In Part 2 of our in-depth interview with Erin Patton, we launch into his journey at Nike, where Patton became the first Director of Product and Marketing for Jordan Brand. He discusses the footwear design process, working with Tinker Hatfield on the Air Jordan XIII, the concept of marrying footwear and apparel divisions, spending time with Michael Jordan, the initial marketing and seeding strategies for launching Air Jordan product to the consumer, and simply, why it’s important to have friends.

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Project Bluefoot: When you were Director of Product and Marketing for Jordan Brand, can you explain what the job entailed back then at the formation of the brand?

Erin Patton: Essentially, I was the brand director. So my primary thrust was to work across the organization to sell-in the idea, and to sell-in the concept to communicate a coherent strategy for the brand and how we were positioning it.  And because of the way Nike is structured, with it being a Matrix, we were forced to work across the organization to get support, and that support came by way of actual resources. You know, I would go around and have my tin cup in hand, as people would joke, because I would normally come in seeking not just their buy-in and support, but their budget, for the retail folks to commit to separate real estate for Jordan so that we could merchandise a full footwear and apparel story within U.S. advertising and marketing. Those organizations that had their own set of initiatives planned, I had to get Jordan on the radar. I had to give it some strong emphasis as an initiative for people to get behind it. Because at Nike that’s what people get behind – they get behind initiatives.

So my job was to really lobby. I was part lobbyist, I was kissing babies, shaking hands, and building as many allies as I could to support what we were doing to buy-into the concepts and the philosophy. I spent a lot of time in meetings presenting an articulate, coherent strategy but also addressing the questions and the issues certainly within the U.S. but also abroad. I traveled over into Europe and into Asia and the other regions to also get them on the bus, and that wasn’t easy, because the Jordan business globally was different than here in the U.S. And so they had a lot of anxiety around what was happening with this sort of separation with the Jordan Brand and Nike Basketball. A lot of it was just that.

(Tinker Hatfield, Air Jordan line presentation)

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From a pure, functional standpoint, I was working to move product along for all the seasonal line planning, working with Tinker [Hatfield] and the design team, briefing them and making sure that their product was moving on time and presenting that internally. Also working with the developers – I spent a lot of time over in Asia at the factories in terms of keeping our process moving forward. And then the sales organization, working with them on our allocations and just planning the business. And you know, writing the business plan initially was one of the first things I did obviously to get people to see the scope of the opportunity.

But another key responsibility I had was also to marry and sync up footwear and apparel. The apparel opportunity was so significant and one that we felt we were underperforming in. I was looking at all these things and said, you know what, hey, let’s have footwear talk to apparel, because no one was co-located at that time. Everyone was basically – U.S. footwear was over here, apparel was over there – and so I was trying to bridge those two worlds and getting everyone to line up so that we could ultimately deliver seasonally. You know, product and apparel that linked up, that made sense, so that your team shoe for the Bearcats – lets see what’s happening over in apparel and hook it up, etc. I spent a lot of my time trying to engineer also a product design and retail timeline that allowed us to maximize all the great creativity with the product development and everything else, and then even through marketing and advertising being able to tell a story.

So a big part of what I was doing was making sure that footwear and apparel were in sync in terms of the line plan itself – because we were a true brand, and we didn’t want to be just viewed as independent, with footwear doing this, and apparel doing that, and it reaches the retail floor and there’s a disconnect. I was making sure that the right hand knew what the left hand was doing. And the designers were talking about stories about inspiration and developing a line that, you know, allowed us to carve out a greater stake relative to the apparel business and we really felt we hadn’t quite reached that ceiling.

Basketball was just one but there was an entire lifestyle proposition that was out there. So that was part of it in terms of what I was doing on a daily basis. With the sports marketing aspects, I was working with the sports marketing group to bid for athletes: “Get me Vin Baker!” “Get me Eddie Jones!” I worked with those guys to develop the marketing strategy. And so that’s really where I gained my real learning ground for brand management. In that role – brand management – that was it, because I started from the insights, and worked with our insights group and how we were planning and our strategy and our positioning into the marketing mix and the things that we were doing there.

And with the advertising piece – Wieden+Kennedy and our U.S. advertising group – to get them trying to look at it creatively, because some, you know, when you go brief someone and you say, “Ok, we’re going to do a Jordan Brand ad,” they’re used to doing a Michael Jordan ad – an Air Jordan/Nike ad. So to try to get them to recognize that we wanted to do something a little bit different here based on what our brand position and strategy was, you know, it took some good six months of good discussions and everything and so that’s where I spent a lot of my time.

(Erin Patton & Michael Jordan receiving the American Marketing Association "Best New Product" Award)

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Then of course, within product – the design and development and pricing. It really was a holistic day-to-day experience that I was very fortunate to have, because Nike is a brand, but most people at Nike were working in specific silos and functional areas. I had an understanding at a very young age, and you have to remember I was very young and I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned so much about branding and brand management by making those mistakes that have served me well throughout.

I was in my mid-20’s when all of this was happening and if you think about what that means for that type of business with everything that goes with it, I was constantly learning and soaking up from the leadership within the organization.

And obviously the other piece is I was working with Michael a lot, in terms of catching up to him on the road, on the phone, in the hotel after the game, on the golf course, or wherever. He also came up to Portland a lot, and just getting his feedback, input, and direction on product or advertising, and on campaigns, and just making sure that he was understanding what we were doing. I was spending time with Michael getting his insights into what he thought we should be doing and then carrying that forward within the organization.

(Photo: Air Jordan XIII)

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PBF: What was your favorite aspect of the footwear design process when you were at Jordan Brand?

EP: It was always just going by Tinker’s office. You know, Tinker is an amazing person, and obviously as a creative person in architecture and design. He looks at things in a very unique way and articulates things in a very unique way. He’s just a very good individual. So I enjoyed just going by his office and talking, learning, absorbing, and seeing Tinker sketching and sort of trying to get him to lift the hood up. My visits to Tinker were sort of like, “Ok, Erin, go see how he’s coming on the [Air Jordan] XIII…let’s see how that’s coming.” And that one in particular I think was probably one of my favorites – the Air Jordan XIII, the hologram, the Black Cat shoe. I remember going over into Tinker’s office and he had sort of this sketch of the outsole and it looked like a little paw print and of course Michael’s nickname was “Black Cat”.

PBF: In Michael Jordan’s book Driven from Within, Tinker says he came up with that whole Black Cat backstory for the sneaker design but didn’t even know it was Jordan’s nickname until he presented the shoe to him…

EP: Exactly. Yeah, that’s one of those things that I loved. Just having a conversation with Tinker about what inspired him. When you think about product creation and you think about product design – the abstract nature of it, the personal nature of it, the process of where a designer goes for inspiration, that’s just fascinating to me. So to hear him describe and talk about, well you know, “Michael, he’s like a cat, and he prances…” and then he found this picture of Michael I think when he was D-ing up Magic Johnson, if I’m not mistaken, there’s a classic shot of Michael and his eyes were just locked in on Magic, like, “I’m about to just put you on lock, it’s a wrap, you’re not going anywhere.” And so he took that and superimposed it with a picture of a panther, you know the eyes, and that’s where the hologram came from on the side of the shoes. It was like, if you’d catch a panther’s eye with certain light, you’d get that kind of hologram look. You’d see those kinds of little images on the desk and I’m trying to put all these pieces together and so he gives you a little bit, and you come back and you start to see it play out.

(Tinker Hatfield, Nike V.P. of Special Projects)

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So yeah, that’s probably the thing that I’ll always takeaway and one of my favorite things to do because we were obviously focused on timelines and plans and strategies and allocations, and all these other things. Then you go into Tinker’s office and it’s like: You know what? This is really the tail wagging the dog, because nothing happens until this man gets inspired and goes into the lab and chef’s it all up.

And so it was a good departure for me, and actually because I was so fascinated with it, it created challenges for me because everyone else in the U.S. was like, “Erin, you got delayed on your timelines,” and that was because Tinker and I were just in there vibing in the lab, so to speak, but yeah, that was one of my favorite things to do.

PBF: You’ve got the flagship Air Jordan product coming out every year, and then all of a sudden you’ve got this whole brand thing going – as far as marketing it to the consumer, to the public, what was the strategy for that?

EP: Grassroots was a big part of it. We wanted to make this – you know, before viral marketing was an operative term in marketing – everything we did we wanted to keep it very authentic and connecting the brand and the products at the right touch points in terms of where the consumer was. I detail in the book what we did with the barber shops for example, before those products came out.

PBF: Right, that was an important part of the book, where early on you got the idea of “seeding” limited and unreleased Air Jordan product on barbers in Los Angeles.

EP: Yeah, making sure that we seeded the product first on the barbers and recognized that they were key influencers. Those were impressions, as far as I was concerned. And there was frequency there with folks coming in saying, “Wow, that’s what’s coming!” You don’t need to spend a whole lot on the TV commercial when you’re doing things like that. It keeps it authentic, it keeps it viral, it keeps the product within the laboratory of the consumer experience. We were very much focused on that.

(Erin Patton & Eve)

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There was also a strong entertainment tier to it, so we would make sure that all the artists and celebs that wanted the Jordan product got it for movies, and television, and videos, and everything else, so that was kind of a halo that we tapped into. I believe that we can rightfully claim ownership to being one of the first brands to really focus on product seeding, which is something that became ritual much later but we really got product seeding down to a science at an early age. We worked closely on making sure we got the product on the right people, you know, that they sneeze and everybody else catches a cold.

Then obviously from a sports marketing standpoint, get the product visible on the court from the elite amateur level to collegiate to professional, and making sure the brand was well represented in those particular sports marketing channels. And of course with the television advertising, we were able to articulate some of the brand positioning as I was mentioned through commercials such as the “Jordan CEO” commercial, and later the Mos Def “Umi Says” commercials, that demonstrated the intersection that the brand had and enjoyed within the hip-hop community. I did sneaker launch parties which were kind of like record music releases.

(Mos Def, "Black on Both Sides", 1999)

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PBF: You see that’s so common these days, with the launch of a new shoe debuted at a party event, like with the launch of a new Carmelo Anthony shoe or what have you.

EP: Yeah, so we kind of innovated in that area and said, “let’s turn this sneaker into a release.” Let’s celebrate it just as a new artist does with a CD that comes out, so we’d link up with Vibe and do an event. We had a couple of really cool ones and just tried to create the right level of excitement and anticipation. And then for me, too, it was looking within hip-hop and recognizing the unique position that Jordan had within the culture.

You know, I heard all the lyrics on our product from the hip-hop generation and I understood the place that it held. But at the same time, I didn’t want to just do hip-hop for hip-hop’s sake. I wanted to attach Jordan to the right currency in hip-hop and the right artists.

Representative artists like what Michael represented in sports, and guys that were moving the culture to the highest expression. People like Common, who came out to [Nike] Campus a lot; The Roots, we took care of them and brought them into the fold; A Tribe Called Quest, which was at the original Jordan Brand launch event. So we were also looking at those artists who were positive and could uplift the brand in the sense of attaching it to the most positive, highest expression of the music just as Michael did for the game.

(Common)

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PBF: Going back to the whole concept of seeding Air Jordan product on the barbers – in your book, you say that the notion of limited edition product and influencer seeding is the single most important aspect that a lot of brands overlook when targeting the urban market.

The footwear industry right now is so much about limited product, it almost seems saturated to a point, where everything becomes limited. Does that nullify the entire point of being a 1-of-1 product, or are developments like Nike iD where every piece of product is kind of like an original piece, is that where this is all going to? Is that the endgame?

EP: That’s a great question. You know, we were operating in a different environment at that point where basketball and NBA athletes were the aspirational values of the shoes and products they represented.

We’re now in a digital age where a kid is choosing between a $150 pair of sneakers or an iPhone. So I think in terms of where the industry is now, in making everything look and feel limited, at a certain point it does become saturated – you lose some of the special-ness and the authenticity. That’s probably an area where the footwear industry needs to take a step back and really focus on what the consumer is really looking for.

You can go and create a bunch of different technologies or you can create a bunch of different stories that you think are relevant, but if in the mind of the consumer there’s no extra reason to believe and it’s not something that they value, then it’s not going to be special to them.

So what we were trying to do was to bring that consumer into the process of product design and development with taking the shoes out early, before they managed to glean input, not just sitting in the focus group room with two-way mirrors or whatever, but being out in the places where the consumer was. Where they were living, where they were breathing, becoming a part of the culture and becoming a part of the currency. That to me is R&D. Being in that laboratory of the consumer’s experience where you can identify what is special to them and making that part of the equation. I think in many cases that’s often overlooked, not just in the footwear industry but also across the board.

When you think about products, those that are kind of user-generated, should begin with the consumer in mind. If you begin with the end user in mind, then you’re going to be in much better shape when that product reaches the marketplace. And that’s one of reasons why, for example, Starbury became important. It’s wasn’t just the aspirational aspect, it was the inspirational aspect and recognizing that there was a need and desire for price value proposition and someone who was authentic to carry the message.

So whatever that next movement is, to the extent that it can become kind of user-generated, I mean, we’re just in a user-generated paradigm right now and there’s a lot of power that the consumer has to create and innovate. This particular market, culture, sneaker culture, it’s real-time and it’s about brand creation and connecting your brand and product with those that have the ability to create your brand so give them a paint brush and a canvas and let them go at it. That’s really how I look at it.

(Tinker Hatfield and Michael Jordan)

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PBF: Tinker Hatfield gave a speech where he said the secret to getting resources and doing special things is to wield clout from the company you keep. Within the footwear industry and especially within Nike which is so competitive internally, would you say that getting things done within a big company, a big brand, you need to basically make friends and get things done through the people that you know?

EP: Definitely. And that’s one of those lessons I learned, and probably one of the mistakes that I made at a young age, or at a young point in my career I should say. You can only accomplish things through people, and building consensus is so critical.

Clearly, for me coming into a meeting as the head of the Jordan Brand at that time, you know, people were listening. Because of the clout of Michael, the halo of Michael, people like Tinker, people like Peter Ruppe, David Bond, Mark Parker, Keith Houlemard, a lot of these guys that were my colleagues and my support and peers and superiors and everything else. And ultimately, people knowing that I did have a very good relationship with Michael and that helped me a lot because I had his trust and so that allowed me to sit a lot taller in meetings and allowed me to get a lot of things done.

But at the same time, as Tinker is saying, it’s so critical to build your internal resource – or mastermind group, if you will – with folks that you know you can go to and they have your back when you’re not in that meeting, who are going to say what you want them to say, who are going to get people to move in a direction you want to move. To me, that’s the greatest sign of leadership – when you’re not around, what are people doing? Are people behaving and acting in the way that you would have them if you were there? And the only way to really affect that is to establish those very close relationships to have people that you know are clear in terms of what your vision is, they’re clear in terms of what they are empowered to do, and the role and importance of their contributions and having the trust and loyalty to be able to carry forth that in your presence or in your absence. That’s absolutely true.

So I was able to achieve that to a large extent, but I also probably didn’t do that enough or build a strong enough – you know, when you’re in an environment like that, some people are just going to want to be difficult because you’re doing what they want to do. There’s just going to be certain things like that, or people who don’t want to support something because it wasn’t their idea, or their guy or gal, or whatever, so you gotta be able to work through that and still get people to move toward a consensus and you can only influence to the degree that you’re able to influence others to carry out your influence, if that makes sense. It has to be that kind of dynamic to really be successful.

[Continue...The Mastermind - Erin Patton Interview PART 3]

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Get Erin Patton’s just-released book: Under the Influence: Tracing the Hip-Hop Generation’s Impact on Brands, Sports, & Pop Culture

Official Under The Influence website: www.undertheinfluence2009.com