BBSA Alumni Gerald Erasme Heads Up Nike's Basketball Marketing Division in China

Gerald Erasme, like some 300 million others in China, loves to shoot hoops. He also has more than a passing interest in the sports business side. As Nike’s marketing director for basketball in China, Erasme is responsible for all of Nike’s basketball business.

“Basketball is the No. 1 participation sport in China, and we are the industry leader,” says Erasme, who moved to Shanghai in April. Its swoosh logo helps make Nike one of China’s most recognizable brands.

“We’re doing a good job as far as people understanding the value of our brand. I don’t think we’re quite at the same level as in the United States or Europe because the Chinese haven’t had as much exposure.”

Because of the steep learning curve in his new post, Erasme often works 12-hour days. Still, he finds time to lace up a pair of Nikes to play point guard in a weekly game in an intramural league.

“There have been times when I’ve asked myself ‘Why did I take this job?’ Then I look at the timing. The Olympics are one year away. China will be the next global superpower at some point. I am a black man working for a great brand and making history. That’s why I am here. “

China’s 1.3 billion people and growing economy make it Nike’s top growth opportunity globally, he explains. I look at basketball from the full 360 degrees, the entire marketing mix. Nike will sponsor 22 of China’s 24 sports federations, including basketball, in the Olympics in Beijing.

Before earning his MBA, Erasme worked in banking for Dreyfus. When he was looking for a graduate program, one of the attractions of the Ross School was its proximity to Detroit and family. “I also had the opportunity to meet Professor Al Edwards. That sold me. Michigan is such a great program academically, socially and in sports. Everything is at the highest level. It made the best sense. I never regretted it.”

Erasme maintains his ties with the Ross School, serving on the Alumni Society Board of Governors, contributing financially, supporting alumni activities in Shanghai and recruiting future students.

“I volunteer when I can and was incredibly flattered to be asked to join the alumni board. I get tons of e-mails and phone calls from students who are applying to the Ross School and from alumni.”

Before joining Nike 14 years ago, Erasme worked as a production assistant with NBC Sports at the Olympics in Barcelona. When the 1992 Olympics ended, he worked at the Metropolitan Athletics Congress, the New York metropolitan area’s association of USA Track & Field, where he helped organize more than 70 track and field meets. “I pursued Nike the entire time,” he recalls.

Shortly after joining Nike as an assistant brand manager, Erasme was promoted to regional brand manager, a move that took him from New York City to Portland, Oregon, where he became director of sports marketing for Latin America and Canada. He returned to New York and worked at various positions within brand marketing before his latest promotion.

“I’m constantly surprised at how quickly China’s economy is expanding, Erasme says, making it possible for more Chinese to purchase consumer goods such as Nike athletic shoes.”

Also, China is experiencing the one-child generation. “These only children, sometimes called ‘little emperors’, have a lot of buying power. Their parents and two sets of grandparents wait on them hand and foot,” says Erasme, and will pay $120 to $150 (U.S.) for athletic shoes.

Although Canadian missionaries brought the game of basketball to the Chinese in the late 1800s, it didn’t take off until basketball superstar Yao Ming, the 7-foot-6-inch center who dominated the Chinese Basketball Association in the late 1990s, transferred to the National Basketball Association.

Because the U.S. game represents basketball’s pinnacle, the Chinese watch and mimic what is happening in the United States, Erasme notes. You can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to marketing. We really understand the category very well and are able to bring enough of the basketball element and tweak it to make it appropriate for China.

The Chinese are passionate about basketball, explains Erasme, because the game allows participants, especially teenagers, the freedom to create.

“In China, much like in the United States,” says Erasme, “how well you do in high school determines the rest of your life, what college you get into and your career path. Parents place a high premium on schoolwork, so the kids are stressed. Basketball allows them to get out and express themselves.”

For the first several months after he arrived in Shanghai, Erasme says, “my head was spinning, trying to adjust to the nuances and culture. I’m from New York so I’m used to some aggressiveness, but here it’s at a whole different level. They’re more aggressive, I think, because so many people are vying for limited space and commodities.

“China has its own pace, especially in Shanghai. There’s communism and then there’s capitalism. They’re tying to learn to live with one another. It can be fascinating and frustrating to watch. All I learned about business had to be turned on its head. You have to make up a lot as you go along.”

By Mary Jo Frank