS decided to launch its own brand, which would first appear on a soccer cleat called the Nike, manufactured in Mexico. Knight approached Davidson for design ideas for this new brand, and she agreed to provide them, charging a rate of US$2 per hour.
In the spring of 1971, Davidson presented a number of design options to Knight and other BRS executives, and they ultimately selected the mark now known globally as the Swoosh. "I don't love it," Knight told her, "but I think it will grow on me." Davidson submitted a bill for US$35 for her work.[3] (In 1983, Knight gave Davidson a diamond Swoosh ring and an envelope filled with Nike stock to express his gratitude.)
In June 1972, the first running shoes bearing the Swoosh were introduced at the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon. Nike continues to use the brand today.
The Nike 'Swoosh'
The Swoosh is one of the world's most instantly recognisable logos and is seen adorning countless trainers and items of sportswear. Yet the emblem, which became the basis for the multibillion-dollar Nike brand, was designed by a little-known university student named Carolyn Davidson who charged Nike just $35 for her design.
Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University, was approached in 1971 by a University of Oregon track runner, Phil Knight, and his coach, Bill Bowerman, who needed a logo for a new line of running shoes they were to introduce. The pair, who had set up the Blue Ribbon Sports company, asked Davidson to suggest some designs for the new line, which they had decided to name Nike after the Greek goddess of victory.
Davidson agreed and charged the pair a fee of $2 per hour for her work, eventually submitting a bill for $35. She was subsequently recompensed through stock options as the company grew. After she handed it over, Mr Knight was slow to see its potential, reportedly saying: "I don't love it, but it will grow on me."
Andy Payne says: "This is one of my favourite logos. It's one of the only logos without words accompanying it. Over time it has gained equity and confidence to set itself free from the word Nike and that is a very brave step for a brand to take. Again it is a logo that can be seen in any colour and you still recognise it as Nike."
NIKE LOGOS
CORPWATCH ON NIKE
International Herald Tribune: Nike Hones Its Image on Rights in Asia
by Philip Segal, International Herald Tribune
June 26th, 1998
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12967
New York Times: Nike Pledges to End Child Labor And Apply U.S. Rules Abroad
by John H. Cushman Jr. , The New York Times
May 13th, 1998
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12965
Kasky v. Nike, Inc.
April 20th, 1998
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=3448
Interesting NIKE 'Swoosh' blog.
http://imprint.printmag.com/branding/swoosh-40-years-fly-by/
History of NIKE and the changes it went through.
- NIKE becoming a brand itself from the Blue Ribbon company
- the invention of the waffle out sole due to the change of track
- NIKE AIR is invented for a more comfortable trainer
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Nike - Just Do It campaign
Nike+
