PRODUCT LEADERSHIP

Because Nike is such a high-profile marketer, consumers were becoming less convinced of Nike's leadership in product. Yet, Nike devotes inordinate amounts of time and money to details that make their products just a little bit better. Like Michael Johnson's track spikes that are asymmetrical on the sole because he runs the 200m starting on a curve.

Nike is the goddess of victory. So out of curiosity, we decided to conduct a statistical analysis of the margins of victory in sports over a 25 year period, and arrived at a surprising finding: the margins of victory in sport were shrinking. It was getting harder to win. So athletes needed even infinitesimally small advantages over competitors to win.

Because it's getting harder to win, the little things matter.