No review of the brand Jordan phenomenon would be complete without examining the extraordinary creative collaboration that Michael had with Nike’s premier designer and creative genius Tinker Hatfield. Tinker is the designer of many of Nike’s most popular and innovative shoe designs,
There are whispers in the wind that the next recession is on the way. Recessions usually require brand planners to learn on the fly to keep their value proposition alive. All the assumptions of business as usual need reassessing.
Some experts will tell you that a brand should present a consistent identity and should not change, at the risk of losing its loyal franchise. The risk, however, is that after a period of minor incremental changes the brand will become increasingly irrelevant, and this kind of a static approach ends in the need to radically reposition the brand to catch up with a fast moving, dynamic and competitive marketplace.
The word ‘entropy’ refers to a lack of order or predictability, and often signifies a gradual decline into disorder. Brands suffer entropy and decline, more often than not from neglect as I explored in ‘Never Let Go of Your Brand Values’. It’s essential for brand managers and all marketers for that matter to pay attention constantly and vigilantly to ensure that entropy doesn’t occur.
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs exposes two quite different aspects of Jobs’ personality and his management style. At times he could be very hard on people, but he also had a skill, like Walt Disney, for inspiring people to do their best work, evoking performances that may have been otherwise unattainable.
