On May 8, early in the morning, Chen Qiang turned on the radio and heard an extremely important news from the radio.

Germany announced unconditional surrender, and the European battlefield has been won!

On the streets of New York, immigrants who fled from Europe have begun to celebrate, especially those Jews who originally lived in Germany or Poland, have begun to pack their luggage and return to their hometowns.

The happiest person at the Nike factory was Jared. He was originally a Jew who fled from Poland to the United States. Now that Germany announced its surrender, it means that he can return to Poland.

"The war in Europe has ended and the Allies have liberated Poland. Are you planning to go back?" Chen Qiang couldn't help asking Jared.

"Return to Poland?" Jared thought for a while, then sighed: "Forget it! Our family has been in the United States for ten years, and has established a family in the United States, and has married and had children in the United States. We are used to life here, not to mention that I am a Jew. My relatives and friends died and fled. Now Poland has no relatives anymore. For me, my hometown Poland is a strange place, and the United States makes me feel more familiar."

"That's right, the war has caused great harm to Europe. Except for some countries, most places have been ruined. I think the situation in Poland is not optimistic. It is definitely far worse than the United States. It will be better to live in the United States." Jared said.

"Actually, I don't want to go back. There is another reason. Although Poland has been liberated, the Soviets liberated Poland. I heard that the entire Eastern Europe is now the territory of the Soviets, and even Germany is the Soviets and Americans each account for half of them." Jared said.

"You are right. Both sides have occupied half of Europe, and Berlin is exactly the dividing line. In the future, the Soviet Union and the United States will definitely divide the sphere of influence in Europe." Chen Qiang nodded.

"That's why I don't want to go back." Jared sighed and continued: "Mr. Chen, you are a Chinese and may not know much about the history of Poland. In the past few hundred years, we have been invaded by Tsarist Russia. In the history of Poland, Poland has been divided up by Tsarist Russia many times, so we Poles have always had a resistance to the Soviet Union."

"In addition to resistance, maybe there is some fear!" Chen Qiang said with a smile.

Jared hesitated for a moment, and finally nodded unwillingly: "You are right, you are a little scared."

Chen Qiang was not surprised by this. Europe's "Russia phobia" has not been there for a day or two, and even in the future it still exists. Russia spent five centuries to expand its territory from a small Moscow Principality, with a land area of ​​23 million square kilometers at one point. The process of territorial expansion was filled with too many massacres, fusions and migrations, which were the sources of fear from Europeans.

Speaking of which, Chen Qiang doesn't want Jared to return to China. If Jared returns to Poland, he will lose a right-hand assistant. Now Nike company cannot be missing Jared. Chen Qiang also expects Jared to help him sell shoes!

Thinking of selling shoes, Chen Qiang asked, "Our sports shoes have a good sales recently, right?"

"We have sold 300,000 pairs of Nike One in the past few months," Jared replied.

"Three hundred thousand pairs, it's really a good result." Chen Qiang nodded with satisfaction, and then asked: "Can the production capacity keep up?"

"Since the last expansion, our factory has not continued to expand its production capacity, mainly because our raw material reserves are not enough to allow us to expand our production capacity." Jared said.

"Build two more factories! Prepare for the future." Chen Qiang said.

"Are you planning to continue to expand your production capacity?" Jared asked.

"Believe me, it won't take long to go southeast Asia's rubber will be shipped to the United States continuously. By that time, we will no longer have to worry about raw materials." Chen Qiang said.

...

Three hundred thousand pairs of sneakers are not a small number. These sneakers have finally caused a lot of waves in the US sports shoes market.

Nike One's main competitor, of course, is Converse's Jack Purcell, but this era's Jack Purcell is just a mediocre flat shoe, mainly used in badminton and tennis. It is of course not as wide as Nike One in terms of use, so Nike One quickly seized some market share from Jack Purcell.

Chen Qiang's Nike One was originally a plagiarized Cordis Royal. The historical Cordis Royal was launched in 1949 and became very popular after it was launched. It is also a classic sneaker that has been popular for more than ten years. Now Chen Qiang has launched the same product four years in advance, so of course it can be sold well.

He sold 300,000 pairs of Nike No. 1 in a few months, and this result was already very good. Moreover, Nike is still a new company and has almost no brand recognition. However, Chen Qiang is not satisfied with this. The United States has a population of 130 million and its per capita income is also high. It is not a problem to sell 20 to 30 million pairs of sports shoes a year. Chen Qiang's 300,000 pairs of Nike No. 1 in only a small part of it.

Chen Qiang plans to continue to expand production scale. From a cost perspective, the more production quantity, the lower the cost of the product will naturally be. Expanding the production scale will help reduce the production cost of sports shoes. However, the current rubber restriction ban has not yet ended, and Chen Qiang dared not blindly expand the production scale, so he could only expand a few factories first, and after the rubber restriction was lifted, production could be expanded at any time.

Although the production scale of sports shoes has not expanded, Chen Qiangke never stopped the advertising of Nike One.

...

In Times Square, New York, a huge six-story advertisement was erected, with several basketball players painted from different teams and wearing different jerseys, but they have one thing in common, that is, they all wore Nike No. 1 sneakers.

There is a slogan above the advertisement with words such as "Nike All-Star Lineup" written on it. There is also a line of advertising slogans under the advertisement, which says "Nike One, the best choice for sports", and there is also a Nike One sneaker painted behind it.

The pedestrians couldn't help but stop and watch the huge advertisement.

"That's Max Zaslowski. I know him. He's our New Yorker. I've seen him play ball!"

"The next one is Philadelphia Warriors basketball star Joe Falkers."

"Is that person Eddie Sardovs?"

"The one standing on the edge seems to be the Boston Celtics mosaic."

People stood in front of the advertisement and discussed it through word of mouth. Even people who don’t know about professional basketball know that the huge advertisement was the basketball stars of each team.

"What is the Nike All-Star lineup?" The funner asked the top line.

"Nike seems to be a sneaker seller. Look, it's the kind that these players wear on their feet."

"Does the players wear Nike sneakers? In this way, these Nike sneakers should be very good, otherwise there wouldn't be so many basketball stars choosing it."

"My son just bought a pair of sneakers a few days ago, and it seems to be from this brand."

People's discussion gradually shifted from players on the poster to the Nike brand.

This is exactly the brand effect Chen Qiang wants.

Signing a bunch of well-known stars and taking photos in beautiful positions is also an old routine for sports brands to sell sneakers. This advertising method can also best increase the brand's popularity. When fans see that your brand can sign so many stars, they will instinctively think that this is a reliable big brand. In terms of brand marketing, this kind of wolf-packing tactic of a large group of stars and roaming may be more effective than signing a top superstar.

In the early 1980s, Nike used this trick when it released Air Force 1. They invited Michael Cooper, Moses Malone, Calvin Knight, Jamal Wilkes, Bobby Jones and Mitchell Thompson as endorsements. This is the original Nike Air Force 1 six-man group. On the 25th anniversary of the release of Air Force 1 in 2005, Nike has re-created a super luxurious star lineup to promote, including LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Paul Pierce, Steve Nash, Tony Parker, Amare Stoudemire, Sean Marion, Rashid Wallace and Jermaine O'Neal. Many old fans should still remember posters of these superstars wearing pure white sportswear.

The first six-man group of Nike's Air Force 1 was very successful. It not only helped Nike sell a large number of sneakers, but also greatly improved the brand value of Nike. So Converse learned from Nike. When launching Converse on basketball shoes in 1986, it also created a six-man group. These six people were Isaiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Kevin McHale, Larry Bird, Bernard King and Mark Aguile. After all, Converse was once the number one sports brand in the United States. The lean camel is bigger than the horse, so the value of the six-man group of Converse is obviously greater than that of Nike's six-man group.

Adidas is not willing to be lonely and has signed many stars. The most famous ones are of course Adidas' classic five-man, Gilbert Arenas, Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady, Chauncey Billups and Kevin Garnett.

In the future, NBAs pay attention to the fact that stars can win the championship by joining together, and selling sneakers also pay attention to the fact that stars can get good sales. Chen Qiang is of course very familiar with this marketing method, so he used it early. Anyway, the endorsement of the star in the 1940s was completely bargain. If you give a little money, the stars will sign the endorsement contract happily, so this kind of star-studded advertising is also very low.

However, the advertising effect of this kind of advertising is really strong. When you see an athlete wearing shoes from a certain brand, you may not care; when you see two athletes wearing shoes from the same brand, you may have an impression of the brand; when you see five athletes wearing shoes from the same brand, you will feel that it is necessary to know about the brand; and when you see more than a dozen athletes wearing shoes from the same brand, you will instinctively think that this brand should be very good, so so many athletes will choose this brand.

The effect of inviting a large group of celebrities to endorse advertising is definitely not simple. One plus one equals two. There have been many classic advertising cases in history. Pepsi invited a large group of popular chickens, including Jay Chou, who had just been promoted to the Little King, Teacher Chen, who loves photography art, the ordinary Louis Koo, the ugliest Aaron Kwok, etc. Everyone dyed their hair a pure blue family color. This wave of publicity greatly increased the brand value of Pepsi in China, and the effect brought by celebrities also made Pepsi the first choice for many young people.

Coca-Cola is not inferior. It invited several top domestic athletes to build an "Olympic Star Lineup" to deal with Pepsi's publicity offensive. The "Olympic Star Lineup" includes Chairman Yao, who was still a player at the time, world champions such as Liu Xiang and Guo Jingjing, who were still in their peak period, and Wang Liqin, the "No. 1" of Chinese table tennis, could only stand on the edge of the publicity poster.

...

Chen Qiang's advertising offensive was very successful. Even those who did not plan to buy sports shoes knew the Nike brand, and those who planned to buy sports shoes also considered Nike One.

Compared with a behemoth like Converse, Nike is still a small brand. Converse, which has been developing for more than 30 years, has long been the overlord in the American sports shoes field, and it is not something that Nike, which has just been established for a year, can challenge.

Fortunately, Converse in this era did not understand advertising marketing. Converse's boss was a typical industrialist. He was honest in production and sales, and improved his sneakers bit by bit in the process of production and sales to make the sneakers better. How could he have so many colorful things about Chen Qiang!

In fact, in that era, most entrepreneurs were like this. We should call them "industrialists" rather than "merchantists". They are a group of people who really want to make good products. For example, Ford's Ford's dream is to make good civilian cars, rather than selling many cars. For example, Westinghouse's Westinghouse, his lifelong wish is to promote AC electricity to thousands of households. This is a bit like Apple in the era of Jobs. Although the products are sold at great cost, users can feel full of sincerity. Unlike Apple today, the products are boring and rely on changing the shell color to make money.

However, facts have proved that it is not enough to just study products. If a company wants to grow and grow, it must have excellent marketing, especially after entering the Internet era, information dissemination is faster, and a good marketing is the best brand accumulated over the past century.

Chen Qiang is well aware of the importance of marketing to brands, so he is willing to spend a lot of money to advertise. If you calculate carefully, the 300,000 pairs of Nike One sold by Chen Qiang will not make any money, but will even lose money, because the advertising fee Chen Qiang paid for this is too high.

However, Chen Qiang originally did not intend to make money with Nike One. This simple canvas shoes have low production costs and are cheaper, so the profit is also low. Making money depends entirely on volume and small profits and quick turnover.

The product that Chen Qiang really intends to make money is the next product, plagiarizing Adidas Superstar’s basketball shoes, which is a truly high-profit and high-value-added product.

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Chapter completed!