Building the engine beneath the brand
The Air Jordan success was not a single play. It was the start of a complete performance system. Nike increased production capacity, expanded distribution, and restructured marketing. Every department worked from the same playbook.
Each new model introduced a technical leap. Visible Air units. Lightweight materials. Collaborations with designers like Tinker Hatfield. Nike positioned the shoes not just as gear, but as culture. Basketball and hip-hop were rising together, and Nike placed itself at the center of both.
By 1987, Nike’s market share had climbed to 43%. Today, it owns nearly the entire U.S. basketball sneaker market. The Jordan brand alone generates roughly $5 billion in annual revenue.
Reebok, meanwhile, made sharp but disconnected moves. The Pump captured attention, but nothing tied it to a broader narrative. Partnerships came and went. The brand’s direction blurred.
When Adidas bought Reebok in 2005 for $3.8 billion, it inherited a company without a clear identity. Was it about fashion? Fitness? Performance? None of the answers stuck. As former CEO Paul Fireman later said, “Adidas paid almost $4 billion to destroy it.”
Lessons from the locker room
You may not sell sneakers, but growth in any industry follows the same mechanics. Brand is not surface polish. It is structural. It helps determine market share, pricing power, loyalty, and long-term resilience.
Nike’s success was not luck or timing. It came from what we call a Growth Engine: a connected system in which brand, marketing, sales, and service work together to deliver measurable results. Reebok focused on individual moves. Nike built integration.
Consider how that distinction applies to your organization:
Are you building systems or running plays?
Reebok made wise choices that worked briefly, but they never connected. Nike created a framework where every decision strengthened the next. In your company, are marketing, brand, and sales aligned under a single strategy, or are they running separate drills?
Do you have the infrastructure to back your ambition?
Nike’s Jordan partnership succeeded because the company already had the manufacturing, logistics, and marketing structure to scale it. Big ideas only endure when they rest on firm foundations.
Can your brand create its own gravity?
Reebok grew by attaching itself to a cultural moment it did not control. Nike built cultural momentum that continued long after the first spark. In volatile markets, the strongest brands attract opportunity even when conditions change.
Is your data guiding execution or explaining it afterward?
Nike treated their results as part of the engine, not a post-mortem. Every launch refined the system. Actual growth comes from feedback loops that inform the next move instead of simply validating the last one.
