We all know NIKE but do we really??!!

Many of us have heard the brand Nike. It has become an international brand. Almost all athletes wear Nike Activewear which includes clothes and shoes. Today I will give you more of an insight of this brand.  This brand was founded at the University of Oregon by track athlete Philip Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman in January 1964. At first it started as a main distributor for running shoes. Coach Bill Bowerman made the first running shoes for Phillip Knight and it is said that they were not comfortable at first. The company's first self-designed product was based on Bowerman's "waffle" design. Bowerman began experimenting with different potential outsoles that would grip the new urethane track more effectively. His efforts were rewarded one Sunday morning when he poured liquid urethane into his wife's waffle iron. Bowerman developed and refined the so-called "waffle" sole, which would evolve into the now-iconic Waffle Trainer in 1974.

 Bill Bowerman

First Nike Show

 Phillip Knight

By 1980, Nike had attained a 50% market share in the U.S. athletic shoe market, and the company went public in December of that year. Its growth was due largely to "word-of-foot" advertising (to quote a Nike print ad from the late 1970s), rather than television ads. Nike's first national television commercials ran in October 1982, during the broadcast of the New York Marathon . The ads were created by Portland-based advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy.

Together, Nike and Wieden+Kennedy have created many print and television advertisements, and Wieden+Kennedy remains Nike's primary ad agency. It was agency co-founder  coined the now-famous slogan "Just Do It" for a 1988 Nike ad campaign, which was chosen by Advertising Age as one of the top five ad slogans of the 20th century. This world wide known slogan has made Nike a success.

-Monica Melara