I was recently reading the book “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight, the autobiography of the founder of Nike, the famous American shoe company.

In it, I found an interesting passage about an advertisement they ran in 1977. At the time Mike says: “it was bold and fresh, it didn’t focus on the product, but on the spirit behind the product, which was something you never saw in the 1970s”. Mike did not really believe in advertising but still went along with it.

The add features a man running down a hilly path with the bold statement, “There is no finish line.” The last lines read, “Beating the competition is relatively easy. But beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.”

This is a great example of value selling. They are not selling a shoe or any of its features. They are selling an aspiration. If you are already beating the competition and you want to be the best, you need to buy these shoes. This is value selling at its paroxysm.

You can find more details and explanations about the technique of “value selling” in one of our Product Management course.