Nike entered the sportswear with track running shoes. It then slyly ascended from the platform of sportswear to that of a complete fitness lifestyle brand. Now the company is known for a lot more than just athleticwear. The brand employs musicians, dancers, and various other artists apart from top athletes. Nike is no more just a brand, it is a cult. The brand is on a new level of popularity, and it surely did not take just marketing to reach the place where it is now. The story has more to it than what we see on the surface. We will start from the beginning.
A brief history
The story of Nike begins a lot before 1964, but we will start from this year when Phil Knight, a distance runner, approached Bill Bowerman, his coach from the University of Oregon. Together they entered the market with their product under the name Blue Ribbon Sports. In 1971, Phil and Bill baptized their company again, and it became Nike Inc. The iconic Nike logo, a swoosh, was born during the same time. With each passing year, Nike introduced innovation after innovation in its products, collaborated with big players of the sports industry, and soon dominated the market of athletic footwear from its hub in Beaverton, Oregon. The shoes were selling faster than their production time. Although the list of strategies and reasons behind Nike’s super success seems endless, some are bigger than others. We will list it down here one by one.
Collaborating with sports and media celebrities
It is common in the world that sports brands form agreements with athletes to promote their products throughout their playing career and for some even after that. Nike did the same and signed in the sponsorship agreements with college and professional athletes. Starting from Ilie Nastase, a Romanian tennis player to Tiger Woods of Golf, Michael Jordan, Kobe Byrant and Lebron James of basketball, Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols of baseball, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ronaldinho of Soccer and Serena Williams and Roger Federer of tennis, all these big names are associated with the Nike brand. It makes sense because, for instance, when a basketball fan sees Lebron dunking a basket, they want to do the same. Their aim starts from buying the same shoes as their favorite sports person, and this is how the marketing goes.
However, Nike had its eyes on the streetwear market as well. So the company started collaborating with celebrities from out of sports fields as well. It was Adidas who took the initiative in the 1980s and signed a million-dollar agreement with Run DMC. Soon several other sports brands followed the route, but the way Nike used these collaborations surpassed every other brand. Nike experienced its first outside the sports industry agreement with Mike Phillips, a saxophone player. In 2009 Nike was signing a contract with megastars such as Drake followed by the hip-hop sensation Travis Scott and model Bella Hadid. These successful collaborations gave Nike a solid place in the streetwear industry and made them a lifestyle brand. Later they formed a partnership with a top tech company to make their mark in the tech sector as well.
The compelling and soul touching marketing strategies
Nike made its own culture by engaging customers with its heart-touching messages on media. Nike wants to become a part of the daily lives of its users by touching the emotional nerve of the consumers. If observed, Nike barely mentions its product in the advertisements. Contrarily, it focuses on telling the stories of professionals and athletes. The ads tell the stories of how people defeated the odds such as fears and laziness with perseverance and struggle to reach the ultimate success. In every ad and campaign, Nikes tried to prove its point “Just do it” till it became the mantra of users that made a Nike cult.
The brand made the biggest influence through its compelling advertisement in 2016 won the title of FN’s Marketer of the Year. Nike marked the year with phenomenal milestones such as the US achievement of gold in the Rio Olympics, Bryant’s retirement, and Lebron James’ NBA championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers, his hometown team. However, 2016 was not the last year of success for Nike. The company made several ads that made a long-term impact on the viewers’ minds. The “Banned” advertisement for Air Jordan and the ups and downs of Woods’s career are examples of advertisements that are forever etched in the viewer’s minds.
Personalizing customer experience
Nike’s initiative to directly approach the customers in recent years has given new heights to its success. Nike Direct, a program to directly personalize customers’ experience contributed 10 billion US dollars to the revenue of 2018. Nike is having massive success by using analytics and reaching directly to the consumers.
Nike is using various ways to deepen its customer relationships. The app helps consumers to access Nike’s latest products. Consumers can get in contact with Nike experts to gain the guidelines for the required sports gear that is ideal for the sports they play. From personalized workouts to the 30-day wear shoe test, and the Nike Fit app that gives a perfect size chart for a perfect fit of Nike shoes, the company shows its hyper-focus on the consumers.
Nike is becoming a brand with millions of pieces moving to pave the way towards further popularity every day. Everything from an app-based Nike size chart to help people get the perfect fit to the compelling marketing designs and more, Nike is doing everything to be even more successful than it already is.
