In 1996, upstart basketball apparel brand, AND1, had a singular mission:
Beat Nike.
“Nike was the company we emulated the most,” said co-founder Tom Austin in the new Untold documentary on Netflix. “And they associate themselves with great talent.”
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So AND1 signed future Hall of Famer Stephon Marbury as their first NBA ambassador.
And then, disaster:
In his first game, Marbury busted his ankle and collapsed on the court, toes up, AND1 sneakers on. The brand’s NBA sponsorship was over before it began.
“Two weeks later, we got this tape,” said co-founder Seth Berger. “It had been around our office. There were a couple of interns and they were always watching it. The video blew our minds,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of basketball. I’ve never seen this before.”
The video, a grainy VHS tape, was a “streetball” game — a patently different version of basketball than what the professionals played.
“Real streetball is style,” said Seth. “It’s a style where you just let your imagination flow. It was more poetry in motion. It was more trickery and sorcery. Streetball is hip hop, graffiti, breakdancing, all-in-one.”
Streetball is a subculture with a unique set of values.
It’s about expression, not results. Winning has nothing to do with streetball. It’s everything the NBA is not.
“So I realized what’s on this tape,” Tom said, “it’s just pure, like, self-expression. And that’s when I started to understand this is the essence of AND1, who we are. We’re playground. We’re grassroots. We’re everyman basketball. We’re attitude, we’re raw expression, we’re art,” he said. “And this is a strategic position Nike can’t touch.”
Brand positioning boils down to one thing:
Differentiation.
And one way to be different is by aligning with a unique set of values. AND1 did this. They aligned with the values of streetball — of attitude and expression, artistry — while Nike aligned with those of the NBA, of elitism and rigidity.
And it forced people to choose: pro or street?
It forced people to choose: Nike or AND1?
It forced people to choose. And they did.
Branding genius, indeed.
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