Nike at a Glance :: Essays Papers

Nike at a Glance Society, as we know it today, would not be able to continue without the everyday use of shoes and clothes. This fact alone puts companies such as Nike in a pretty powerful and much needed position. It is very unlikely to go anywhere without seeing the Nike Swoosh somewhere. However, Nike has not always had the reputation that they have today. In fact before 1971, Nike was not even heard of. It was instead known as the Blue Ribbon Shoe Company, which was founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. Bowerman was the track coach at the University of Oregon, later to be the birth place of Nike. He knew of Knight through track and field, and they both had the idea of starting and developing a new athletic shoe. Phil Knight in a Stanford research paper said that â€Å"low-priced, high-performance, well-merchandized exports from Japan could replace Germany’s domination of the United States athletic shoe industry.† Knight did not know how right he would later become. In 1962, Knight traveled to Japan and talked to Onitsuka Tiger Company and convinced them that their shoes would have great success in the United States. He came up with a fake store, Blue Ribbon Shoes, which he claimed to own to assure Tiger shoes of his validity. Upon his return, Bill Bowerman and he opened Blue Ribbon Shoes, donating 500 dollars each to the business. The first 200 shoes arrived in December of 1963, from Japan and were met with some resistance. Bowerman and Knight set out to various track meets selling the shoes out of the back of their car. Even though some success came from this, they just could not do it on their own. In 1965 they had to hire Jeff Johnson as Blue Ribbons first full time employee. Johnson knew Knight through track and would prove to be a valuable member of the company. With his help, in 1966, they were able to open the first retail store in Santa Monica, California. The success of this store spawned the opening of another store in Eugene, Oregon in 1968. Bowerman knew however, that the company would have to come up with something new so they could move away from their counterparts in Japan. He did this one day while experimenting with rubber and his wife’s waffle iron.