Nike movement specialists worked with kids to understand their unique biomechanics. Those insights led to the Nike Future Speed running shoe and Nike Future Flight basketball shoe, available July 1 on nike.com.
Source: Nike’s Future Series Rethinks Sneaker Innovation for Young Athletes
Nike has such an endless amount of capital they can attempt a number of different ideas before many companies have the chance to build their momentum in an area where there wasn’t any one seemingly interested. This is good for the shareholders of Nike, because the brand can fail often without the same problems as smaller companies with less capital. It’s one of the reasons I explained that Nike increased inventory in order to fill their own sales channels with product at a variety of prices.
Okay, that’s a bit unclear, but let me explain and I’ll get back to the main point. From 2014 to 2016 Nike flooded their accounts (mom and pop shops and larger accounts) with footwear and required them to take on clothing and apparel that was never going to sell in order to get the Retro and Signature products that do sell. This intentional flooding diminished Nike’s brand as the product began going on sale and Nike allowed chains to RTV. This process allowed for the Nike Consumer Direct Offense to be launched as many mom and pop accounts simply couldn’t keep up and they closed. It wasn’t even mom and pop… The Sports Authority suffered the same fate and owed Nike millions when they went bankrupt. Nike was able to do this because the company was increasing physical store locations and taking back product to resale through these new doors. The amount of money they had was not being used to develop tech (it was, but that wouldn’t be clear until 2017). The money was being used to support the buildout of infrastructure for DTC. Now that the infrastructure is complete Nike has begun pushing technical ideas.
This new tech, Future Series for kids, is a great idea. The problem is a former Nike designer, Jason Mayden, recently launched his own brand built with kid athletes in mind. I wrote an article about his project and in it I said that the natural progression was to scale with more sport specific product:
An Amazing Sneaker Designed Just For Kids | Super Heroic Brand
Nike is infamous for grabbing an idea and making it their own. With the amount of capital the company has they can literally make brands disappear. Consider that And1 was riding high with streetball. Basketball and And1 were becoming synonymous with Hip-Hop and youth culture in the late 90s. They made trash talking tees and the in your face aggressive nature of And1 stood out. Nike began to make trash talk/statement tees. They launched a video assault featuring “streetball” styled players like Jason Williams in what became one of the most classic basketball clips ever in “Freestyle”. What many don’t know and remember is that Nike was sued by a New York based company named Game Over because they stated that Nike disrupted their momentum. Nike not only disrupted Game Over, they disrupted And1 as well with “Freestyle”.
With Future Series, described as:
Typically, kids’ shoes look like tinier versions of adult shoes …Nike looked to design kid’s-specific performance shoes from the ground up. Thus, the critical design focus was set on creating shoes that allowed a young athlete to move and grow with these key considerations in mind. In general, designers focused on achieving that through the following:
- Broadening the foot form in the forefoot to give kids a little more space for their movements and to grow.
- Using less glue, meshes that were as light as possible and taking away anything that wasn’t truly necessary so they could feel light and nimble.
the description sounds awfully similar to Jason’s Super Heroic description:
The TMBLR v1 is the first-ever performance grade shoe that has been specifically designed around the needs of a child’s foot. Children use more areas of their feet than adults do, meaning the sole of the shoe has been designed to navigate multiple surfaces, with traction ridges that offer maximum grip. The dual density midsole aids multi-directional movement and an offset durable rubber outsole adds stability. A utility strap closes the shoe, providing security without restriction. The TMBLR v1 is designed to empower, working with movements instead of against them.
Now, it’s obvious that Nike didn’t directly encroach upon Super Heroic, but Nike never directly takes an idea. They simply grab the idea and turbocharge it before any other brand has an opportunity to grow their product line in a consistent and naturally progressive manner.
What I envisioned, and I do this with every brand I analyze, is that Super Heroic would eventually position themselves as the performance footwear brand for young people. It was an incredible prospect in my opinion as the market really doesn’t account for how kid’s feet change and grow. Unfortunately for Super Heroic, Nike saw in their opportunity, opportunity and I can’t be mad at the Swoosh for that, but I am.
