00:00In the heart of Western Oregon lies a 750,000 square foot plus complex.
00:06So secret, few are allowed past the lobby.
00:09If you love sports and you love product, this is kind of Disneyland.
00:12Hundreds of motion picture cameras surrounding an indoor soccer pitch.
00:15Speed sensors encircling an Olympic race track.
00:19Electronic pressure plates embedded in a basketball court.
00:22Biometric hookups to assess a runner's gait and posture.
00:25A hermetically sealed room that mimics the brutal heat and humidity.
00:29Of a Tokyo summer.
00:31All told, more than 800 pieces of testing equipment under the roof of the LeBron James Innovation Center.
00:38Home to the Nike Sport Research Lab.
00:41An evolution from the company's experimental kitchen counter roots.
00:45And a nod to its future of putting the athlete first.
00:49This is our Nike Sports Research Lab in our Innovation Center.
00:52And this is the home the dreamers, creators, makers, engineers, some incredible teammates of ours.
00:58Who are all dreaming about serving elite athlete problems.
01:01Yeah, what Nike as a brand is founded on really at the core of our history and heritage.
01:06Is listening to the voice of the athlete, right?
01:08Phil's point you're saying we're in this amazing building where we have dreamers building the future.
01:13And work with not only elite athletes, but the everyday athlete to take those insights and understanding and build not only for the elite, what you've seen being here today.
01:24But then are able to translate those innovations through every price point.
01:29Amy Montaigne is the new president of the Nike brand.
01:32Phil McCartney is the new chief innovation design and product officer overseeing ideas across the company's three units.
01:40Nike, Jordan and Converse.
01:43They are two of the key players in CEO Elliott Hill's full court press to reinvigorate growth following former CEO John Donahoe's reign.
01:52Under Donahoe, it was a tenure that saw annual sales begin to drop in 2024 as demand waned for the brand's lifestyle sneakers like the Nike Dunks and his relationships with retail partners soured.
02:04Elliott Hill is now trying to plug the hole with the refocus on athletic performance.
02:10We're going to obsess sports. I think that's been since Elliott returned.
02:14That's been a key part of our charge as a leadership team.
02:17And we're already starting to see the fruits of it.
02:19You know, we spend a huge amount of time bringing athletes here.
02:22We text with Kip Yegon, Elliott Kip Choge, LeBron James.
02:26We bring them to our home and then we go to their homes.
02:29So the origination for ideas is always the athlete. That's at the core of everything we do.
02:33And then we start to think about how do we apply those insights broadly to the 8 billion people who are trying to invite into sport every single day.
02:42So when it does actually go to market, are you going to target it towards the athlete or are you going to try to maybe just target towards the casual wearer?
02:51Everything that we do in the focus on performance is listening to the elite athlete and capturing that data and information to help lead this amazing innovation.
02:59So we will for sure be connecting this story exactly to our athletes, which are who helped give us those insights, who we tested with.
03:07And that will be how we determine how we tell that story going forward.
03:10So it's very much about the insights from the athletes, the data we capture, the innovation we're delivering and helping communicate that to consumers all over the world.
03:19The reason that we start with elite athletes is when we solve those discerning problems, those milliseconds, micro millimeters.
03:27We can create products that then translate down for athletes every day all over the world.
03:32Speaking of the everyday athlete, I put on my running shoes and geared up for an afternoon under the microscope of some of Nike's best researchers for a head to toe consultation.
03:43I even got a glimpse into the retailer's future with Project Amplify, a footwear system with lightweight motors and rechargeable cuff batteries that aims to help you move faster with less effort.
03:55Nike's chief science officer, Matt Nurse, providing some words of encouragement along the way.
04:00So we have an expression, if you have a body, you're an athlete.
04:02Yeah.
04:03And a lot of what we learn from elite athletes does trickle down and help everybody, but a lot of what we learn from everyday athletes does trickle up.
04:10You know, there's plenty of opportunities where technology, we have to sort of burn the candle from both ends and figure out where the best opportunity is.
04:16The ethos, though, of the company, and particularly since Elliott has taken over, is more of a focus back on the athlete.
04:23I mean, what's the difference now between what you're doing in this building and, say, what Bowerman was doing, you know, decades ago and, you know, whatever shack he was working out of?
04:31Honestly, today is just a more modern, sophisticated incarnation of what Bill Bowerman was doing in his lab.
04:36You know, this notion of having an idea on how you might improve an athlete performance or protection, actually building it, you know, Bill Bowerman pouring into a waffle iron, modifying a shoe.
04:45That's what this building is designed to do, but allow more sports, more athletes, full speed, full motion.
04:50But we're solving the same problems, doing the same thing.
04:53A little different this time around.
04:55Mounting pressure in the running space, under threat by competitors like Awn and Hoka.
05:00In its latest earnings release, Nike sprinting forward, driving over 20% sales growth in the category, thanks to a redesign of its three big running franchises,
05:12Vomero, Structure, and Pegasus.
05:15The Converse brand, however, a problem area. Sales there, they're declining 28% in the most recent quarter.
05:23Do you worry at all about some of the recent upstarts that have come into this space, particularly on the performance side,
05:28Ahoka, On Running, Norda, et cetera?
05:30We have three incredible brands here at the company. We have Converse, we have Jordan, and we have Nike.
05:36So I think a lot of the work that we're doing in this new multi-brand offense that we're in
05:40is making sure that we intentionally shape the three amazing brands that we have.
05:44That allows us to at certain times come together to go after an opportunity in the market,
05:49but also to be more specific about what each brand represents and the growth potential of each.
05:54I think when we think about that, I think it's true.
05:56It's fair to say that the distance between ourselves and our potential is a little bigger than the distance between ourselves and our competition.
06:03And we look at innovation, not just in product like Phil's talked about, but how we tell our stories and how we deliver experiences in the marketplace for consumers.
06:12And when you think of some of maybe our latest, most innovative marketing concepts, I think back to the last Super Bowl,
06:18a male sport at a really important time around the world.
06:22And we told the story of So Win through our female athletes, right?
06:25We listened to their voice. We're deeply connected to where they were at that moment.
06:29And we're able to tell the story of the support of those athletes and what they are doing in the world of sport today.
06:34So I think that's one amazing example of we continue to innovate by listening to them where they are,
06:39where the world of sport is and sport culture, and then are able to deliver something like So Win.
06:45Amy, I'll give you the last answer here. And this is really on what you want the Nike brand to be beyond what it already is today.
06:53What I believe and want for the Nike brand is for us to always, always remember our roots and to honor our founder,
07:01to really come in every single day obsessed with serving the athlete, listening to their needs,
07:07not only meeting their expectations, but taking their somewhere new.
07:10And when we do that, there is all the opportunity in the world for our future.
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