Brian Zibricky

I started dropping weight and ultimately became a D1 college tennis player. I’m 53 now and fitness remains a big part of my life. I still play tennis, and I have never stepped onto a tennis court once in 38 years without the Nike swoosh on my feet. I’m a customer for life - it’s the least I can do.

01.12.2024 18:07 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Marketing is not about product features. It’s about transformation. Communicating to the customer that a product or service can transform them into something or someone that they desire to be. I was transformed. I’m not overstating it when I say that print ad changed my life.

01.12.2024 18:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Call it psychological, call it magic, call it whatever you like. I was hooked.

01.12.2024 18:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I asked my parents for a pair of Air Trainers. They were $75 in 1986. My dad didn’t hesitate. I put them on and felt more like an athlete than I ever had before. We ran a mile every day at tennis practice as a warmup. I cut my mile time down by over a minute the next day.

01.12.2024 18:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I had a natural forehand and could easily dispatch most of my opponents - if I could get to the ball to hit it. My physical condition at the time was not conducive to a game based on movement and speed.

01.12.2024 18:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I was mesmerized. Instantly obsessed. Despite my girth growing up, I was always a really good athlete. I had recently switched to tennis in high school after playing baseball for a few years and fell in love with it.

01.12.2024 18:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

The print ad was a full two page spread - with a lot of info explaining what made Nike Air so “revolutionary”. There were also several athletes featured who were wearing some of the new Nike Air shoes. John McEnroe was one of them. He was wearing the Air Trainer, Nike’s new cross-training shoe.

01.12.2024 18:06 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Nike Air original ad

I flipped a few pages and there it was. A new ad from Nike. There was a band of light blasting through the outsole of a running shoe. I’d never seen anything like it. The copy beneath the image read “Nike Air is not a shoe.” I flipped the page. “It’s a revolution.”

01.12.2024 18:06 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

To put it bluntly, I was fat. I had always been fat. My diet was a steady stream of gluten, sugar, and carbohydrates.

01.12.2024 18:06 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I was standing at a magazine rack in a grocery store in 1986. I was fifteen. My mom was a few aisles over doing the weekly shopping. I think it was a “Runner’s World”? Not sure. It was some fitness magazine which was strange since I was anything but fit.

01.12.2024 17:48 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Ran into a lovely lady who told me about her recent 5-day cruise to the Bahamas where she acted as a caregiver to several stage-4 Alzheimer patients. "It was a trip they will never forget," she said.
Well...

15.11.2024 00:43 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Hi everyone, new to the neighborhood and happy to be part of the eXodus. I'm a Marketing Manager and pet entrepreneur - I created the Pup Stack (pupstack.com). If you're a product builder or marketing guru, I would love to connect. Also a tennis player / fan, and movie lover.

13.11.2024 00:00 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0