The Marketing Genius Behind Nike: Greg Hoffman | E150

I was told that the KKK was gonna get me, and that's frightening when you're a child. (dramatic music)

Chief marketing officer to vice president of global brand, an almost three-decade career at Nike.

That's right, yeah. You know, Nike was really the only brand that was putting people of color in their communication. That showed me you could make a living doing what you love.

Why is the Air Force 1 shoe an example of Nike not chasing cool?

It wasn't created to make a statement in culture. It was created to make a statement on the court, and the fact that Moses Malone won on the court in the Air Force 1, that's cool. Your authenticity is your cultural currency. The minute your audience can no longer see your original pursuit, they partner with someone else.

April 2021, significant month for you in your life?

I got a DM through 23andMe, and that opened up meeting my birth families. The last thing you'd want to be is rejected, and it was just, uh... (sighs) .

So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO, USA Edition. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (light music) Greg, I'm a tremendous believer in the fact that our early years are incredibly formative.

Yeah.

What are the things that really left a remaining mark on you in terms of their influence as an experience, or an event, or trauma?

Yes. Again, I had two passions growing up, uh, sport and art. And really, uh, why I got involved in art, and art of all sorts, whether it was drawing, painting, sculpting, is growing up as a half-Black, half-white adopted kid into a white family, going to an all-white school system, and experiencing, uh, lots of adversity through racism and, and other things, art was the thing that I was ex- able to essentially escape from reality and find myself in, in the art. And that's when I started to discover that I could draw things in accurate detail, you know? I could dream and then put that on paper, and it was very powerful, and it was a way for me to, you know, not only feel empowered, uh, but also, um, engage my imagination. And then sport as well, you know, sport evens the playing field, if you will. And so that was essentially the other escape where I felt like I wasn't such an outsider on that. And so I think when you experience, uh, adversity like that, when you're oftentimes the only one in the room, um, which I think you can relate to even, even today, um, you also look out for other outsiders, you know? You're keeping an eye on other groups or other individuals that, um, haven't been invited, if you will. And so you're right, I took those, uh, experiences, uh, because they never leave you. No matter how much success you have, um, you carry some of those chips on your shoulder, but it doesn't have to be used as a negative. Uh, and so as I made my way through life, um, and found myself in the pos- in positions, um, of influence, I looked out for those individuals on that. Because again, when, when I grew up in the, the late '70s and early '80s, you were taught to not see color, right? That was that period of time, which means how can you be empathetic if your parents or those that are there to support you, teachers aren't seeing how- what your experience is like.