Air Jordan's flight through puts Nike Taiwan in a spot

By Jackie Lin
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, May 25, 2004,Page 1

Internet bulletin boards and the Consumers' Foundation have been inundated with complaints by infuriated Michael Jordan fans expressing their disappointment at the the former NBA star's fleeting appearance on Saturday.

The fans claimed that Nike Taiwan had lured Jordan aficionados to fork out huge amounts of money for his name-brand line of sportswear, but arranged for the "God of basketball" to appear on stage for less than two minutes.

Many of the fans spent thousands of NT dollars buying clothes and footwear for the chance to win tickets in a lucky draw, with a handful even spending between NT$15,000 and NT$20,000 purchasing auctioned tickets online.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/05/25/2003156851

Taipei - Angry Taiwanese fans of US basketball legend Michael Jordan are planning a boycott against Nike's products after feeling cheated they only got a brief glimpse of the company's footwear icon on Saturday, a senior official of the Consumer's Foundation said.

Jordan appeared twice for altogether 90 seconds in a show to promote Nike's Air Jordan series products. He hurried away to the airport after the show following a 24-hour trip in Taiwan, leaving a host of disappointed fans in his wake.

The foundation has since received hundreds of complaints from fans strongly dissatisfied with Taiwan Nike's arrangement of last Saturday's meeting between Jordan and his fans, according to Chen Jen-hung, secretary-general of the foundation.

Angry fans complained they had to buy a number of Nike products in order to increase their chances to win through lucky draw an invitation to the show for 700 fans.

"We have given Nike Taiwan 48 hours to come out to apologise and refund what the consumers had spent, but 24 hours has gone, and Nike has yet to show its goodwill," said Chen.

"Most consumers said they had been led by Nike into believing that the show was a close-encounter meeting with Jordan," Chen said.

Among the most disappointed fans were a dozen terminally ill children, whose request to meet Jordan - expressed through the Taiwan Make-A-Wish Foundation - was declined.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=552&fArticleId=2091828

ABOUT-FACE: Some observers said that the flap over the brevity of Michael Jordan's appearance before his fans demonstrated ``massive flaws'' in the firm's management
By Jackie Lin

The public relations fiasco that has haunted Nike Taiwan for a week temporarily came to an end when the company's general manager finally showed up to apologize to the public at a press conference yesterday morning.

In front of a packed house of journalists, the country head of the American sportswear maker Hank Lin (???) and marketing director Jasmine Hu (???) stood up and bowed to the cameras twice to admit their mistakes over handling Michael Jordan's Taipei visit last Saturday.

This is an about-face for the branch office, which was criticized by some for having an "arrogant attitude" at an earlier press conference on Wednesday, which was forced to end abruptly after reporters walked out en masse to "protest" Nike executives' refusal to apologize.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/05/29/2003157375