The Case Of Nike : Review Analysis

This whole story is a double edged sword, Nike is the world’s largest manufacturer of sporting goods, they produce tens of thousands of items each day through cheap labour and sell their goods for huge profits. Some may argue that they employ slave style workers, paying very little wage and allocating very little freedom to their workers. The countries that Nike produces in are often underdeveloped and underprivileged, Nike pays higher than average wage to it’s workers, it begs the question that if these conditions are so bad why do thousands of people continue to manufacture goods in Nike’s factories, these workers are given accommodation

NIKE, Inc., is a company that was founded in by William Jay Bowerman and Philip H. Knight in 1964, and was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports, Inc. It’s name was changed to Nike, Inc. in 1971. It’s base of operation is located in Beaverton, Oregon. NIKE, Inc., is the world’s leading designer, marketer and distributor of authentic athletic footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories for a wide variety of sports and fitness activities worldwide. Entirely owned Nike subsidiaries include Converse Inc., a brand that develops, advertises, and sells athletic apparel and accessories; and also Hurley International LLC, which designs, markets and sells surf and youth lifestyle clothing and many different accessories. Its athletic footwear products are designed primarily for specific athletic use, although a large percentage of the products are worn for casual or leisure purposes. Nike offers products in many different categories such as men’s/women’s training, running, basketball, golf, and more. The company also sells products designed for children and youth athletic activities such as baseball, cricket, lacrosse, outdoor activities, football, tennis, volleyball, walking, and wrestling. Also, Nike sells sports apparel and accessories; and markets apparel with licensed college and professional team and league logos. Further, it sells a line of performance equipment and accessories, including sports bags, balls, eyewear, digital devices, bats, gloves, protective equipment, golf

Nike is a household name when it comes to sports apparel and equipment. It has worked hard to burnish its image, especially by garnering endorsements from big names in the sports world,such as Michael Jordan. But in 1996 its silver image began to tarnish. It knew it was in trouble when an article on child labour in Pakistan appeared in Life magazine with a picture of a 12-year-old boy sewing a Nike soccer ball in a factory, and activists started showing up in front of Nike outlets holding posters with the boy 's picture on it. Although child labour is illegal in Pakistan, the law is not enforced and child labour is widespread. The factory in question was not run by Nike, but by a subcontractor or supplier.

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:

Introduction Originally founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, Nike is now the market leader in the manufacturing of sportswear and gear and enjoys possessing more than 47% of the market share across the globe. Nike's mission is to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete (Nike Inc., 2015). According to them, you are an athlete if you possess a body. The company has over 600 shops around the world and has offices situated in 43 countries outside the United States. Most of its factories are located in Southeast Asia, including China, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan, and Malaysia.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) recently started looking at the child labor dilemma. It started notifying and forcing countries that are using the children labor to prevent the abuse that the children’s go through every day in their life in term of slavery, prostitution, pornography, drug trafficking and all other forms of criminal exploitation. The first nation to approve that kind of enforcement is the United State of America when United States Senate approved it and it was first signed by President Clinton.

Many times, greed and the want of fast progress, cloud a company’s judgement. They do not think about all the small aspects it takes to get it. In the case of Nike, the objective was to keep costs of production as low as possible to make a large of as a profit as they could. With globalization on their side, Nike was able to “shop” around and look into using oversea

Nike, Inc. is a world’s leading supplier and a major manufacturer of athletic shoes and sports apparel. It was founded on January 25th, 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports by Philip Knight and Bill Bowerman. It officially became Nike, Inc. in 1978. Currently their brands include Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Air Jordan and Nike Skateboarding, while their subsidiaries are Cole Haan, Hurley International, Umbro and Converse. During this stage, the Nike brand has become so strong as to place it in the list of recession-proof consumer branded giants, in the company of Coca-Cola, Gillette and Proctor & Gamble.

Throughout the world millions of laborers and children in Third World Countries work in sweatshops. In these facilities workers are abused, underpaid, and cramped into unsanitary working conditions full of disease and death. Nonetheless, workers cannot abandon the sweatshops they work in, because they fear their families would starve. If fired they could easily be replaced by another readily worker; that is why workers don't oppose their employers injustices, because they fear becoming unemployed. In large corporations from third world countries, laborers only earn an insignificant percentage of the large revenue that the corporation makes daily. They work for long hours, more than what the U.S Department of Labor considers legal for one

Over time Nike has become a prominent figure in the apparel industry, yet the corporation has found itself in various scandals due to their use of sweatshops. The harsh backlash towards the immorality of using sweatshops has led to Nike’s image being tainted; nevertheless, consumers continue to shop in Nike stores. With this in mind, I will explain why consumers continue to purchase Nike products. To accomplish the task at hand; I shall, define exploitation and demonstrate why corporations exploit workers, provide context into Nike sweatshops, and explain why some continue to support Nike. In addition, I will ascertain to why some have stopped supporting consumerism, examine how Nike regained its prominence, and present an

From the pre-assessment article about Nike, the text stated that working conditions were cramped, dirty and abusive. This text also stated that women are verbally, emotionally and sexually abused on a daily basis. There is polluted air from burning shoe rubber and they get paid $1.25 a day. From the text “How Nike Solved Its Sweatshop Problems”, the text stated that in 1191-1992 a man named Jeff Bollinger exposed Nike for their low wages and poor working conditions ($.14 per hour in Indonesia). LAstly from the “Beyond the Swoosh” video, it was stated that if the workers disobeyed the bosses they have gotten death threats, been held at gunpoint and have had their houses ransacked. None of these things are humane. Lets see if Nike has done anything to change their

Nike would have known the right factories to outsource to instead of using factories that fail to meet their standards.

Multinational companies have been criticised for focusing on their global responsibility in relation to their business style and not about reforming their labour conditions that support sweatshops. Scherer, Palazzo & Baumann (2006) look at an example of Nike which in 1998-2001 had received worldwide backlash due to its exercising of negative labour laws that portrayed negative and an infringement of human rights- creating sweatshops. With Nike being a powerful multinational company, it took a

The Pou Chen factory is located in a place where the minimum wage is far below the national average. It has 10,000 workers who make Converse sneakers. Most of the workers are women, and they earn only 50 cents an hour. The amount that they earn is not even enough to cover their food and very poor housing. In this factory, the women are both physically and verbally abused. Nike’s own investigations have proved these complaints to be true. The company made a statement saying that immediate actions would be taken to deal with the situation. It is interesting to note that, “an internal Nike report, released to the Associated Press after it inquired about the abuse, showed that nearly two-thirds of 168 factories making Converse products worldwide failed to meet Nike’s own standards for contract manufacturers. Twelve are in the most serious category, ranging from illegally long work hours to

Nike’s management understands how important a relevant strategy is in the global environment, as Don Blair, Nike’s CFO, stated “...we are refocusing our efforts, increasing our investments in innovation, using our voice for stronger advocacy and looking at how we incubate new, scalable business models that enable us to thrive in a sustainable economy.”