👟 Nike and its marketing

Untieing the marketing strategies of one of the strongest brands in the shoe industry and how did they overcome the controversies.

I love Nike and the way they have positioned its brand amidst the highly competitive shoe-manufacturing industry.

Nike is possibly one of the most recognisable Athleisure brands worldwide and they hit about 46 billion in revenue which is about a 27% increase from the previous year.

The one with Colin

One of the most known controversies is Nike's ad with Colin. Nike created an advertisement with Colin Kaepernick who is a sportsperson. He played six seasons for the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League. An ad with a sports person looks like a perfect marketing strategy for Nike, right? Where is the controversy then?

So there is a trend that before starting a match, the athletes should kneel down with both feet to the American flag while playing the national anthem. But this guy Colin kneeled with just one leg. Because he felt that the black minorities were not being respected in the US.

He wanted to show his protest against racism in the US and back then Donald Trump being the president was tweeting about this, stating Colin is non-American, non-patriotic and half of the US population supported Donald on this. Colin became one of the hyper-controversial athletes in the US and any brand that is gonna use Colin would lead to potentially half of the US hate that particular brand. But Nike was bold enough to use this guy as the spotlight in their marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBnseji3tBk

I believe Nike was able to do this because -

• Nike had a clear purpose and they were able to take clear decisions. This purpose was clear to each and every team at Nike

• Nike believed that everyone is an athlete and they really wanted to inspire people and motivate them to do sport.

• Not concerned about how many people hate their brand as long as there are enough people to love it.

Just do it

Nike is known for their great slogans and there is a lot of anticipation and hype around Nike’s slogans with phrases such as

• Rise, Run, Rest, Repeat

• Find your greatness

• Dream Crazier

• And the most famous and still used - Just Do it.

The “Just Do It” has its origin in “Let’s Do It” which has a dark and twisted story.

In 1977, a killer named Gary Gilmore was convicted of killing a motel manager and he was sentenced to execution. This execution involved strapping him up in a chair before a firing policeman. While sitting there, Gary shouted -

“Let’s Do It”

“Let’s Do It”

“Let’s Do It”

even when the guns were firing at him. Cut short a few years later, Dan Wieden, the advertising executive of Nike, pitched his idea of “Just do it” inspired form Gary to the marketing team of Nike. But eventually, they neglected this idea as it was highly controversial. In a couple of years and at the right time, Dan again pitched the same controversial idea and since Nike was just in the final stages of a short series of commercials that were lacking a connection with the audience, Nike decided to launch the first “Just Do It” ad campaign in 1988.

“The night before [ the meeting with Nike ] I got concerned because ... there wasn't an overlying sensibility to them all. Some were funny, some were solemn. So I thought we need a tagline to pull this stuff together”

- Dan

It was this ad campaign that made Nike hold a market share of ~60% in the shoe market industry from just 18%.

From then onwards, Nike was known for controversial ad campaigns yet it supported people with disabilities, sexual orientation, and racism and every ad campaign made Nike grow exponentially.