About Nike
Nike is one of the leading brands and largest suppliers of athletic shoes and apparel with revenues exceeding US$24.1 billion in its fiscal year 2012. Through the brands history Nike along with Wieden+ kennedy have launched succesful and inspirational brand campaigns that have added value beyond the product itself. Nike started promoting and advertising their products tailormade for women in the 1990’s. Nike was not the forerunner in women’s sports apparel: Reebok being the first in 1981, which increased their market share of 13% and decreasing the market share of Nike by a whopping 28%. Nike slowly changed course in the 1990’s and has not looked back, aggressively promoting fitness for Women.
Nike reached out Globally to their women consumer base to strengthen and grow their business via their digital marketing campaign.
Early this year Nike launched their #betterforit campaign which aired videos of women and their inner thoughts while working out. Nike’s message in this video was loud and clear, it doesn’t matter who you are, every women should incorporate fitness into their routine, take up new challenges and conquer their personal goals. Nike believe that women contribute a large part of their consumer base and can add to US$2 billion of additional sales by 2017. This thought in mind, Nike launched their biggest ever ad-campaign specifically targeting women, the same of which debuted in the MTV Movie awards as a 60- second ad.
Nike made #betterfotit a digital symbol
Nike launched the campaign and invited women globally to embark on this inspiring journey with their simultaneous initiatives such as ‘90 day better for it Challenge’ and NIKE+ TRAINING CLUB. The 90 Day Better For It Challenge has a duration of 3 months which are a combination of Nike+ Training App and Nike+ Running App into one seamless program designed to increase endurance, build strength and get athletes of every level fitter and faster. This campaign acted as a catalyst encouraging every women to hashtag #betterforit and join a global community of women athletes to push themselves further and share their experience on their already existing digital community of more than 70 million women. Nike expects its women-centric business to grow faster than its male counterpart. Already as per statistics, its Nike+ App in North America has more female than male runners, female being 54% and the later only 46%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzbjEMaDjrk
Nike’s #betterforit campaign resulted in a surge of business for this sports giant
Nike’s highly consumer-centric Ad campaigns such as ‘Just Do It’, ‘There Is No Fine Line’ and ‘Find Your Greatness’ have become household slogans for the home grown athletes. However Nike was not always a ‘Consume-centric’ company. In the mid – 1980’s Nike made a blatant mistake by investing into the causal footwear market forcing them to re-think their strategy and focus on developing the product and the brand know globally today just like other global giants like Apple and Coke to name a few.
In an Interview with the Havard Business Review : Nike transformed the athletic shoe industry with technological innovations, but today many people know the company by its flashy ads and sports celebrities. Is Nike a technology company or a marketing company?
Phil Knight: I’d answer that question very differently today than I would have ten years ago. For years, we thought of ourselves as a production-oriented company, meaning we put all our emphasis on designing and manufacturing the product. But now we understand that the most important thing we do is market the product. We’ve come around to saying that Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool. What I mean is that marketing knits the whole organizations together. The design elements and functional characteristics of the product itself are just part of the overall marketing process.
We used to think that everything started in the lab. Now we realize that everything spins off the consumer. And while technology is still important, the consumer has to lead innovation. We have to innovate for a specific reason, and that reason comes from the market. Otherwise, we’ll end up making museum pieces.
Nike has gone ahead of many sports and fitness brands in the digital marketing sphere with their Android apps such as Nike+ running which engages the athlete in everyone, right from a novice to a professional athlete. The Nike Training App has an exhaustive list of workouts designed by over 600 trainers connected digitally all around the world from the ease and simplicity of a Mobile Phone. It also gives the consumer a platform to experience the brand and the product on each of these Apps through their Nike Store. Digitally Nike has conquered a huge part of the market share. The #betterforit campaign resonates with their consumer base and gives a strong and inspirational message personally to every women around the world. Great ad campaigns as Nike ensure that their brand video is shared virally through digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. It has increased goodwill not only among women but the ideal fitness consumer increasing purchase of all products under the Nike Umbrella.
Learnings through this case study
- One must identify their target audience and the digital platforms used by them.
- The marketing techniques should be relevant and be realistic.
- In this campaign Nike targeted a very good cause which every women faces daily.
- Nike launched themselves into the digital world keeping in sync with their brand values and objectives.
- They provided their customers an interactive experience through their Digital Marketing Campaign
Indeed Nike you are #betterforit !
Photo Credits: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk, addweek.com, www.festisite.com
