hi everybody today's episode is going to be a very special one because today

we're going to talk about one of the greatest sports brands in the world the
story that i'm about to tell you today is the story of a brand that is not just
an inspiration for people like you and me but also for a legend like steve jobs
people in 1996 when steve jobs came back to apple apple was crippling with losses
because of 11 consecutive years of failure and it was almost about to go bankrupt
during this time when steve jobs came back to the company the biggest challenge
that he faced was the reputation of the company which had degraded to such an
extent that people had completely lost faith and that is the reason why he had
to do something magical to actually bring the company back on track during this
time he came out with a legendary campaign called the think different campaign
which even today is known as one of the greatest marketing campaigns ever and
you know what people this campaign brought back the trust of the common man in
apple and laid a solid foundation to such an extent that today if apple is a
trillion dollar company it is only because of legendary campaigns like the think
different campaign so when i was doing a deep dive to try and understand what
exactly was steve jobs thinking while he was designing the think different
campaign i found an archived video wherein steve jobs is addressing his executive
and he states nike to be one of his inspirations for the think different campaign
and that's when i started to think what exactly is so special about a company
that sells shoes that it was able to inspire a legend like steve jobs and that's
what is going to be the subject for this episode wherein we are going to decode
the historic greatness of nike with a classic example so the story dates back to
the year 2012 when summer olympics was being held in london and because the
summer olympics was being held all the sports brands were very eager to become
the title sponsor of the olympics because they knew that if they could become
the title sponsor of the olympics they could pump in a lot of profit so the
auction was held and the title sponsorship went to adidas and nike lost its
chance to become the title sponsor to its arch rival and adidas paid 150 million
dollars just to be the title sponsor of the olympics and every time we hear a
figure like this the first question that comes to our mind is what exactly is so
special about the title sponsorship that you would pay 150 million dollars just
to be associated with the name of olympics and the answer to that lies in a very
simple example that is very closer to our home that is vivo's title sponsorship
to ipl now people when i understood that vivo is going to pay 2 200 crores just
to get its name as vivo ipl i got completely shocked and that is when i looked
at the growth of vivo in 2018 and 2019 and as it turns out in 2018 quarter one
that is just before the ipl started vivo was shipping about 2.1 million units all
right but one year later after the ipl happened in the exact same quarter in
2019 vivo was shipping in 4.5 million units that's a staggering growth of more
than 100 percent in the world's second largest mobile market and this is the
reason why title sponsorship of any popular sports event is a gold mine
investment for any company and that's the reason why olympics was like a golden
gateway for adidas to get way ahead of nike and specifically they also sat down
with the olympics committee to try to make sure that they make such stringent
rules that no other brand let alone nike will be able to steal their thunder by
actually associating their name with olympics so the olympics committee came out
with a bunch of strict rules and regulations that have to be followed by every
single brand in such a way that they could in no way associate themselves with
the olympics and by the way this also included a list of words which included
the words london olympics summer olympics olympics 2012 the rings of the olympics
and so on and so forth so theoretically it was made impossible for any brand to
get associated with olympics in any way that would steal the thunder of adidas as
a brand so with all of this put together everybody thought that adidas is now
going to go viral it's going to remain at the top of the chart because now it is
the title sponsor of the olympics but you know what people there was a slight
twist in between and when the actual results came out as it turns out while
adidas had about 9000 tweets associating adidas with the olympics there were
about 16 000 tweets which associated nike with the olympics not just that during
the tenure of the olympics that is starting from the opening ceremony to the
closing ceremony adidas added about 12 000 followers to its social media handle
while nike added 57 000 followers to its social media handle and the cherry on
the cake is there was a server which was conducted in the us wherein people were
asked who do you exactly think is the title sponsor of the olympics 21 of those
people thought that adidas is the title sponsor of the olympics but 37 of the
people identified nike to be the title sponsor of the olympics which means what
millions and millions of people were thinking that nike was the title sponsor of
the olympics and not adidas without being the title sponsor of the olympics
without spending 150 million dollars without even using the keywords to
associate yourself with the olympics how is it even practically possible for a
brand to acquire more publicity than the real title sponsor and that's where the
legendary strategy of nike comes into play so the first thing that they
understood was regardless of how complex the system is there will always be a
loophole and they found three loopholes the first loophole that they found was
regardless of whoever is the title sponsor of the olympics the athletes were free
to choose whichever shoe they wanted and that is the reason why nike hired 400
olympians to be its brand ambassador and just ask them to wear the nike shoe that
they were given and nike came out with a quirky lineup of shoes which was named
as volt wherein they distributed yellow green colored shoes to the athletes to
be worn during their matches and the reason why they specifically chose the
yellow green lineup was because that color was in perfect contrast of the tracks
of the olympics the second loophole that they found was in this rule which
prohibited nike from showcasing the london of uk in their commercials but you
know what the loophole here is that there are 28 other locations in this world
which are named as london except the london of uk so nike shot their commercials
in all other london's except london in uk so the commercials were shot in london
in ohio little london in jamaica the london hotel the london gym small london
and nigeria and even the london road and very smartly nike was able to place the
word london in all of its commercials legally and third and most importantly and
here's where the sweet spot is usually if you look at all these nike commercials
and adidas commercials you will see all the celebrities endorsing the brand but
when it comes to nike for the olympics they were not allowed to use olympians for
endorsement so while adidas was actually flaunting all of its commercials by
hiring all of these olympians to be its brand ambassador nike decided to hire
average teenagers as ambassadors for its brand endorsement i repeat while adidas
had olympians nike hired average teenagers who were not known to anybody as
ambassadors to endorse its brand and came out of the beautiful masterpiece which
literally literally broke the internet and this is what the commercial looked
like there were no grand celebrations here no speeches no bright lights but
there are great athletes [Music] somehow we've come to believe that greatness is
reserved for the chosen few for the superstars the truth is greatness is for all
of us this is not about lowering expectations it's about raising them for every
last one of us because greatness is not in one special place and it is not in
one special person greatness is wherever somebody is trying to find it [Music]
now if you looked at that commercial closely you must have realized that just
like coca-cola leveraged the emotion of happiness to communicate its idea nike
leverages the emotion of inspiration to communicate its idea in both cases both
these brands are trying to give you an involuntary experience of their commercial
and if you look at nike's commercial even more closely you will see that they
don't want to talk about houston bolt they want to talk about the houston bolt
spirit within every single individual like you and like me and if you are
somebody who's pushing your limits every single day to become a better version of
yourself that nike commercial is literally depicting your own story and because
nike managed to strike a chord with local champions it was able to go trending
and nike was trending number one on youtube one week after the olympics started
with 4.5 million views as compared to that adidas was at number three with only
2.9 million views and that's how without being the title sponsor without paying
150 million dollars and without actually using the banned keywords nike managed
to steal the thunder from adidas and emerged as a champion in this marketing war
now people we have got three very very important lessons to learn from this
entire case study number one do you realize that even if nike had not tried so
hard if the olympics
happened without nike coming out with its find your greatness commercial people
would still remember nike right nike wouldn't be forgotten and yet nike put in
this extra efforts to actually come out of the beautiful commercial to beat
adidas in spite of all odds and that is because nike as a brand realizes that the
only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra in this
case it's nike's efforts to emerge as a legend in spite of all odds number two
people might forget what you said but they will never ever forget how you made
them feel and nike's commercial is a classic depiction of this quote so if you
pick up some work to do just make sure that it is remarkable because people in
this world 99 percent of the people are good but one percent are great and that
is only because they choose to be great because every single champion today
understands that good is imperative but greatness is always and always a choice
and last and most importantly like the legend says somehow we have come to
believe that greatness is only meant for a chosen few that greatness is only
meant for the superstar but the truth is greatness is for everyone it's not about
lowering the expectation but about raising it for each one of us because
greatness is not in one special person or in one special place greatness is
wherever somebody is trying to find it so my dear friend my question to you is
what are you doing to find your [Music] greatness [Music] you