NIKE

Inspiration and Innovation for

every athlete in the world.- Mrudula Kavuri,IIT Madras

Nike was originally known as

Blue Ribbon Sports

It was founded by Philip Knight

aimed at providing high quality

shoes designed for athletes by

athletes.

BRAND HISTORY OF NIKE

• Founded in 1962.

• Started manufacturing shoes for runners at competitive prices.

• 1985: Nike signed up

basketball player, Michael Jordan as its spokesperson.

• Air Jordan line of basketall

shoes were released

• 1988 : Nike aired the first ads in its $20 million “Just Do It” campaign.

• Used geographic segmentation as the key marketing strategy to promote its brand overseas in Europe.

Digital marketing media used in “Just Do It” campaign by Nike.

• 1994: Nike sponsoredBrazilian team won the WorldCup.

Major breakthrough for the brand when Brazilian team won.

• 2007: Nike acquired Umbro,British maker of soccer relatedfootwear, apparel and equipment.• 2008: In summer Olympics,It sponsored several teams andathletes and got permission torun Nike ads during the games.

Nike sponosring Neymar, Brazilian Football player

• Started to diversify the

companies and entered new

product categories like

footwear, apparel, and

equipment.

• 2009: Launched Tiger Web

Talkback session at

nikegolf.com when Tiger

Woods endorsed the Nike

Golf brand.

The Nike Golf brand, a collection of apparel, equipment and shoes started by Nike and endorsed by Tiger Woods

• Nike aligned with Tennis

players Maria Sharapova,

Roger Federer, and Rafael

Nadal to push its Tennis

clothing and sports gear.

• Also aligned with Lance

Armstrong, which also helped

in Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG

campaign.

Digital communications mix used in Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG campaign by Nike

Nike aligned with Lance

Armstrong which helped him

his LIVESTRONG campaign.

The following is a video of

the same.

• Introduced foot Locker, a new chain stores which offers basketball products by Nike brands such as Converse and Jordan which featured basketball superstars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

Recently launched Nike+(Plus)

technology.

Basketball shoes in LeBron James collection released by Nike.

MARKETING STRATEGIES

1. Differentiated offering

2.Using a variety of marketing communications mix

3. Brand positioning, segmentation and targeting

4. Innovative technology

(Shoes+Technology)

5. Celebrity marketing: Pyramid of influence

6. Conducting and organising events like Marathons as a part of IMCs’Nike+ hosted the Human Race 10K event, designed to celebrate running, drew more than 780,000 participants.

Now, Nike’s revenue

is a whopping $30

million!!!

CONCLUSION

With Nike’s impeccable

marketing strategies, it has

gained a lot of publicity and

now is at the top of the

footwear, apparel and

equipment industry in the

world.

Q&A

Q1. What are the pros, cons and risks associated with Nike’s core marketing strategy?

Ans. Nike believes in “pyramid of influence”, and it strategically positions itself and uses celebrity marketing as its core marketing strategy to create its brand image

• Pros – A repeatable model allows managers to refine skills and systematize processes. Their clearly defined audience target –athletes, sports enthusiasts, well off and brand conscious customers – makes it easy for them to make target-centric ad campaigns. It represents emotions and promotes its brand as a brand of allegiance and loyalty. It uses geographic segmentation to promote its products and brand.

• However Nike has, always, only been about 1 thing; it only delivers a specific kind of product.

• Cons – It mainly focuses on producing high-products with cutting edge technology and sells them at competitve prices. It does not communicate to the middle class and lower class society.

• Risks – Intense competition and the influence of spokespersons poses a risk to their strategies. Also ever changing demands and choices of the consumers along with the international expansion poses a risk to their strategies.

Q2. If you were Adidas, how would you compete with Nike?

Ans. The strategy for Adidas is to compete with Nike should be to target the areas of their weakness. Adidas should look to better diversify their marketing strategy. Also Adidas should aim to bring around the diversified products in market which would further popularise among consumers directly through its goods. Investing the increments in the profits to get some innovative and popular advertisements would be the stupendous ground breaking product to get leverage in competing with Nike. Adidas should focus on creating new products coming up with new strategies to promote its brand. IT should bring a new ground breaking product into market to trump Nike lead in the market. Adidas can also look further to expand its reach to other sports where Nike has not set its foot and look for attractive associations such as those of Nike with the Apple to bring out Nike+.