The hard sell.

• Position: NBA star Larry Johnson

So how do you get a 6-foot-6, 250-pound power forward for the Charlotte Hornets to dress up like a woman and appear in commercials for millions of people? "Those |Converse~ guys were real clever," Larry Johnson says, laughing. "They told me about a couple of ideas. The first was a commercial where Larry Bird and Magic Johnson are surgeons making the ultimate basketball player, and they get in an argument about what to name him. Larry wants to call him Larry, and Magic wants to call him Johnson, and then I pop up out of the sheet. I liked that idea. But then I stopped listening, and they mentioned something about Grandmama."

"Grandmama" is the ad campaign developed by Houston, Effler and Partners of Boston for Converse's React basketball shoes, which retail for about $100. In the ads, Johnson is featured slamming and jamming on the court dressed as his own grandmother, complete with a dress, a wig and, of course, Converse high tops. The seventh Grandmama commercial was unveiled during the Super Bowl. So far, Grandmama has served Converse well -- sales of its basketball shoes have shown double-digit increases three years running.

Despite this growth, Converse is still on the junior varsity when compared with industry leaders Nike ($1.9 billion in U.S. sales in 1993) and Reebok ($1.3 billion). Behind these two are a pack of smaller companies, including Keds, LA Gear, Converse, Fila and Asics, each with U.S. sales ranging from $200 million to $400 million.

Converse's success with Grandmama comes at a time when Nike is slumping. The Beaverton, Ore.-based company has dominated pro basketball through its contracts with the U.S. Olympic basketball "Dream Team" and major players such as...