The Jordan Brands target market are primarily sports fans and people between the ages 12-30. The sports fans are the die hard people who want to be exactly like Mike. They go out and not only buy the latest Air Jordan shoes but they but thee apparel to go with it, matching sweat suit. The group of 12-30 which is the brands demographic segmentation, are those who follow the latest fashion trends. They stop at nothing to get a new pair of Air Jordan's. This group is mostly Generation Y. The Jordan Brand uses retro releases to keep attracting fans back to the brand because fans love the classic 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.
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.
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.
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.
The effect that the Jordan Brand has had on the world of advertising is very historical. One of the most clever ways the Jordan Brand use to advertise their brand was on a TV show called "Fresh Prince Of Bel Air" which starred Will Smith. In the video above Smith can be seen in a Air Jordan jacket and sneakers. Also at the end of the video Smith is seen mocking the Jordan Brand with his own line of shoes called the "Air Smiths". This product advertising drew many sneaker fans and fans of the shoe to dress like Will Smith so they would go out and buy thee exact same Air Jordan sweat suit and sneakers he had on. This advertising technique help Air Jordan sales to reach high level throughout the 90's.
(Michael Jordan & Spike Lee a.k.a Mars Blackmon)
An advertising campaign that the Jordan Brand still uses is the legendary Mars Blackmon commercial campaign. It started in the 80's when the Jordan Brand teamed up with Spike Lee to create a character who was Air Jordan crazy. This character Mars Blackmon would appear in various Air Jordan commercial reciting his classic "do you know" line asking do people know why Michael Jordan was so great. These commercials would become a fan favorite among Jordan fans.
Another very clever and smart way the Jordan Brand advertised there Brand was when they teamed up with Looney Tunes stars Bugs Bunny in various commercials (such as one seen above). As a kid when I seen this commercial I begged my mom to buy me these shoes because Bugs Bunny was wearing them. Another way the Jordan Brand took advertising to the next level was when they did the movie "Space Jam" with the Looney Tunes. This movies featured Michael Jordan playing basketball with the Looney Tunes while wearing his Air Jordan shoes throughout the movie. This attracted more demand for the shoes by young children because their favorite cartoon characters were seen playing basketball with their favorite basketball player.
Space Jam
These days Jordan does very little to any advertising. Most of the advertising is done by them just releasing photo's and release dates of upcoming shoes and apparel to different sneaker blogs on the internet. These sneaker blogs are host to millions of sneaker fans who check the sites daily for future shoe updates. This new form of advertising is great for the Jordan Brand because the demand for the shoe's are at a all time high with fans camping out in front of stores or paying double the retail price for the Air Jordan shoes.
One of the only things that's missing from the Jordan Brand footwear & apparel empire is a retail store. Foot Locker's "House Of Hoops" store which is located on 268 West 125th Street in New York fills in that void with a very wide, extensive and exclusive variety of Air Jordans and other footwear & apparel. This store is one of thee most famous stores known to all Air Jordan fans. House Of Hoops is another retail chain store under Foot Locker's corporations which includes others stores such as Champ Sports, Lady Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, Footaction USA and Eastbay.com. There are a chain of House Of Hoops stores around the country. The Jordan Brand's electronic retailing is a growing wider with each release. Now instead of consumer's camping out in front of "House Of Hoops" or "Foot Locker" consumers can stay in the comfort of their own home and order straight from the companies website. This also gives them a chance to read customer reviews on how well the shoes may be which may also lead them to purchase other items.
(Product, Place, Promotion, Presentation)
The "House Of Hoops" on 125th is a one floor store but it is very spacious. Seen in the picture above and to the right are the four of the six P's (product, place, promotion, presentation) on display when you walk in the store. Shoe's and clothing are properly displayed to shoe sneaker fans this is the place to get your latest gear for the Jordan Brand . The last two P's (price and personnel) occurred when I was approached by a House Of Hoops referee who in the last picture below helped me with all the information I need to know about the Air Jordans from the price of the shoe which is on a sticker inside the shoes to the quickstrike limited edition.
