作者：莉莉·迈尔对耐克公司而言，迈克尔·乔丹是一个极具象征意义的品牌符号。在马特·达蒙与本·阿弗莱克主演的电影中，乔丹品牌的起源故事被赋予了近乎超级英雄般的传奇色彩。
By Lily Meier Jordan is so talismanic a brand for Nike Inc. that its origin story is treated with superhero-like reverence in the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck starrer .
影片将1984年耐克对尚未成为NBA传奇人物的迈克尔·乔丹的大胆押注描绘为公司发展的关键转折点。现实中，这一举措也确实收获了惊人回报——随着数十亿美元的资金源源涌入，乔丹品牌的影响力与日俱增。
The bold bet on Michael Jordan in 1984, well before he became an NBA legend, is painted as a breakthrough moment for Nike in the movie. In real life, the gambit’s payoff was indeed spectacular — glowing an ever brighter green as billions of dollars poured in.
彭博情报的高级分析师普娜姆·戈亚尔指出：“乔丹品牌正是耐克得以发展成如今模样的重要因素之一。”
Jordan is “part of how Nike became what Nike is,” said Poonam Goyal, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
然而眼下，就连这一标志性品牌也显露出疲态，这恰恰反映出耐克当前面临的困境之深重。周四，耐克宣布：占其全球业务约13%的乔丹品牌，营收出现了15%左右的降幅。在截至5月31日的财年中，该品牌贡献的营收略超70亿美元，而两年前这一数字则接近90亿美元。
It’s a sign then of how deep Nike’s problems run at this moment that even the iconic brand is showing weakness. On Thursday, the company said revenue from Jordan, which represents about 13% of its global business, saw a mid-teens percentage decrease. In the financial year ended May 31, it brought in just over $7 billion, compared with almost $9 billion two years earlier.
63岁的首席执行官埃利奥特·希尔解释了品牌表现疲软的原因：“简单来说，我们向市场投放的经典复古款产品数量过多。”他在与分析师的电话会议中如此说道。
Chief Executive Officer Elliott Hill, 63, provided a reason for the brand’s struggles. “Simply put, we’ve been oversupplying our iconic retro product,” he said on a call with analysts.
在希尔试图重振耐克之际，乔丹品牌的吸引力逐渐减弱只是诸多难题之一。约二十年前，耐克便开始将足球巨星基利安·姆巴佩培养为品牌代言人，但他如今却转投规模较小却日益走红的瑞士竞争对手昂跑公司；耐克在中国这一关键市场的销售额也在持续下滑；本届世界杯上，阿迪达斯旗下球员成为仅有的两位闯入决赛的球员；而原本就面临营收下滑困境的匡威品牌，因一次被批评者指为带有三K党及私刑意味的营销活动，品牌形象更是遭到重创。
The fading magic of Jordan is just one of several woes plaguing Hill as he tries to revive Nike. Football superstar Kylian Mbappé — who Nike began cultivating as a brand ambassador about two decades ago — decamped to the smaller but increasingly popular Swiss rival On Holding AG; sales in the critical Chinese market are declining; Adidas AG represented the two finalists at the FIFA World Cup; the image of the Converse brand that was already bleeding revenue is in tatters after a marketing campaign that critics say evoked the Ku Klux Klan and lynching.
投资者的反应极为冷淡。自希尔出任首席执行官以来的两年间，耐克股价累计下跌约60%。这家公司也失去了在标普100指数中的席位——此前它已在该指数中稳居近二十年之久。
The response from investors has been brutal. In the two years since Hill took over as CEO, shares of the company have slumped about 60%. The stock was yanked out of the S&P 100, where it had been for almost two decades.
在公布最新季度销售额不及预期且本财年前景黯淡后，耐克于周四宣布将裁员并实施重组计划，预计该计划能在未来五年内为公司节省25亿美元。
After announcing weaker-than-expected sales for the latest quarter and a disappointing outlook for this fiscal year, Nike said on Thursday that it will cut jobs and embark on a restructuring plan that it hopes will save $2.5 billion over the next five years.
为重振乔丹品牌的热度，耐克计划减少部分复古款乔丹鞋款的发行数量与频率。公司表示，针对Air Jordan 1系列已开始实施这一举措。这一做法与此前截然相反——过去耐克频繁推出大量相关产品，反而削弱了品牌的稀缺性，导致这些鞋款最终只能以折扣价出售。
To bring back the hype around Jordan, the company plans to pull back on the volume and frequency of some of its retro Jordan drops, and said that it has already done so with Air Jordan 1. That’s a reversal from before, when Nike released so many products in quick succession that it diluted the brand’s cachet and sent shoes to the discount rack.
“要想实现整个集团的持续复苏，耐克必须让乔丹品牌发挥关键作用，”GlobalData公司执行总监尼尔·桑德斯指出，“从财务层面来说它需要盈利，从品牌层面而言也至关重要，因为乔丹品牌承载着深厚的文化底蕴。”彭博情报的分析师戈亚尔则指出该品牌面临两大问题：产品数量过多且缺乏差异化。不过她认为这些问题最容易解决。
“To engineer a sustained recovery across the group as a whole, Nike really needs Jordan to work,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData. “It needs it to work financially obviously, but it needs it to work from a brand perspective because there is a lot of cultural heritage within Jordan.”Goyal at Bloomberg Intelligence sees two issues with the brand: Too much merchandise, and undifferentiated merchandise. But she says it’s the easiest to fix.
“乔丹品牌的成败很大程度上取决于执行层面，”她解释道，“关键在于把合适的产品送到目标消费者手中，同时又要避免产品泛滥到随处可见的程度。”耐克还有其他潜在的增长点：公司刚刚推出了备受期待的凯特琳·克拉克专属球鞋，这款产品深受女子篮球迷追捧。据《迈阿密先驱报》报道，耐克还以超过2亿美元的价格与迈阿密大学签下为期10年的合作协议，击败了阿迪达斯。此外，耐克称跑步鞋与全球足球类运动装备等品类的销售也呈增长势头。
“Jordan is largely dependent on execution,” she said. “It’s about getting the right product in front of people,” but ensuring that “it’s not everywhere.”There are other potential bright spots for Nike: It just released a long-awaited Caitlin Clark shoe that women’s basketball fans were eagerly awaiting. The brand also signed a 10-year deal worth more than $200 million with the University of Miami, beating out Adidas, according to the Miami Herald. And the company says some of its performance categories like running and global football are growing.
近期，来自奢侈品集团LVMH的亚历山大·阿尔诺加入了耐克董事会，他是亿万富翁伯纳德·阿尔诺之子。
The company’s board recently added Alexandre Arnault, from the luxury house LVMH and son of billionaire Bernard Arnault.
“阿尔诺家族十分重视文化价值，深谙品牌建设之道，也具备成熟的渠道运营经验，”GlobalData公司的桑德斯评价道。
The Arnault family is “very attached to culture, they do understand brand building, they have knowledge of distribution,” GlobalData’s Saunders said.
不过他警告称，这一任命并非“万全之策”。“即便你任命英国国王进入董事会，但如果公司仍无法拿出理想的财务数据，那也起不到太大作用，”他说道。
But he warned that the appointment is not “the full solution.”“You could appoint the King of England to the board, but if you are not producing the financial numbers, it’s not really going to make a lot of difference,” he said.