Blue Wave Baseball players recently participated in a marketing focus group for Nike that turned out to be much more than a way to get some neat swag.
“The boys could not stop talking about it for several days,” Blue Wave President Steve Kruse said of meeting with some of Nike’s top executives for footwear, specifically baseball cleats. “It really got their creative juices going.”
Kruse said Nike contacted them a few weeks back to see if Blue Wave could provide three to four players in 12, 14, and 16U age groups that could spend a couple of hours at their Foothill Ranch office discussing their line of baseball shoes and new concepts. In return, the company would feed them lunch.
“We jumped at the opportunity, I know we have a lot of smart boys in our organization that would be more than glad to give Nike their two cents worth,” Kruse noted. “I have some boys on our 12U team that are natural born marketing and sales executives.”
Selected to participate were Garrett Schwab, Cole Samuelson, Hudson Davis, Dillon Davis (12U-Merrell), Jacob Mullison, Josh Madrigal, and Kenan Hedstrom (14U), and Zac Slotemaker, RD Cole, and Jordan Perkins (16U).
“It makes a lot of sense that they ask the ball players what they think of their new shoes before put them in the stores,” Blue Waver Zac Slotemaker said. “For me, I like light shoes for running bases and playing in the infield. I also prefer colors that match up with my high school colors.”
Slotemaker was not alone in his respect for Nike’s approach, all the players that participated in the event spent the rest of the afternoon talking about marketing, branding, and big time corporate sales campaigns.
“They asked us to be honest with their opinions and criticism,” Jake Mullison reported. “But I think they were not happy when we told them one of their shoe designs looked like a ‘soccer shoe’.”
The criticism must not have bothered the Nike officials too bad, they not only fed a pizza lunch to the Blue Wave players, they also let them pick out some Nike shirts, shorts, and other apparell from their various end-0f-line and returns rooms.
“Each of the boys came out with a sack laden with goodies and big smiles on their faces,” Kruse said. “They were very impressed that someone like Nike would listen to them and thank them for their advice.”