A.
Nike is one of the world’ s best-known sports shoe and clothes companies. It earns over $1 billion a year. It markets running shoes, walking shoes, basketball shoes, jogging(慢跑) suits, and many other related products.
B.
In spite of its success, Nike relies very much on famous people’ s support to promote consumer sales. Over the past few years, Nike has made good use of one of the most popular names in sports history: Michael Jordan for Air Jordan basketball shoes and clothing.
C.
In the first two years on the market, Nike sold 2 million pairs of Air Jordan’ s; and sales from the shoes and clothing reached $100 million. Michael Jordan’ s fee $ 2.5 million over five years, a royalty (使用费) on all items sold, and a number of other benefits.
D.
Nike’ s promotion efforts for Air Jordan have been impressive. It decided to hire Michael Jordan after he starred for the gold-medal winning in 1984 U. S. Olympic basketball team. He has since become an exciting popular player in the National Basketball Association. The name Air Jordan came from the shoe’ s ak-sole (充气鞋底) and Michael Jordan’ s name. The original shoe was a high-top black and red model, designed to be both comfortable and fashionable. Magazine and television commercials, for which Nike has invested $ 5 mil lion, have shown Jordan leaping and blocking shots. Enormous billboards (户外广告牌)of him in action also have appeared in major cities. McDonald’ s and coke (可乐) commercials displaying Jordan have enhanced his public image.
E.
Nike received early publicity when the Chicago Bulls (his basketball team)refused to let Jordan wear the red and black shoes, since they did not match the team’ s colors. After getting headlines everywhere, Nike sup plied Jordan with shoes in the Bulls’ colors.