Nike $100 Shoe Profit Breakdown — Neville Medhora

Summary

Neville Medhora (copywriting/marketing, CopyHackers lineage) posted an infographic breaking down where the money goes when Nike sells a $100 shoe. The punchline: Nike keeps $5. Everything else flows to manufacturing, retail margin, marketing, admin, and cost of goods.

Original tweet: x.com/@nevmed (207 likes, 87 bookmarks — September 7, 2023)

The Framing Technique

The structure is the lesson:

1. Start with the surprising conclusion — "$5 profit on a $100 shoe" is counterintuitive and creates an immediate question
2. Unpack the gap — the visual does the work of answering where did the other $95 go?
3. No prose required — the breakdown is self-explanatory once the frame is set

This is compressed storytelling. The hook generates curiosity; the visual closes it. No fluff between them.

For Data Dots

This is exactly the format [[01-projects/newsletter/data-dots-product-concept|Data Dots]] should aspire to. One visual, one concept, one surprising entry point. The Nike infographic isn't about Nike — it's about understanding margin, supply chains, and retail economics through a single familiar anchor object.

The Data Dots version of this pattern: pick a number everyone knows → reveal what's hiding inside it → illustrate the breakdown atomically. Applied to data/analytics: query cost, pipeline latency breakdown, warehouse compute billing, etc.

Pairs with: [[07-archive/readwise-tweets/tweets-from-visualize-value|Visualize Value]] (similar atomic visual format), [[01-projects/newsletter/data-dots-product-concept|Data Dots product concept]].

Newsletter Angle

The framing technique (conclusion first, unpack second) is directly usable in [[01-projects/newsletter/index|Sanity Check]] issue openers. State the surprising number in the lede; spend the body proving it.