Nike Inc Organization Profile: Part I

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Nike Inc. Organizational Profile: Part I

Nike Inc. is one of the leading apparel company in the world having been able to establish themselves in various parts of the world. In looking at organizational conflict I did feel it would be best as it has had several controversies. Nike was a company that was established in January 25th, 1964 but during its establishment it was referred to as Blue Ribbon Sports. Phi Knight who was a track and athlete student at the University of Oregon and he did collaborate with his coach Bill Bowerman (Meyer, 2019). When the company initially begun, it’s main point of operation was in Eugene Oregon and acted as a distributor for shoes for a Japanese apparel company that was the Onitsuka Tiger and they were able to make successful sales. The first Nike shoe is said to have been made by the Coach for one of his students. This paper generally will examine Nike Inc. by looking at one of its organizational conflict and how they were able to solve it.

When Blue Ribbon Shoes opened its doors to start selling Japanese shoes they sold 1300 pairs that year grossing $8000. They rose each year and by 1965, they had increased their sales to $20,000. In 1966, that is when they were first able to open their retail stores Santa Monica in California and also expanding their business in Massachusetts. By 19671, their relationship with Onitsuka had ended and they were now ready to open up their line of footwear’s and it is at this point that they also rebranded their named from BRS to Nike. Their logo would be rebranded by Carolyn Davidson and this new swoosh was first used by 1971, June 18. The Swoosh was registered with U.S Patent and Trademark Office in the year 1974.

Nike kicked off their brand and they really did focus on advertising a key factor that helped in their product placement in the market and in helping people know about them. In j1976, Nike hired John Brown and Partners, which was an advertising agency that was based in Seattle to do the campaign for them. The first brand Ad that was created for the company was “There is no Finish line” however in this advertisement there were no Nike products shown, the advertisement however was really important in placing Nike on the competition field with other apparel lines especially the shoes. As of 1980, Nike already had 50% market share in the United States when it came to the athletic shoes and it is that same year that they were able to go public.

Nike wanted to spread their wings into the market now that they had went public and in order to achieve this they hired another advertising agent. Wieden + Kennedy would end up being Nike’s main advertising agency creating all their television as well as their print ads. The founder of the agency was Dan Wieden who is accredited to having created the slogan “Just Do It” that officially debuted in July 1st 1988. Wieden got the slogan as an inspiration from Gary Gilmore last words “Let’s do it” just before his execution (Nayat, 2017). In the 1980’s Nike were able to expand their retail stores in various parts of the world. Aside from shoes, they were able to expand their products to include other sports equipment’s including street fashion that encompassed socks, men boxers, sweat pants, among so many other things. They are one of the highest ranked companies when it comes to the sale of sporting merchandise.

Nike just as any company has good as well as bad publicity. Early 1990s, there emerged allegations that Nike were using child labor in their factories in Pakistan as well as Cambodia which were companies that were contracted to manufacture their soccer balls. Although it was Nike directly but rather the company that they had contracted, their image was still heart. The company did take a few measures to ensure that this practice stooped, they still continued contracting countries located in regions that do not seem to have enough regulation when it comes to child labor. The company they had contracted in Cambodia was featured in a BBC documentary in 2001, a documentary that did feature six girls that worked in these factories for all the seven days, 16 hours a day. Another incidence was the strike in China in the year 2014. The workers who were working for Yue Yuen a company that was manufacturing shoes including for Nike were underpaying their workers as they were paying them l250 yuan which was an equivalent of $40.82 per month.

In looking at the history of Nike company, it is important to discuss their Just Do It campaign by Colin Kaepernick a controversial NFL player. Kaepernick had faced backlash for taking a knee during singing of the National anthem as a sign of protest against racial injustices especially police brutality against the African Americans. He was dropped out of the NFL and when Nike decided to use him for their advertisements, there was a lot of conversas around the advertisement with those who were against his kneeling bashing the organization. Despite the many controversies this paper will focus on one organizational conflict which was dropping of Allyson Felix for being pregnant.

References

Meyer, J. (2019, August 15). History of Nike: Timeline and

Nayak, T. (2017). ” Just Do It”@ Ad Campaign: The Case of Nike Inc. Globsyn Management Journal, 11. Facts. Retrieved from https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/history-of-nike-15057083