Speaker Prep - Brandon Thornton - W+K and Nike

I got the pleasure to hear Brandon Thornton speak tonight and will get to hear him again tomorrow along with Phill Knight, the co-founder of Nike, so naturally I did a little research on them first.  Brandon went to Virginia Tech and graduated in 2009 with a degree in marketing.  Soon there after, Thornton moved on to the VCU brandcenter after working at UPS for a year and hating it.  He realized while sitting in a cubicle at UPS that he needed to find his "own unique voice."  He didn't know what he wanted to do but he did know that he loved basketball, art, and writing, and figured that Nike would be a good place to work.  He applied for an internship at W+K and ended up getting it, worked as in intern for 4 months and is now a full time employee and works on one of the biggest, if not the biggest accounts for W+K.  Brandon is the Lead Strategic Planner for Nike Basketball.  His job seems like a lot of fun but a lot of pressure, giving presentations to some of the best athletes in the world would be nerve racking, but also extremely rewarding if they like your work.  

The next guest is Phill Knight, the co-founder of Nike.  Knight went to Oregon university and has remained a giant fan of theirs, as represented by the always different and extravagant football jerseys Oregon has the pleasure to wear each game day.  Knight always loved sports growing up and decided that he would start his own shoe company.  At one point in time, Knight was selling shoes out of his car and has since then grown his business to a worldwide giant, and leader of almost all sporting good apparel.  

A strategic issue that Nike is facing is always with image of their clients.  The athletes they sponsor have to maintain positive image in society in order to remain sponsored by Nike, which I respect Nike for having a standard.  I think this is an issue because, unfortunately, many athletes these days have had a track record of getting in trouble for one thing or another.  As for Nike, it must be difficult to combat that because as we all know, these sponsors are the face of the sporting good GIANT. 

The consumer perceptions of Nike have always been great and many people are absolutely in love with anything that has the nike swoosh on it.  The only negative I've ever heard regarding Nike is perhaps a labor violation at one point in time over seas at a manufacturer, but in general they are good about correcting those things.  

Lastly, a few questions to them would be "How'd you deal with the low point in Nike when they almost went bankrupt/out of business?"  

"What is the process like of selecting an athlete to be the face of a product or product line?"

 

And lastly, I want to thank Phill Knight for the pleasure of letting the football team and myself here at VT wear those black jerseys against Boise State a few years ago, those were awesome.  I wonder if there are any more cool VT jerseys in the works…I sure hope so.