Nike's Diversity

Three key issues contributed to the disappointing sales. First, internal organizational challenges prohibited the growth of the line. Rigid

A Greek would say, "When we go to battle and win, we say it is Nike." According to Greek Mythology, The Nike was the winged goddess of victory. Daughter of the titan Pallas and the river Styx, Nike sat at the side of the omnipotent Zeus for the duration of his plight with the titans. The goddess Nike came to be an everlasting symbol of victory and dominance on the battlefields of ancient Greece. In light of her conquests, a popular footwear company of the 20th century designed products in her name to push new levels of achievement in athletes worldwide. The Swoosh logo at the side of each shoe is intended to represent the wing of the Greek Goddess Nike. The vibrant spirit of this ancient goddess has bridged the gap between

In my personal experience, I usually navigate websites to find information about a specific service or a product, but I have never paid too much attention to analyze if the company has a commitment to diversity and how this is promoted in their website. For the sake of this assignment, I will analyze Kaiser Permanente’s website and I will briefly explain why I chose Kaiser.

There are hundreds of name brands that millions around the world use to represent who they are as a person and their personality. Typically name brands have celebrities, athletes, and models broadcast the clothes by wearing them and making commercials so the people behind the screens can look exactly like the people wearing them first. There are companies like Nike that are known to mainly be a sports name-brand company and is loved and worn by millions. Unfortunately, many do not know what exactly happens behind the scenes where the clothes, shoes, and accessories are being made.

The aim of this paper is to use the “Nike - The art of selling air.” case study and concepts from strategic marketing theory to identify marketing challenges and how those challenges could be best addressed using marketing principles. The paper will:

The brand that has consistently been my favorite over the years is Nike. Nike is a brand leader and has demonstrated innovative and creative thinking around its product initiatives. The company has a reputation for consistently producing strong results even during the financial crises by continually reinventing its products. Nike has excelled in creating quality products for not only athletes but for other consumers as well and has excelled in understanding and incorporating the American pop culture into its products and marketing campaigns. The endorsements with athletes such as Michael Jordon, the iconic “swoosh” symbol and the slogan “Just Do It” have made the brand a household name.

Nike uses diversity to represent how they view individuals inside and outside their organization. Over the years, Nike has been one of the leaders in organizations in attempting to increase diversity within the workplace. In the organization’s sustainable business report that was released in 2016, Nike announced they had increased their employees who identified as “non-white” for the first time in their organization. “the percentage of NIKE employees who identify as non-white in the U.S. rose above 50%. Racial and ethnic diversity within NIKE’s People Manager team also rose steadily” (Nike, pg. 68). With an organization that has different athletes who have different ethnicities and gender that endorse their products regularly, it’s important

The current manufacturing practices of the sneaker industry, in particular companies such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Converse, and New Balance, takes place throughout the globe. With the industry experiencing severe competition, and the product requiring intensive labour, firms are facing extreme pressure to increase their profit margins through their sourcing practices. The following paper will analyse the sneaker industry, while examining the multitude of viable manufacturing options, and critiquing their current manufacturing structure.

The company I am presenting is Nike which was founded in 1965 by the athlete Phil Knight. Nike is a well known brand which is selling its products worldwide and has 36% of the market share.

Phil Knight and his track coach Bill Bowerman founded Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964. The company started as being a distributor of Onituska Tiger athletic shoes which were imported from Japan. In 1971 they broke away from Onituska and created their own of shoes. The company was renamed, Nike. It became the largest worldwide seller of athletic shoes. They branched out and created various products lines; shoes, clothing, sporting goods and digital devices. They used celebrities to promote their products. The first athlete to wear and promote their show was runner Steve Prefontaine. Their now well know swoosh was first seen in the 1972 US Track and Field Trials. Every basketball player in high school wanted a pair of Michael Jordan’s,

Prior to the 2012 London Olympics, Nike launched the "Find your Greatness" campaign, which supports a new generation of young athletes who overcome social conflicts like: race, disabilities, and dilemmas to immerse themselves as athletes. In a series of ads, Nike presents us with their spiel, "greatness is not given to prodigies, we are all capable of it," which relies on the premise that everyone is capable of construing greatness to fit their own capabilities(Nike). By exemplifying Nikes uplifting confidence in those who overcome societal conflicts, the viewers are exposed to ideological strategies such as: appealing to specific viewers through the utilization of social conflicts(disabilities, race, class) and presenting solutions(hard-work) to propitiate the conflict.

Distribution – to make certain they are getting the latest most innovative products to customers quickly

While Apple’s products are innovative, their 2014 workforce did not exhibit the diversity they claim to support. According to their 2014 workforce demographics survey, Apple reported that 70% of its U.S. employees were male and 55% were white (Chowdhry, 2014). These figures show that supporting diversity and inclusion, in theory, does not necessarily translate into actual behaviors. However, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was not satisfied with these demographics (Chowdhry, 2014) and as continuation of their diversity initiative, they have taken steps to increase the diversity they claim to embrace to include updating their charter to increase minority representation on their board of directors (Chowdhry, 2014). While their 2015 workplace figures are relatively the same (69% male/54% white) (Inclusion & Diversity, 2015), the fact that Apple’s leaders recognize their shortcomings and are increasing their recruitment and hiring of minority employees (Inclusion & Diversity, 2015), in addition to donating $50 million in a multi-year initiative to increase minority representation in the technology industry (Lev-Ram, 2015), proves that Apple is truly trying to practice what they

Nike began as Phil Knight’s semester-long project to develop a small business, which included a marketing plan. This project was part of Phil Knight’s MBA course at Stanford University in the early 1960s. Phil Knight had been a runner at the University of Oregon in the late 1950s. His idea for his project was to develop high quality running shoes. He thought that high quality/low cost products could be produced in Japan and then shipped to the United States to be sold at a profit. His professor thought that Knight’s idea was interesting, but not much more than a project.

Mythology to society is just ancient past, but essentially it’s not. It’s thriving and very alive. Take a trip to your local mall and check the footwear department of any sporting store and there you’ll find the goddess. The name Nike characterizes the goddess who exemplified victory on the battlefield. In retrospect, if persons were asked the name Nike, Greek mythology is least expected to arise. The name Nike is now renowned as the most iconic brands around the globe. Though, not many people know the story it all began selling shoes from the trunk of a car. The crazy idea that emanated from Phil Knight that grew to become the global phenomenon today. This study will give insight into the creation, growth, and evolution of Nike.