When NIKE was just a wee little baby back in the swingin’ 60’s of Oregon, U.S.A., Adidas was already collaborating with FIFA and the Olympics. But that didn’t stop NIKE from honing in on partnerships with personal athletes; the same partnerships we see today, only with of course, different athletes; later to become the biggest sports brand by far.
But what does this have to do with permission marketing? Permission marketing is more or less the manufacturing of consent. And when the NBA banned Michael Jordan’s NIKE Air Force 1’s, they manufactured the consent or hype, for every baller outside of the NBA to buy those shoes. In other words 99% of their market audience.