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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
The Air Jordans story, in my mind at least, starts not with the marketing or with the man but rather with the shoes. Peter Moore designed the original Air Jordans and they looked nothing like their predecessors. Sneakers had almost always been white, crisp like snow when new, beige and brown once they got old. But Moore figured, why not make the shoes match the clothes? If the Bulls' colors are red and black, why shouldn't Michael Jordan's sneakers match?
This idea has since become a form of conventional wisdom, after Converse created its Weapons line -- green and white for the Celtics' Larry Bird; purple and yellow for Magic Johnson. But it was Moore who started the trend. And even now, his design, both in color and arrangement, remains unmatched. The lack of white, the red and black leather overlays around the toe, up the laces and behind the heel, still look fresh and sinister even after a decade. The fact that each pair of shoes came with colored laces only emphasized that these shoes didn't belong on Bob Cousy or anyone else from the earlier black-and-white, dunk-free age.
Look no further than the logo on the original design to see what I mean. On the outside ankle rests a basketball flanked with wings. It's an almost angelic symbol: Sport mixed with divinity. Just as you needed supernatural powers to stop Michael Jordan in his prime, his sneakers evoked something larger than athletics, and perhaps life itself.
Older sports fans couldn't see the genius of Moore's design. Sports Illustrated's Curry Kirkpatrick, in a November 1987 article, called them "extraordinarily ugly red and black clodhoppers." NBA commissioner David Stern went even further, banning the shoes because they didn't match the Chicago Bulls' mostly white uniforms. But the elders' disgust only made the sneakers more beautiful, more magnetic. Air Jordans weren't just one of the few cool, timeless items to come out of the '80s -- hip-hop also belongs in that category -- they were also products of rebellion and generational individuality.
None of these feelings would have been as intense, of course, without Michael Jordan. If not for No. 23's moves, dunks and sheer explosive basketball brilliance, Moore's design would likely have disappeared, like the leather boots with bow ties that also characterized late-'80s footwear. And Jordan brought more than athletic prowess. He was also the perfect pitchman. Good-looking, noncontroversial and graceful on the court and off, he was the epitome of smooth. He made greatness seem easy and attainable. He made us all believe that we could be like him. The shoes were simply part of the process.
Moore, perhaps better than anyone, understood that we bought Jordans because we identified with the 6-foot-6 master of all things hoop. He never lost sight of the fact that he and his company were selling a dream, the dream of Jordan. "True innovation ultimately must strike an emotional chord," he told Fast Company magazine. "Which of us would pay $150 for a pair of Air Jordans? But that product struck a chord with teenagers. Innovation means changing mind-sets. Kids lined up overnight to get those shoes because of the emotional connection to Jordan. And that was the innovation: Taking something as innocuous as a shoe and making it something you aspire to."
Nike, however, didn't just let the relationship between Jordan, his shoes and consumers develop on its own. The Beaverton, Ore., company turbocharged the process with a heavy dose of big-budget marketing -- equal in style and force to both Jordan and his sneakers.
The first trick Nike employed was simple diversification. Each year, Nike came out with a new, completely different version of Air Jordans that we all wanted to have. Version II, for example, was a plain, white high-top with black laces and a black midsole; Air Jordan III's, the first to show a visible air sole, returned to a black color scheme, but this time the shoe was a midcut and contained a gray-and-white print at the toe. Later versions mixed these basics of color and height with flashes of design, from flames to glow-in-the-dark rubber. Only Version 17 -- a blue-and-white model that came out in 2002, to match Jordan's new team, the Washington Wizards -- looks like a complete break from Moore's original design. And even these sold out in many stores as soon as they arrived.
Every Air Jordan since III, which came out during the 1987-88 NBA season, received a major push from Nike advertising. Television commercials became Nike's trademark, starting first with the Mars Blackmon campaign. Directed by and starring Spike Lee, playing an awestruck fan who declares repeatedly, "Yo, money, it's gotta be the shoes," the ads upped the ante of sneaker salesmanship. Sneaker sales had previously relied on print advertisements and word of mouth. But the Blackmon ads offered something new. They were slick, funny, urban, compelling -- the kind of thing discussed at the proverbial water cooler or, as was the case for me, in the junior-high lunchroom.
