The protagonist of Just Do It is Phil Knight, a reclusive billionaire who started a two-man operation importing Japanese running shoes and built it into a $4 billion company. Irreverent, unpredictable, and leery of the sports establishment, Knight created the most muscular jock culture in business, a place where employees routinely took two hours at lunch to work out and then strategized late into the night in their holy war against competitors Reebok and Adidas. To outsiders, Nike was a cult. Insiders believed they were furthering the company's mission: to improve the performance of serious athletes. Nike understood the power of imagery and knew how to market those images all over the world. A truly global corporation, Nike relied on capital from Japan to manufacture shoes in Asia sold to one out of every four athletic-shoe buyers in Europe. Katz follows Nike all over the world, taking us from a 19-year-old Korean gluing shoes in a factory, to an advertising wunderkind in Oregon creating the legendary "Bo Knows" campaign, to the fanatical Nike kids who rush into stores the day new shoes hit the street. Along the way, Katz describes the creation and design of Nike shoes, revealing technology worthy of a James Bond movie. He examines the charges leveled against Nike: that the company is exploiting Asian peasants, corrupting younger athletes, and recklessly stirring consumer fever in urban America. He also discusses the corporate spirit and strategies that have made Nike one of the great business stories of the late 20th century. -- amazon.com
|
