rookie promising enough to replace the Air Jordan gold mine. In 2003
Todd led the team that convinced LeBron James to sign a $90 million
seven-year endorsement deal. It proved a fruitful relationship; he’d later
take LeBron with him to Samsung for a high-profile endorsement.
In a surprise a month later, his team won against Reebok in a bid to sign
Kobe Bryant in a four-year, $40 million deal, winning Pendleton further
acclaim at Nike. The deal showed off his ability to act decisively and take
huge risks in a novel strategy of splitting the Nike brand between two rising
stars.
But in June 2011, Todd called it quits. He packed up his boxes at Nike’s
verdant Oregon campus—leaving behind the lake, running trail, soccer
field, orange loaner bikes, and “Hall of Champions”—and settled into the
staid Samsung office in Richardson.
Pendleton himself was far from staid and formal. He was as much a
relationship builder as he was a brand builder, securing the trust and
friendship of high-profile sports stars and signing deals on the backs of
napkins. His sports marketing expertise was a promising marketing
approach for Samsung. But Todd had never worked at a tech company
before and didn’t know the industry. As a tech specialist, the company
reached out to a former BlackBerry digital marketer named Brian Wallace.
But, as Wallace said, “no one wanted to go to Samsung at that time.”
He’d had two interviews at Disney Studios and at Kraft, but they weren’t
ready to make a decision yet. So Wallace figured he might as well continue
to brush up on his interview skills by talking to Samsung.
Wallace showed up at the staid, beige-brick corporate building in
Richardson. The area surrounding the building included a hotel and
corporate offices and a strip mall with manicured grass. Wallace described
Samsung’s building as an “old cubicle farm out of the eighties. Beige and
brown, stained carpets, and stale air. Very depressing.
“I was escorted into the sparse boardroom adjacent to Dale Sohn’s
office. It’s just a table, some prototype phone and literally on the table
looking at me, I kid you not, they had a picture of Steve Jobs,” he said.
Sohn sat there for ten minutes thinking, What the hell is going on? “Then
the door opens and Dale walks in. Doesn’t say ‘hi’ or anything.”
“Do you know who that is?” Dale asked, pointing to the photo.
“Yes.”
“Do you think you could beat him?” Dale asked. He deliberately kept a