Standing out from the crowd

If you have ever bought a Nike shoe, you’d have noticed the bright orange box it comes in. When Nike debuted at the National Sporting Goods Association show in 1972, Phil Knight asked for neon orange boxes to catch the eye of buyers.

The first US shoemaker to do business in China, Nike was listed in an initial public offering (IPO) in December 1980. However, according to his memoir Shoe Dog, Knight was afraid that “going public would change Nike, ruin it, by turning over control to others". He later realized they could issue two classes of stock—one which would go to the inner circle and founders, and the other to the public.

But the most interesting bit about Nike is that the company’s offices around the world have phone numbers ending with 6453.The numbers spell out N-I-K-E on the keypad. “It also spells out Pre’s (Nike ambassador Steve Prefontaine) best time in the mile, to the tenth of a second: 3:54:6," Knight said in his memoir.

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