Nike's Problem: Design by Numbers

There are a number of articles about Nike, suggesting that the lack of innovation is the problem behind their revenue issues. John Donahoe also mentioned that working from home is an issue. It feels like these are just buzzwords used to quickly simplify complex problems. I don't disagree that innovation seems to have slowed at Nike. Being an outsider, I don't know how WFH affected their effectiveness. I do think that to work on a product, you need to be hands-on, but there are many effective people who work remotely; there just needs to be a balance.

From an outsider's perspective, as a fan and consumer of Nike, and someone who has worked in product for 21 years, it feels like the problem is design driven by numbers. Don't get me wrong; I know Nike is a business and has to take care of its bottom line. However, I would say that there is a balance that I have seen in the past at Nike that I don't see now.

At times, I can see how certain items are developed and put into retail because the buyer/merchant was trying to fill a box in the line plan. Or because XYZ was successful, now we need five more versions of the same thing. The product was made to fill a number driven by an executive who wants a quota met. Often, we would get products that the designer is not excited about or ideas that get watered down.

As a quick example, I took a category from the Nike.ca website and broke down the assortment. I went to the Jordan Brand footwear assortment and looked at what they are offering right now. Seventy percent (addressing this number is a whole other article) of the footwear assortment is lifestyle footwear, composed of retros (Jordan 1, Jordan 3, etc.), retro-new (essentially a retro updated with new tooling like the Flyease), and lifestyle (old styles like the 6 Rings and new silhouettes). Just based on the styling perspective, and this is subjective, most of these silhouettes and colorways felt like they were just phoning it in. I'm pretty sure I can do the same exercise across another footwear category or clothing segment, and it would feel the same: a performance company overproducing lifestyle products that are not well-considered, all in the effort to fill in the missing boxes in a line plan.

Again, please don't get me wrong. I'm certain there is a lot of talent at Nike, and there are people there who must be going into a presentation knowing that they don't want to present another five colorways of the Jumpman Max Aura 5 just to have a merchant or buyer tell them to make it white and red because that's what sells. Then they have a person in production who says they can't use this leather because it's too pricey. What I'm saying is to find a balance, let the talent cook, give them the latitude to create (and show up at retail), and have a discourse about the assortment holistically, not only across one footwear line but across clothing and footwear, and ask if more than 50% (and I'm only saying 50% because that feels like a step forward) of this line is something that isn't designed by numbers but designed with intention. Again, I'm an outsider, and I'm probably wrong about a lot of stuff that I said above, but at the end of the day, the product assortment speaks for itself.