Boing!

Since those people who make up that 80% are more likely to respond to heroes than they are to technology, Nike needs the marketing campaign for Shox to tap into people's emotions. To find out how the world was likely to respond, Nike sent teams of designers and marketers into the field to give people around the world a sneak peek at the shoes. "As we took them out into the field, the word 'boing' kept coming up," says Hoke, who is now in charge of all image design for Nike, from logos to store displays to trade-show exhibitions. "What we found was that the word sounds the same and means the same thing in almost every language. You're starting with a huge advantage when you can boil all of the technology down to a simple word like 'boing,' and have it be cool."

Hoke and his team have designed store displays for Shox that will make a "boing" sound whenever someone picks up the shoe to look at it, and he hopes that the ads will invoke it as well. "We want to own the audible experience of 'boing' in the same way that Intel's tune is associated with 'Intel Inside,' " he says. Or, as Juliet Moran, 44, a Nike vice president, puts it, the marketing campaign will rise or fall based on the answer to the following question: "How do you have fun with 16 years of scientific experimentation?"

Ron Lieber (rlieber@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer. He played center for the Francis W. Parker Colonels and wore size 12 Nike Air shoes. Contact Bruce Kilgore by email (bruce.kilgore@nike.com), or visit Nike inc. on the Web (www.nike.com).