The Beatles song was “Revolution,” and the Indian connection is that John Lennon worked on it during the band’s 1968 stay in India, according to historian Alan Bradshaw. Nearly two decades later, Nike used the Beatles’ recording in a campaign for its Air shoes. Nike grew sharply in the years that followed, but the available figures show timing and scale—not that one advertisement alone made the company a billion-dollar brand.
The song behind Nike’s “Revolution in Motion”
John Lennon wrote “Revolution” while the Beatles were in India meditating with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bradshaw says in his 2018 historical account. He places the song against the political upheaval of 1968. This is Bradshaw’s account of the song’s origins, not a claim established here by a contemporary Lennon document. Read Bradshaw’s account at Scroll.in.
How Nike put the Beatles recording in an ad
In 1987, Nike built a campaign for its Air shoes around the phrase “Revolution in Motion.” The commercial featured professional athletes, including John McEnroe and Michael Jordan, alongside ordinary participants. Nike’s communications director, Kevin Brown, told TIME that “another brain wave struck — using the Beatles classic Revolution, music that best epitomizes the concept, to help make our point.” TIME reported on the campaign on May 18, 1987.
Using the Beatles’ original recording became a dispute. The Washington Post reported in July 1987 that the three surviving Beatles had sued Nike over the use of “Revolution”; the ad had begun airing in March. The Washington Post’s contemporary account covered the lawsuit. In February 1988, UPI reported that Nike agreed to stop using the recording and let its option for another year lapse. Bradshaw says the broader lawsuit was settled out of court in 1989. UPI reported Nike’s decision in 1988.
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What the growth figures do—and don’t—show
Bradshaw’s 2018 article reports that Nike’s sales doubled in the two years after the campaign, that the company held 29% of the global athletic-shoe market by 1991, and that sales exceeded $3 billion by 1991. These are figures reported by Bradshaw; the sources cited here do not independently verify them against Nike filings. Bradshaw’s article connects the campaign with Nike’s later growth, but the figures do not isolate the ad’s effect from other influences on the business.
So the defensible version of the headline is that the campaign was part of Nike’s branding during a period of major growth—not that the Beatles song, or this single ad, can be credited with making Nike a billion-dollar company.
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Further reading
Alan Bradshaw and Linda Scott’s book Advertising Revolution: The Story of a Song, from Beatles Hit to Nike Slogan follows the song’s path to the Nike ad and the controversy around its use. Google Books catalogs the book.
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