[A] Knight acknowledges the challenge. "We have to be beautiful as well as big. It"s no mean feat," says Scott Bedbury, former global ad chief for Nike. "The worst ease scenario would be to become Microsoft," says Kevin Keller, a marketing professor at Duke. Best ease: be like Coea-Cola. "They"re everywhere, but no one seems to resent them for it. "
[B] One answer is to play down the Swoosh, and some Nike watchers say it will do just that. Nike is marketing new products, including its ACG (All Condition Gear) line for hiking and outdoor styles.
[C] Last week was particularly glum at Nike"s headquarters in suburban Portland. Managers had warned of layoffs but hadn"t revealed any names. On Wednesday, 250 employees were told to pack up their desks, while stunned colleagues looked on.
[D] Phil Knight doesn"t speak in public very often. And when you hear from him these days, he doesn"t sound happy. Talking to Wall Street analysts from his Oregon headquarters last week, the founder and head of Nike Inc. didn"t mince words: "This is a dark day around these halls. "
[E] Yet Nike is now facing a marketing conundrum: can you be big and cool When Teenage Research Unlimited did its latest survey, 40 percent of kids named Nike as one of the " coolest" brands, down from 52 percent just six months ago. Kim Hostetler of Paper, a New York magazine, says that the coolest things around now are brilliantly colored suede sneakers by New Balance. Even Adidas, torpedoed by Nike and Reebok in the [980s, is staging a comeback.
[F] Knight"s problems would worry any CEO: a stock price that has slid to the bottom from the top, a plunge in profits and warehouses lull of shoes that aren"t selling. But most critical is a price war that has sliced U. S. sales and is a sign that Nike"s lock as the champion of "cool" may be weakening. Although Nike prides itself on technical innovation, losing its cool would be tantamount to losing the game.
[G] At most corporate offices, that scene, though painful, wouldn"t be cataclysmic, but for Knight and his employees, even a setback bears the agony of defeat. Nike rose about as high and fast in the 1990s as any company can. It took on a new religion of brand consciousness and broke advertising sound barriers with its indelible Swoosh, "Just Do It" slogan and deified sports figures. Nike managed the deftest of marketing tricks: to be both anti-establishment and mass market, to the tune of $ 2 billion in sales last year.
Order:
[D]→41. ______ →42. ______ →43. ______ →44. ______→45. ______→[B]