20400495 Entry 2

Quality over Green: Nike's New Air Jordan



This article is about the Nike’s new released basket ball shoes, Jordan 23, which is considered as a green product. Explained by the article, green product is a product which tries to use eco-friendly or recycled material and eliminate adhesives which can harm our environment. Nike has produced several green products before Jordan 23, but it didn’t appeal a lot to costumers. The customers seemed to be careless whether their shoes are eco-friendly or not. Their priority seemed to be the performance of the shoes instead. Instead of making a different product line for green products (which eventually failed), Nike applied this method to existing lines such as Jordan series which is recognize as a high performance shoes.


Before I read this article I saw a shocking documentary program broadcast in BBC. It was about the polar bear in the North Pole suffering from global warming. Because of the Green house effect, the polar bears are having a hard time hunting seals of other preys. Usually during the winter the sea waters are frozen so that the polar bears are able to hunt there games on the glaciers. But recently, because of the green house effect, the sea water does not freeze. This makes the Polar bears to swim to search frozen ice bergs where seals come to rest. Because frozen sea water areas are getting so scarce, they waste their energy while mobilizing, which makes them get exhausted before hunting. They die in front of their preys. I didn’t realize the heaviness of the problem before watching this program.

As the Global warming is growing faster, the green product seems to be a clever solution. But what if the green products don’t appeal to consumers? What if the extra effort to produce green products is ignored? To avoid this tragedy, we need to be smart like Nike. They have experienced failure with their early green products which didn’t attract the consumers. But now, applying this to the best sellers such as Air Jordan series, Nike is not only helping the earth to cool down but also gaining better brand image and better profit. Before we urge people to be aware of the global warming, we should think about a easy way for people to get involved to fight against the global warming.

Resourses : http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2008/id20080125_828346.htm