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Ambushing Adidas: Nike’s ‘Risk Everything’ Campaign
Background Note
Nike was founded by a track athlete Philip Knight (Philip) and his coach Bill Boweman (Bill) in the year 1964. Philip and Bill met when Philip was studying at the University of Oregon where Bill worked as an athletics coach. Not satisfied with the running shoes that were available in the market, Philip and Bill realized the need for low cost but high quality running shoes. The running shoes that were being sold in the US during the 1950s and 1960s were produced by European companies. These shoes were made of leather, had very bad cushioning, and used heavy steel ..... |
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spikes for traction. Philip and Bill started to design and sell their own rubber shoes that were light weight, better paddled, and had waffle like patterns. However, these models were not commercially successful. Later, when Philip was doing his MBA at Stanford University, he did a marketing research dissertation on the US shoe manufacturing industry. In his dissertation, he proposed that low cost, high quality running shoes made in Asian countries like Japan could be imported and sold in USA.........
