Apple and Nike →
What Nike is selling is the experience of being a runner (or a basketball player or a tennis player or a golfer, etc.) It’s not just the athletes in their advertisements, or the quality of their shoes, the sportiness of the clothes, or the sophistication of the apps. It’s the whole, and it’s greater than the sum of its parts. Nike is an experience company. They sell a commodity product, and make their profit off of the differentiation provided by the Nike experience. And they’re better at it than just about any company in the world, except maybe Apple.
Really, really interesting piece by Ben Thompson. Makes a ton of sense—I love Apple products and I love Nike products and even more so, I love Apple retail stores and Nike retail stores. And both have a distinct fetishization of their products on full display.
And because the universe works this way sometimes, Devour linked to a product video of the new Air Jordan XX9. Remind you any product videos you’ve seen before?