YO! REEBOK PUMP UP, AIR OUT!

Shots were also being fired as Reebok athletes happily aired-out opponents and Nike in the continuing ‘Pump Up and Air Out’ campaign. Chang happily hurled Agassi’s Tech Challenge III away, dismissing him as a ‘Rock ‘n roll tennis guy!’ and Dominique Wilkins managed to reference both Michael Jordan verbally and David Robinson subliminally, as he sent the Command Force skyward for all the wrong reasons. Even golfin’ Greg Norman got in on the action as he dismissively chucked Curtis Strange’s (‘Oh, and Curtis? Don’t be so Strange!’) Nike golf shoes away. Recruiting Portland Trail Blazers legend Bill Walton was another tactically ballsy move on Reebok’s part.

Sometimes, however, a single action can achieve more than any marketing budget.
On February 9th 1991, the relatively unknown Celtics guard Dee Brown took on Shawn Kemp (a fan of the Nike Ultra Flight who later landed at Reebok and was given the Kamikaze model in the mid ‘90s) in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest. Improvising on court, Dee opted to Pump up his Omni Zone IIs prior to springing into action in front of a global audience. Having already taken the title on judge’s points, he unleashed the now legendary ‘no-look’ dunk as a finale, complete with forearm across his eyes. By treating the shoes as an accessory to his win in the name of showmanship, Pump now had its own action hero.

There was another push later in the same year. Check out Macaulay Culkin in rap-mime mode in Michael Jackson’s ‘Black Or White’ video! Reebok’s worldwide sales duly increased by 26 percent to $2.7 billion. Naturally, profits jumped too. No one needed to cover their eyes at the end of the tax year.