Going 1 on 1 with Michael Jordan
A few short months into the job, I went to Chicago for a Michael Jordan commercial shoot. Basketball was my true love and passion. Like most inner-city kids, I looked up to MJ because of his skills and his style, which made baggy shorts required for all and a bald head desirable even for those without incipient hair loss. In addition, MJ and I were both members of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. I walked into the armory on Chicago’s south side and was told I needed to brief him on an interview that we would use to package with behind-the-scenes footage for the launch of the Air Jordan XI.
MJ was true to form. He had a magnetism and approachability that belied his stature. He was engaged in hearty laughter and conversation with the middle-aged Caucasian woman who was the driver of his trailer and, apparently, maker of the best hot chocolate this side of the Mississippi. Having experienced the hawk in Chicago, I know how a person can covet hot chocolate.
The shoot was a success. I left feeling as if my career had reached a pinnacle. Little did I know it was only the beginning. In the late summer of 1996, I got a call from Peter Ruppe who was the men’s basketball category business director (CBD). Peter said Nike was thinking about starting a brand for MJ and the team wanted to know if I would be interested in the marketing position. I agreed to take on the challenge and headed to Tokyo a few weeks later for the Hoop Heroes tour with MJ, Charles Barkley, and Jason Kidd. While I made the trip in my official PR capacity, it was definitely a chemistry check designed to gauge MJ’s comfort level with me coming into the Jordan brand role. I recall sitting in MJ’s suite with Howard “H” White, MJ’s original Nike representative dating back to the early 1980s and among his closest friends, as he seized the opportunity to lightly mention to MJ that they were thinking of having me join the brand. The silence was deafening.
MJ never looked up from the card game and uttered something about Nike handing the keys over to the new jacks. I didn’t know it then, but would later come to appreciate that moment as an example of MJ’s masterful approach to both challenge me and signal Howard that he trusted his judgment at the end of the day, but wouldn’t hesitate to let him know who made the errant pass if, in fact, I dropped the ball.
Fortunately, Howard was a pretty good floor general. In fact, he was a world-class basketball player himself at the University of Maryland, so much so that his jersey simply carried the letter “H.” He was revered at Nike for his unique people skills and uncanny ability to inject life skills into business. A visit to his office was therapeutic. It is little wonder he became such a close confidante to CEO Phil Knight. “H” was also broadly respected in the sports marketing arena and was the gatekeeper to all of Nike’s elite athletes. The athletes trusted “H” explicitly and looked to him for sage advice and to act as an honest broker between the often harsh realities of business at Nike and the athlete’s individual perspective, needs and grievances in order to fully buy into the process.
Not knowing if I had passed the test was torture, but the Tokyo trip was a great experience. Having later witnessed first-hand the adulation MJ received from fans from all walks of life, I can honestly say nothing compared with the reaction of fans in Japan who would, literally, chase our tour bus on foot for miles. The Air Jordan sneaker and MJ were both cult-like symbols in Japan so the reaction to him descending upon Tokyo appeared to be an out-of-body experience for fashion-crazed teens and the media who made the U.S. paparazzi look like the local photography club. Upon our return back to the states, I flew to Chicago with “H” and Tinker Hatfield, the legendary Air Jordan designer and most creative person I’ve ever met, to meet with MJ along with the another Nike apparel executive who was to handle the product role for the new brand.
How does one prepare for an interview with the greatest basketball player on the planet? I chose to do a lot of listening, which turned out to be the right decision. It was more of a pep talk and historical perspective on what had become a legendary process of infusing his personality and style into products that became must-haves for innercity kids like me. While I listened a lot, apparently I said something right on that fall evening at his offices along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, because I became the director of product and marketing for the Jordan brand after my other colleague was unable to leave his current position with Nike apparel. I spent several months crafting the Jordan brand business plan along with a small nucleus from finance and an internal specialist who assisted in the development of Nike’s business units, including the golf division. We eventually presented the plan to Nike president TomClarke and the management team. We lobbied management heavily for the resources and support required across the organization to build the business.
While many in management were not totally convinced of the viability of creating a separate brand for MJ, we were able to secure the necessary commitments to proceed with the brand launch. My efforts to get the brand off the ground were supported and made possible by the talented brain trust who helped mine Nike’s “crown jewel” Air Jordan franchise through the years: “H,” Tinker, Mark Parker, Peter Ruppe, Fred Whitfield, and others including Keith Houlemard, David Bond, and Larry Miller. Miller eventually became the president of the Jordan brand for several years before moving on to a similar post with the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers.
For athletes, there are certain moments that justify the blood, sweat, and tears invested and required to achieve greatness. Walking onto the court for the NCAA Final Four, or making the long walk with the lead on the 18th hole are two.
For me, that moment was the launch of the Jordan brand in 1997 at Niketown in New York. All of the preparation, long hours, doubts, and internal debates were finally being rewarded. And there was no better backdrop than Niketown. Nike talks a lot about romancing the brand at retail. Niketown is a shrine to all things consumers love about Nike and sports, not the least of which are its products that are merchandised beautifully on multiple levels along with memorabilia from athletes and interactive kiosks. Niketown New York is located on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, which appropriately put us in the center of the fashion universe that day to birth the namesake brand for the ultimate purveyor of style.
The launch was celebrity-filled and hosted by MJ’s close friend Ahmad Rashad who interviewed MJ, Tinker, and me in a live, roundtable format before we unveiled the new line. We brought Hip-Hop sensibilities to bear during the launch by incorporating Ed Lover and Dr. Dre of Yo! MTV Raps fame as co-hosts and including Hip-Hop group A Tribe Called Quest and R&B group Blackstreet with super-producer Teddy Riley to model the new line in addition to Hollywood friends of MJ such as actor Kadeem Hardison.
Media coverage included a front-page story in USA Today and wall-to-wall TV coverage from CNN to ESPN. While some media outlets such as The Source, which at the time was the bible of the Hip-Hop industry and urban culture, understood clearly why the Jordan brand was positioned with the urban target and used Hip Hop as a means to reach the consumer, many in the media and within Nike questioned such a brand positioning for fear of compromising MJ’s mainstream image. Indeed, MJ was revered by people from all races and corners of the globe and transcended race like no one else before.
However, I contended that while MJ had achieved a mass appeal, his products held a unique brand positioning and attributes among the core, inner-city kids who might never touch a basketball court but will spend $150 for a new pair of Air Jordans for lifestyle reasons and wear them as a badge of status and self-validation. The shoes and gear were being dropped in Hip-Hop lyrics and being worn in the most popular rap music videos. It didn’t take a whole lot of qualitative market research to know this because I was part of that mindset and came from the same place. I also knew that whatever products these urban consumers identified and stamped as cool would be adopted wholesale by suburban kids.
It was cool for Ball Park Franks or Hanes to capitalize on MJ’s wholesome image to appeal to the mainstream. However, his Air Jordan franchise was built, in large part, by these inner-city consumers who eventually influenced the white, suburban kids to adopt the hallmarks of their lifestyle. Furthermore, the numbers didn’t lie and the sales reps would attest to the fact that urban accounts were significant drivers of sales.
This was still 1997, however, so while Hip-Hop and urban culture had begun to penetrate the mainstream, corporate America wasn’t quite ready yet with the exception of a few brands like Sprite that were actively using Hip-Hop artists such as Grand Puba, Pete Rock, and CL Smooth in their commercials. As I watched the blanket coverage of the Jordan brand launch that afternoon, I knew corporate America would soon have to adjust to this new order. But I did not yet know just how monumental that shift would be.
