A Mythic Case Study: Nike
Over the past several months we’ve been exploring the connection between myth, brand and cultivating regenerative practices.
Myths give structure to meaning. Myths can change and organize perception and behavior. How can we use the structure of myth to discover our potential to connect the world with what we have to offer?
Carl Jung defined life myth, as an archetypal patterning as revealed through the earliest dream, recurring dream, or an early memory. These dreams offer a blueprint of potential themes, qualities, and archetypes a person would face and work with throughout their life. A similar patterning of archetypal energies is also present within the origin story of an organization, relationship, or group. In other words, from the beginning, the core vital elements are there that help shape the identity of the system.
One way we can get in touch with the elements within a person, group, or brand myth, is by choosing three elements to focus on and distilling these down to a sketch or gesture, meaning the most essential expression of this element that is more universal, and often more accessible. By choosing three elements, we create a fractal, a small pattern that when scaled up or down maintains the integrity of the whole. Fractals exist everywhere in nature, from snowflakes to coral reefs. Fractals show us that a small pattern can scale into something large and still reflect the original structure.
Fractals are useful in working with a brand's essence because they allow us to stay close to the quality of a brand’s myth while scaling and sharing it’s offerings. As we learn how to identify elements in our life myth, and create fractal patterns from them, we begin to discover opportunities for how these patterns can support our brand, and the process of branding, to become a regenerative practice. These patterns are inherently supportive because they draw from a mythic source that often reflects a deeper sense of the purpose, the essence of the brand, and its vision.
As we look at how we can cultivate a brand practice in regenerative ways, it may be helpful to look at some case studies of how other brands have been able to effectively scale up early archetypal elements in their own way to leave the mark they hope to make on the world. When we take a close look at brands that do this effectively, we can see that those who have cultivated these early elemental energies have been able to create regenerative patterns not only in their offerings at scale, but also in how they communicate these offerings. The most successful companies understand that a brand that scales and grows, while remaining authentic to their original mythic source, is one of the best assets they have to connect with others.
In another article, we’ll look at how it is up to the job of a steward to cultivate the potential between offerings and the audience while staying true to the source of authenticity. But for now, let's look at Nike, a brand we are all familiar with, and notice how early elemental energies from it’s founders helped create important fractal patterns that started over 40 years ago can and can still be seen today.
A Mythic Pair: Phil and Bill
Nike is a shoe company founded by entrepreneur Phil Knight and athletic coach Bill Bowerman in Eugene, Oregon in 1964. Nike wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for the important elemental energies these two brought to the initial founding of the company. If we look at just a few key mythic elements we can notice how they remain important parts of the brand to this day.
What’s in a Name?
Let’s start by noticing that Nike did not start as Nike. The original name of the company way ‘Blue Ribbon’. Legend has it Phil Knight was on an early business trip to Japan and in the midst of making a deal found he needed a name for his American company he had supposedly started. Since he didn't have one, he said the first thing that came to mind; Blue Ribbon.
The blue ribbon traditionally is a prize given to the best. It represents the highest quality. It is a symbol given to those who come first.
Phil Knight was a track star in college. We can see that ‘competitiveness’, and ‘being first’, are core mythic energies that not only fed into the company culture but also eventually resulted in the renaming of his company to Nike. (It’s important to notice that mythologically Nike is the goddess of victory.)
The Innovation of Bill
While Phil brought a sense of energy and competitiveness to Nike, it was his eventual business partner and co-found of Nike, Bill Bowerman that brought its spirit of innovation.
If Phil Knight was going to realize his dream of being the best shoemaker he needed someone who could help him get there. Eventually, he asked his former coach Bill Bowerman to help.
Bill was known as a cultivator of athletic greatness. He was also known as someone who would tinker with shoes in order to find ways to give his runners a competitive edge. Bill Bowerman was unorthodox in his approaches to innovation, using kitchen appliances like his waffle maker, to help him construct the soles of the shoes he’d prototype. Eventually his innovation led him to design the Nike Cortez which was a pivotal offering and turning point for the brand.
Apart from his innovative spirit, Bowerman also was also someone who cared deeply about understanding how far the limits of human potential could be pushed in terms of finding inner greatness as expressed through sport. During his time at the University of Oregon, he won many titles for the school’s athletic department.
Bill’s desire for greatness and innovation can still be seen today in Nike's product offerings and messaging.
A Nike Fractal
Phil Brought a relentless competitive edge. Bill Bowerman brought a tinkering innovativeness. These are the two core elemental energies of the myth of Nike. But to complete the fractal we can see that the two needed a third element.
This third element came from who they chose to work with to promote the ideals of the company. Nike consistently chose to work with certain kinds of athletes who, to them, represented inner greatness, people who were pushing the limits of what the body could do, such as the great track runner Steve Prefontaine who while not the fastest or stronger runner, was considered an unstoppable force.
These energies, competitiveness, innovation, and greatness, formed one of the earliest fractals of the brand of Nike that can still be seen today. Working from these elemental energies helped the brand make clear consistent decisions for how to create offerings and how to tell the world about them. Below are some examples to illustrate how these mythic sources are present:
How the elemental energies of personal greatness and competition, show up today at a much larger scale messaging.
Early messaging:
Later messaging:
Examples of innovations:
Early innovation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Cortez
Later innovation: https://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-note-on-adidas-nike-2017-6
When working from the vast resource of our myth we have access to a source of energy that can infuse how your offering reaches the world. Working from this mythic source we can discover our life myths are filled with simple patterns that can help us create regenerative brands that are dynamic enough to face a changing world and grow and connect with audiences we choose to serve.