Nike Marketing Strategy: Things to Learn

Building a brand is no overnight deal. It is a journey that the makers take along with many others, imbibing so much more than just plain marketing rules. Nike marketing strategy is an ode to such efforts that have built a global brand. Founded in 1962 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, the name Nike came into being only in 1978! 

From its founder’s perspective, the brand’s origins had always been to find speed-boosting running shoes. And voila! The exact concept seemed to be a marketing pitch for what came to be Nike’s moon star shoes! Nike’s journey in terms of brand placement, market positioning and, finally, popularity has been worth penning down in detail. 

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For now, let’s look at the top Nike marketing strategy and advertising tactics. The campaigns have been inciting, emotionally tugging, and, finally, a means to take away pretty good lessons. So, let’s jump straight into it!

Breaking Down Nike Marketing Mix and its Takeaways

For 2022 alone, Nike advertising strategy and promotion costs touched 3.11 billion dollars. Meanwhile, its global revenue touched 46 billion dollars. The most obvious of Nike’s advertising tools, its ads or videos, are directed straight to the emotions of the watchers. These are mostly filmed to underline the comfort angle and connect with its customers, which you can easily assimilate into your marketing strategy.

Collaboration with Top Industry Names

Hiring top celebs, athletes and influencers is a strategy that Nike has been using over the years to develop a solid customer base. Having top names like Michael Jordan and Serena Williams endorsing Nike products leaves behind the message of trust and also hooks prospective buyers.

Minimalistic Logo

The logo or the famous tick sign is another clever mode for marketing that signifies the “right-ness” in choosing the brand for your feet. The symbol could have been just anything else, but cleverly positioning the tick has been a super strategic means to let customers know that Nike, indeed, is something to place a tick on.

Over the past years, the most popular campaigns that Nike developed have solidified its market base and sealed customer loyalty.

Eyeing The Key Campaigns

Through the years, Nike marketing mix and campaigns have been the concept of storytelling and appeal creation. Let’s explore various such campaigns which caught the attention to skyrocket its already reigning reputation in the market and what you can learn from them.

Hello World

The 1996 Tiger Woods campaign simply introduced Woods and portrayed him to be a game-changer in golf. No one knows how Nike placed a bet on this beginner back then, but the ad simply seemed to be a predictor of the icon that Woods went on to become.

Mamba Mentality

Controversy has often been the centre point of a number of Nike campaigns. Mass interest was perhaps a direct result of such controversial footing that Nike placed itself on. Kobe Bryant and the basketball campaigns make it to this list notably.

One Day We Won’t Need This Day

The International Women’s Day campaign had a strong message driving the point that not one specific day might be needed going down the line! Celebrating women icons of the time, Nike drove home the need to treat women such that one day needn’t celebrate their “place in the world.”

Nike: Equality

The Equality campaign, based on equality with several stellar names, appealed to fans and sceptics alike. Thanks to the strong message for equal treatment. It tackled difficult issues of discrimination people face on a regular basis. Such thoughts are indeed common across cultures and continents, but Nike gave these a platform that made millions of viewers associate with the same.

You Can’t Stop Us

The You Can’t Stop Us campaign, extended by one of the leading industry names, Wieden+Kennedy, was a step to underline the need to incorporate diversity and inclusion. According to the Top Design Firms study, the campaign was so effective that around 46% of customers were likely to purchase Nike products post-viewing this advert.

Nike has implemented effective targeted marketing tactics without ever being product-laced or placed in your face, justifying its position as the market leader. 

Nike Marketing Mix

Emphasis on Visuals

A report from SEMrush analyses that Nike gets around 60 million visitors on a month-on-month basis. The website is designed not just as a casual marketplace for its products. The entire website is made with immense thought, ideating what effective marketing could be about. Images on the official Nike website boast of clarity. The videos are made in full screen and are spine-chilling nonetheless. Nike values social values and showcases people openly expressing emotions without a hitch. No wonder the website has the power to engage and finally convert visitors into customers.

Valuable and Relevant Collaborations

Assessing the marketing mix of Nike campaigns, it is easy to see that Nike mostly collaborates with prominent sports figures and athletes. After all, back in the heyday, the sports genre was what the company wanted to cater to originally. Later on, after a few goof-ups with forays into the casual shoe market, Nike turned around by prioritising athletes, players and sports influencers at the top of its target pyramid- always! The fact that athletes are involved in designing specific Nike products testifies to the brand’s commitment to creating shoes that are a class apart. 

The biggest takeaway from Nike marketing strategy and the creatively driven Nike advertising strategy is to make products that speak for themselves and target the audience’s pain points. The mainstream ads and add-on adverts are only offshoots to connect with prospective buyers.

The New Age Player-Nike In The Current Times

The social media game of Nike is at the very top in its respective genre! The brand boasts 252 million Instagram followers alone and millions on other social media platforms. Let’s explore how Nike leverages differing spaces to expand its influence and reach

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Playing Big on Social

The fact that a brand can leverage and stay relevant through the right interactive content on social media handles is another big takeaway from the marketing mix of Nike. 

As Sprout Social reports, 55% of consumers are likely to learn about a product via social media. The same report suggests that 68% of consumers are likely to interact with brands using social media. 

A Pipsplay study underlines that 59% of buyers or shoppers in the USA trust celebrity endorsements for picking a product. The same study also underlines that 62% believe celebs endorsing a product makes the latter more trustworthy. Nike has understood this mentality very clearly, right from the outset. 

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A No Holds Barred Strategy 

Nike broke its marketing limits by putting all its strength behind its personalisation strategy. This campaign called Nike By You from 2018 incorporated a unique technology on the Nike app and allowed buyers to simply scan their sole size for the perfect shoe shopping. There are Nike concept stores that “up” the retail experience for shoppers too. These personalisation techniques are one of the most important parts of Nike’s marketing mix that has had customers glued to the brand. The main takeaway is to use such an offering so that the brand gets an edge competently while improving customer retention rate.

As per a study from Monetate, marketers get around a 20% average increase in sales on the use of personalised experiences. 80% of shoppers tend to prefer companies that provide personalised service or experience, as per a McKinsey study, which justified Nike’s hit move.

Nike has only identified such facts and worked vigorously towards creating a Nike marketing strategy that spells wonders. As Phil Knight put it in an interview, “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.”

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Conclusion

The Nike marketing strategy and advertising approach illustrate how a brand can use traditional product marketing, brand awareness, and digital marketing to dominate its domain. Every campaign Nike launches is unique, yet it never feels disconnected from its core products. Instead, the products seamlessly blend into the Nike marketing strategy, becoming a powerful conduit for customer attraction.

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