Influx

One thing Apple has taught us over the past decade is that there can be such a thing as “mass cool”. Originally, cool was found in niches and pockets and sub-cultures, cool was divisive and it sorted people out; there’s were cool things and then the stuff that everyone else had,...

In a world where getting noticed seems all the rage, it’s sometimes easy to forget that brands need to play in both camps- they need the awareness and attention on one hand and on the other they need to intrigue and engage their fans by helping them participate in the discovery process. The...

One great point I missed from my review of last night's ADC talk with Wieden and Kennedy, was Dan's point about Nike. Jeff Goodby raised an interesting question about how much hangs on the human reality, failings and frailty of athletes for the Nike brand and how this could end up reflecting back...

Sketchers has emerged as an unlikely victor in the new battle in the athletic shoe market, toning shoes. The category was blossomed in the past 24 months and is expected to be worth $1.5 billion this year. Sketchers developed the market with its Shape-Ups brand and is leaving others like Nike,...

"Making sure we're staying ahead of where we think the consumer is going. Are we making sure our teams are enabled to do creative in the best way they possibly can? At Nike, the value of what the marketing organization brings to the company is embedded in everything. We spend much of our time...

At the Nike analyst call earlier this week, an analyst asked a question suggesting we were witnessing the bursting of the "Sports Bubble". Below is CEO Mark Parker's very smart response. Suggesting the company knows how to respond to a changing world where new engagement is taking place, as well as...

Good piece in Business Week by Alonzo Canada of Jump Associates about how companies can see expansion opportunities beyond their core area of business. "Their Explore team was given the audacious task of helping Nike become a sports company. The team met the challenge by creating a map to identify...

Red Bull maybe one of the first brands to recognize the potential of become a media company. Instead of sponsoring events, it now creates and produces its own. This gives it a huge degree of control and the ability to associate itself with the extreme events that best suit the brand. Nike is...

Spotted on Starbucks V2V online board."Nike is hoping to launch its own V2V "neighborhood" or platform in December and we want to learn from the starbucks folks, but also have a place where the Nike folks can brainstorm and post their advice/ learning about what the Nike version should look...

Nike is a brand that was built on the back of raw emotion of sports, but is it about to change? Are product performance and technological innovation going to be the drivers from now on? Take a look at the amazing exhibition the brand is putting on in Beijing that celebrates the 100 most important...

We are now playing in a very interesting world where the efforts of R/GA with Nike+ are generating as much news as W&K's Nike commercials did in the mid 90s. I wonder if it's possible to create rich experiences using the same reductive strategic model?The same one that's used to create...

I am surprised it took so long, but according to Campaign in the UK, Adidas is officially jealous of Nike's success with Nike+ and it wants its own. This could be the agency brief of the year and one of the branding world's most challenging assignments, because no other brand, in sports or beyond,...

R/GA's Nike+ site, although created in 2005, has been much heralded this year as the gold standard in "Brand Utility". It has been the marker to judge this new hybrid world between the banner and the website, sadly, nobody, not even R/GA has come close to the excellence of the Nike site. So, while...

As brands give consumers the opportunity to personalize and create, it's clear that some of us are going to need expert help to translate our desires into design reality. Nike is doing this with its design consultants in its new ID studio stores that have now opened in London and New York. Here's a...

"I have a personal interest in popular culture and the influence of culture on the consumer landscape.."Quoted in the Wall Street Journal todayPosted by Ed Cotton