Innovation Impact Paper

Innovation Impact Paper

This research will focus on the athletic shoe industry over the past and present decades, this report will show how the athletic shoe has changed and gotten more durable. The topics that will be research are discussing and identifying at least six potential innovations that may have an impact on the reason for the changes. What milestones would be set when those innovation came into effect and whether they were breakthrough innovation, radicle, and incremental internal or external. Using the five W's will help explain how these innovations will take affect for those industries' innovation cycle. Historically thinking one can see how far the athletic shoes have come growing up as an athlete this industry has gotten bigger and better improving with stronger sneakers, the materials making them lighter and stronger. Who knows what is next there are smart phones today how about a smart athletic shoe. Last if there were a survey conducted most people would not believe that athletic shoe stores ran into some rough times when the recession hit in 2008 hammering the United States economy. However, these stores got back on track as more people became aware of the growing need of athletic shoes and consumer incomes increased (PRWEB, 2012).

The market in the athletic shoe industry is no different from any other retail industries that rely heavily on their marketing departments. Store location is a key element in the market industry because back in the 70s stores were little to none depending on where someone lives he or she had to go into another city or town to shop for athletic shoes. It was not until the 80s where the majority of athletic shoe stores were in malls. With the increasing and competitiveness of the different athletic footwear retailers had to compete within the same mall (.High Beam Business, 2013). In terms of the athletic footwear market this has and been maturing at a rapid paste, the key was its ability to sustain innovation and continuing to growing. From the way athletic shoes has changed over the years such innovations as high tops, endorsements, schemes, heat soles, arch support, and the special functions. These innovations would have to start with three of the most popular athletic shoe brands out today Reebok, Adidas, and Nike. The first innovation the high top sneaker this shoe came around in the 1930s because of the low tops not able to support the ankle. The first official high top was the Chuck Taylor made by Converse this was the first major popular brand of basketball shoe to dominate the game. The Converse's classic high-tops were made to support the ankles for helping jump high and set the standard for other reputable athletic shoe companies. This would lead to other manufacturers coping and hope to compete with the top selling brands, coming up with new trends and technology, but the original high-tops remained on top (Epic Sports, 2013). As of today the Chuck Taylor Converse are still around today even more durable and worn by a number of high schools and universities. Endorsements deal starting with the 1970s the athlete that come to mine is Julius Erving (The Dr. J) who endorses Converse many believe it was him that put the Converse Chuck Taylor's on the map and was one the first athletes to break in the first pair of leather sneakers. In the 1980s endorsements went to another level because of the birth of the famous Nike Air Jordan's it was Michael Jordan who set the tone for endorsement in this decade. What this did was create avenues for future stars, such as the New York Knicks star center Patrick Ewing; he closed a mega- endorsement- deal with Adidas worth about one million dollar a year. The 1990s was a progressing decade because of the number of athletes that struck rich endorsement deal. In the early 1990s most of the major manufacture were hitting organizational strives because of the number athletes wear their shoes and clothing gear. Bo Jackson was the football version of Michael Jordan to basketball and the Nike family. Bo knows Nike it was because of his ability to be a dual sport athlete that seems to amaze Nike on the idea of acquiring a two sport athlete on the Nike team. The Bo knows slogan was very popular in the 90s it built a unique and memorable campaign that featured Bo Jackson performing in a number of different sports. This Nike campaign will always remain as one the top Nike campaigns and still ranks as one of the best slogans of all-time. With the way endorsements are today who knows how far this deal goes if Bo Jackson had not suffered that career ending injury.

Nowadays choosing the right pair of basketball, running, football, and baseball shoes are important appose to the past two decades. Most people purchase athletic shoes for their own reason in most cases. Not only is each individual different in his or her own way, and growing up in these decades does not take a rocket scientist to see how the athletic shoe industry has changed and gotten better up to today.

In the 70s athletic shoes consist of just a few basic colors white, black, green, blue, and red. The general population in the 70s did not care about the color or scheme, and the brand name for that matter as long as he or she had a decent pair of athletic shoes on. On the other hand the professional and college