Nike & Mbappé: Visibility versus distinctiveness

Nike has some of the biggest names in sport on its books; Erling Haaland, Carlos Alcaraz, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Eliud Kipchoge, to name a few.

It's a roster most brands would give their right arm, and probably their left, to get their hands on. But it raises an interesting question; what's more valuable in sports marketing today? The athlete, the product, or the innovation that brings them together?

Signing the world's best is one thing, making the world care about what they're wearing is another. 

Signing the world's best is one thing, making the world care about what they're wearing is another. And while sporting success is measured in trophies, cultural success is measured in something less tangible: Desire.

People love a hero. They also love a villain. Just ask Zlatan Ibrahimović, who made a career out of being both, often in the same 90 minutes. Nobody dreams of being a bang-average League Two footballer. They dream of scoring the winner in a World Cup final, making the winning putt at Augusta or celebrating an Olympic gold.

They dream of being Jordan. And that's precisely where Nike built its empire.

Above: Nike took a chance on the rookie Michael Jordan and both benefited from the partnership.

The shoe that changed everything

In 1984, Nike took a punt on a rookie named Michael Jordan. They didn't just give Jordan a shoe. They gave him his shoe. Air Jordan wasn't simply performance equipment, it was an extension of his personality. Bold. Distinctive. Audacious.

When the NBA objected to the black-and-red on Jordan's shoes, Nike saw an opportunity. They turned a dispute over footwear regulations into a cultural phenomenon. “Fortunately, the NBA can't stop you from wearing them,” declared the now-iconic ad. The shoes flew off the shelves. Jordan became a renegade, and Nike became the brand willing to break the rules for him.

Had Nike given [Jordan] a perfectly respectable, entirely forgettable basketball shoe, would Nike have become the Nike we know today? I'm not so sure.

That's not simply product innovation. That's cultural innovation. You don't become the best by thinking you're reasonably alright. Nike understood that. They made Jordan feel twelve feet tall before he'd even jumped. And as Jordan became a phenomenon, so did his shoes.

Had Nike given him a perfectly respectable, entirely forgettable basketball shoe, would Nike have become the Nike we know today? I'm not so sure.

When football boots had personality

Fast-forward to the early 2000s. Football was changing. A new breed of player was emerging. Wayne Rooney. Roberto Carlos. Luís Figo. Ronaldinho. Power. Aggression. Swagger.

And Nike had a product to match. Total 90. Even the name sounded like it meant business. Total 90 had all the subtlety of a Rooney long-range shot. Asymmetric lacing. Chunky silhouettes. That enormous '90' stamped inside a circle. You could spot one from the other side of the pitch. More importantly, you could draw one from memory.

It wasn't just technically different, it was visually different. It had an attitude, and it gave an entire generation of aspiring footballers a way to borrow a little of that attitude for themselves. You didn't need Rooney's right foot. You just needed his boots.

Nike wasn't simply selling performance. It was selling the feeling of being someone.

Above: Wayne Rooney wore the iconic Nike Total 90 boots. 

Now, draw me a Mercurial. That's the one brought to fame in 1998 by Ronaldo and worn by Mbappé in 2026. Don't just draw the Swoosh. I want the actual boot. Struggling? That's the problem. Nike still makes extraordinary performance products, but technical innovation and cultural innovation aren't the same thing. One helps athletes perform better, the other makes generations want to be them. Somewhere along the way, Nike seems to have become better at the former.

This summer's sea of pink boots might have been hard to miss. But visibility isn't distinctiveness.

Take Erling Haaland. A physical phenomenon and a marketeer's gift. Yet, what makes his boots unmistakably Haaland? Beyond colourways, it's difficult to say. Nike has a man who looks laboratory-built to score goals, yet his product story feels surprisingly ordinary.

This summer's sea of pink boots might have been hard to miss. But visibility isn't distinctiveness.

Enter the competition

And then there's On, a Swiss running brand that's walked straight into the world's biggest sport. And who have they chosen to bring along? Kylian Mbappé. Arguably football's biggest name, working with a brand that, until recently, had never made a football boot. That's quite a statement of intent.

But here's what's interesting. Mbappé isn't another face in another campaign. He's helping develop the product, with equity in the company. New manufacturing technology is being explored, and there's an opportunity to create something distinctively Kylian Mbappé.

Whether On delivers remains to be seen. The boots aren't due until 2027, but the ambition is unmistakable, and it plays to the athlete's ego, the first domino in gaining cultural clout.