Ch. 11 Developing and Managing Products

Sketches Of Air Jordan's

In 1984 a young Michael Jordan signed a sneaker contract with Nike, this started there new product "Air Jordan". Before he signed the contract Michael Jordan had never wore a pair of Nike's.  Nike teamed up with designer Tinker Hatfield to design & develop 15 out of the 23 Air Jordan's that have been released.  Through his product development (which can be seen in the picture above) the Jordan Brand has gone on to be Nike's biggest and most profitable brand ever.  The picture above shoes the Air Jordan 11's which are the Jordan Brands most popular shoe.  As you can see the Jordan brand had to do a lot of brainstorming and screening to get the shoe to its perfect form.

The development of this sneaker was very innovative because it was the first sneaker of its kind to have patent leather on it.  Fans looked at the sneaker as if it were a futuristic sneaker.  It was a hit among sneaker fans. The commercial the Jordan Brand created for the shoe was Michael Jordan dunking on a 100ft rim.  This commercial symbolized the Air Jordan 11's as another shoe that will make you fly even higher.  With the re-release the this shoe different Blog sites have been getting sneaker fans excited.  Showing different pictures of the shoe give the release date and even the price which inflated from $160 to $180.  But the price hike wont stop sneaker fans from lining up for the new release.

Ch. 16 Integrated Marketing Communication

The Jordan Brand is one of the most promoted shoe and apparel companies in the world.  There promotional strategy consist of signing different star athletes from different sports to endorse there products.  The picture above shoes Miami Heat superstar basketball play Dwayne Wade who use to be apart of the Jordan Brand on the front cover of Slam magazine which is a premier basketball and shoe magazine.  One of the Jordan Brands biggest competitive advantage is that the greatest basketball player owns the company.  When ever the new NBA season would start he would be sporting a new pair of Air Jordan's   This would have fans of all sorts lined up at sneakers stores ready to by the latest installment in the Jordan Brand.  They advertise most of there newest release on the internet to different sneaker blog sites.  The Jordan Brand receives a lot of publicity from the news about people camping out overnight for new Air Jordans to be released.  This boost the companies popularity and makes more people want to buy into the brand.  This year the Jordan Brands new tagline is "One Shoe, Three Flights".  This stand for one shoe which is the Jordan shoe and three flight which is quickness, air and explosiveness.  These are the attributes that Jordan showed each game.  The more people talk about the Jordan shoes on different shoe websites the more hype surrounds the new shoes.  This makes more people want to buy the newest shoes which are released every Saturday.

Ch. 10 Product Concepts

"One Shoe, Three Flight"

The production of the Air Jordan shoe revolutionized the world of sneakers forever.  They raised the bar when it comes to footwear. The Jordan Brand specializes in tow types of consumer products.  There first product of course is consumer products, when purchased Air Jordan's satisfy the personal wants of sneaker fans across the world.  These products come from general releases which occur throughout each month.  The second is specialty products which in the world of sneakers are called "Quick Strike" which means there are only a limited amount of products being sold in a limited amount of stores.  These shoes are the ones everyone wants and everyone search high and low for but only very few luck people have actual success with purchasing them.  

"Air Jordan 1-25"

Over the past 28 years the Jordan Brand has had a product line of 25 original sneakers.  Each sneaker is released in a variety of different colors with some colors more popular than others.  The Jordan Brand has also made product modifications to certain shoes. The picture on the right shows a product modification where six pair of Air Jordan shoes were put together to make one.  This shoe is called the "Six Rings" which gets its name from the six pair of Air Jordan's Michael Jordan wore when he won his six championships.

The Air Jordan Brand is represented by the logo above which is called the "Jumpman" the name came from the spectacular dunks Michael Jordan would do every game.  The Jordan Brand owns the exclusive right to the Jumpman logo.  This logo is the persuasive logo put on each shoe and sneaker box which indicates you brought an official pair of Air Jordans.  

Ch. 18 Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

The Jordan Brand is a world renown shoe and apparel company that has been around for 28 years.  Unfortunately for fans and consumers of the shoes they have never offered any coupons for money off your purchase or rebates for your purchase.  In a sense they just take our money and tell us to have a nice day.  Now although they don't offer any physical samples for consumers they do show consumers samples of future products that are coming out soon.  These type of samples give consumers a chance to see the latest shoe that will hit the market in the months to come.  The only time there are consumer sales promotions is through the actual retailer who sells the shoes mark the price down.  Even with these negative factors the Air Jordan still manage to sell out when they are released.  A lot of the Jordan Brands sales come from there online sales promotion.  The Jordan Brand release photo's and potential release dates which add more excitement for fans and consumers.  This builds up a bigger buzz for the next release.  The price for these shoe's go up every year, from last year's $160 to the $175 price that stands today but the shoe's still sell out within hours of it release.          

 With a bunch of retro Air Jordan slated to be released in the next couple months the Jordan Brand will be raking in a bunch of sales.  As long as fans and consumers still demand retro releases to be made the Jordan Brand will continue to profit because these are thee most popular basketball shoe's to ever be made.