Nike Advertising Aimed at Glamour Readers - Case Study Example

Nike Advertising Aimed at Glamour Readers Overview: Nike, Inc. is among world’s leading supplier of athletic footwear, attire and sports equipments. It’s a United States based company with multiple operations almost all over the globe by maintaining its brand image and the unique logo, distinguished advertisments of the slogan “just do it”. In order to sustain and maintain its market share in the industry it invests heavily in the advertisements and brand promotional activities. It has ablances both sides of the coin by focusing the youth of today, bringing up inspirational advettisements and tag line and also by sponsering the celibrities. In a way it gets the audiences because of the standard they maintain and also by heroes endorsement of the products. The favoured media are TV, billvoards, magazines and internet. Introduction: Nike when first founded was known as Blue Ribbon Sports founded by the athlete Philip Knight and his coach Bill Bower man from University of Oregon in 1964. However its popular slogan “just do it” came into existence at an ad agency where Dan Weiden was quoted to have said, “You Nike guys just do it.” He was basically admiring the can do attitude of the employees and landed up giving the brand a unique distinguished tag line.The revenue announced in 2009 fiscal year was estimated to be 19.2 billion dollars (Nikebiz.com). Due to recession the net income declined by 21%, the decrease was expected to continue in year 2010. But Nike just did it again by making $496 million in the second last quarter of the year 2010 (Wikiinvest.com). Nike has managed to own 700 shops around the world with 45 offices located world over. It has a series of especially designed products running which include: • Basketball • Cross-Training • Outdoor Activities • Tennis • Golf • Soccer • Baseball • Football • Bicycling • Volleyball • Wrestling • Cheerleading • Aquatic Activities • Auto Racing • other athletic and recreational uses Market Segment: The obvious main source of the company is the athletic footwear; it is 54% of the total revenue. It has especially designed shoes for running, soccer, basket ball and training. With increase in interest in sports and celebrity endorsements the sale in 2009 of this segment has remarkably increased by 14%.The other major investment is in the attire business where it produces t-shirts, shorts, sweat shirts. This contributes 27% of the company’s total revenue in 2009.Equipment such as golf balls, bags and gloves accounts for 6% of the total revenue in 2009. It is widening its range from time to time by diversifying its products but managing well to maintain the standard. Target Audience: According to Fletcher the brand ant the target market are always knotted togather. (Fletcher, 2010). The target audience for the footwear could be divided into three main customer groups which include Baby Boomers (35-53), Generation X (22-32) and Generation Y (4-21). However Nike believes that the athletes and the youth is its target audience. With growing fever of sports it’s easy to access them. Recently gone Fifa 2010 had a viewer list of billions; Nike of course was the sponsor partner of the show, showcasing its extravagant and brilliant footwear and apparel. It’s a fact that sports is the heart and soul of companies like Nike and Adidas, they provide the athletes with specially designed shoes and attires. In 2008, Olympics at Beijing Nike spend fortune on advertisements to create brand awareness for its products. It offers specially designed shoes to the soccer guys that enhances their foot work and carries a brand image. People related its sport product with attitude, lifestyle. It uses the recall strategy for its products. Gender segmentation: Nike has recently entered themarket to product sports attires for women. It has revamp its aproach to women by taging the line Nikewomen to attract and create better sports outfits for women. (Kotler, 2008) Nike products are not routine purchases, its reliability is one of the key features of its success, buyers look for quality and they are observed to get satisfied from this. The brand has his permanent market share especially in the footwear department. permanent market share especially in the footwear department. Competitors: The main competitors Nike had been Reebok and Adidas. However later when Adidas took over Reebok narrowing the competition gap in 2005, it’s still not easy to get where Nike is right now. According to Leslie Butterifeld competition could be broke in: Competition in time Competition in price Competition in image Competition in quality Competition in product diffrentiation( (Butterfield, 2000) Nike uses a central and user orientated poitioning strategy. It is a brand that majority celibrity and events like Fifa have endorsed along with sustaining a huge market share. Sensing the growing demand of quality with change Nike has managed to satisfy its customers to their best. They have a wide range of footwear variety for its consumers for different aspects. The just do it campaign infused the consumers with self satisfying passion and determination to own the brand products. As stated before it came into existence when a member was admiring the efforts of Nike thus this implies to the customers as well to believe and do what they want. Especially in the youth which is lone and emotional needs a push to step up. As for the athlete it’s a motivational push to do it, performed their best. Advertisement Strategy: In spite of all its products there is a huge competition it faces from the opponents and therefore Nike has managed to keep its advertising strategies quite up to mark. Nike spends about 5-7% of its revenue on advertisements and endorsements. With the introduction of its just do it slogan its sales increased from 18 to 43 % in ten years. The success was more prominent when 80% of the sneakers sold in US were known to be never used for the activities they were designed for. The tagline came with an ad of a young two-sport athlete Bo Jackson who advocated the advantages of the training shoes. The basic principles in advertising are; persuassion, intrest and planning. (T.Yeshin, 2006) .It’s important to create awareness, grab consumer’s attention in every possible way be it emotional positioning of the product or functional. Media Strategy: Nike’s main strategy is to have sustainable presence in media. Therefore is has a strong strategy for its products to magnetize the customers in the web of its brand image. Nike’s ads always require an interpretation, it gives the viewer a vibe to identify oneself and get inspired by its strength. For instance its ad; “test your faith”, questioning the viewer what he is, to identify oneself. In the promo a guy is running which inspires the viewers to relate to him and test the faith one have in itself. The other ad saying “you either run today or you didn’t” where the ads make the viewer question if he have runner today or not?? The intriguing tag lines are an important promotional tool in the success of Nike which gives the impression of the products it offers. According to Tellis the bestest ads are unique and orignal. (Tellis, 2004)Then the just do it slogan which makes the consumers believe in themselves just like they do with Nike, believing in it. Swoosh logo: The swoosh logo which represents the wing of a Greek Goddess NIKE was designed by Caroline Davidson. The idea of imprinting the swoosh logo on fabric of the footwear and other products happened to attach the spiritual power along with the sport feasibility. “Tries to capture the passion and even the moral force” of sports and reify it in a pair of shoes, the ideology behind the sales of this business is quite comprehensive (Katz, New York). Positioning: TV: Important aspect of the advertisement was choosing the media to deliver. At times of mega events like Fifa and Olympics it was aired on TV twice during the commercial break to hypnotize the consumers in its effect and offers. As mostly these programs had the youth viewers. The color scheme has been always very attractive and colorful to match up the currents of youth. Magazines: Another important media is through magazines; from this one can target all its audiences the sports interested, travel interested or the businessman. For instance Runners World or Back Packer is some magazines that feature Nike. Nike has also been smart in targeting the women of today. In 1999 total of five advertisements were examined by the analyzers who revealed that used critical feminist approach to its campaign. The intention of the advertisement was to demolish the gender gap and through deliberate role reversal. (Arsenalt, 2010) However the most effective media were the huge bill boards that covered the entire city. Where ever the eye go, the Nike swoosh sign would follow you. Internet: Changing lifestyles specially with the youth have made media executives realize that its not an easy job to reach the youth with mass media. Therefore companies are now focusing on promoting through internet. (Joseph Straubhaar, 2009) Facebook, MSN users have an advertisement running mostly to keep the viewers engaged in its activity. Recently Nike has made a deal with MSN messenger as it is the most accessible media to reach the youth. According to MSN Internal Data 26% of MSN instant messenger users fall into the age group of 18-24. Thus Nike has seized this as an opportunity to communicate to its audiences. Apart that Nike owns it own website where it has a detail analysis of the company, the product and the locations of the shops. It offers online purchases of its products as well. Celebrity Endorsements: The main gist of its advertising strategy lies in the celebrity endorsements. According to a spokeperson in advertisment make up that the use of celebrities actually is an invvestment to increase the sales and revenue. Celibrtiy endosrsements actually generate favourable consumer response. (Agrawal, 1995).Nike has a list of popular celebrity endorsers like; Michael Jordan: the great athlete have been part of nike’s amrketing campaigns like, “ it’s gotta be the shoes” with Mars Blackmon. His presence generated a huge increament in sales for Nike. Tiger Woods: he is the most prominent celebrity of Nike as he is the who is able to promote most of the Nike products, golf balls,caps, gloves etc. Bo Jackson: with him Nike got its most popular campaign of all time, “Bo Knows”. Andre Agassi: she have been an icon from the beginning. She is the nike women with her tennis skills covered in vibrand shirts and shorts. Ronaldinio: the popular Brazilian Soccer player with magical legs is also an important part of Nike. He has a huge fan following and obviously for being a part of sports he ignited the sales of Nike like never before. It’s not just the celebrities that rolls the ball but innovative and creative ideas installed in the advertisements and positioning of the products that resulted this success. For instance Nike decided to collaborate with Apple giving Nike and an iPod sport kit to give a personal exercise experience to its customers. Mounting technology in footwear for specific uses give it a differentiation code from other products. People went for these shoes and apparel as it offered an advanced comfort. Nike also made an attempt by developing its own flag ship stores in town and abroad (Rehman) Covert Advertisement: Nike is also trying for the covert advertisement style, Mel Gibson starrer what a women wants has a Nike commercial as an apart of script. It blends so well that the audience takes it as a part of the movie. (Rajput) Other than this Nike has joined corporate sponsors in partner with RED to fight against AIDS/HIVs. That’s also a promotional activity to create awareness and get connected emotionally with its audiences. (suite101) Advertisement Agency: WKE is the advertisement agency that works for Nike along with other big names like Coca Cola, P&G, JEEP and others. It has produced effective advertisements for nike for instance the “engine”, nike’s film about living strong or “all togather”. Advertisement Budget: Nike heavily relies on its advertisement campaigns. With increasing competition and demand Nike have started to invest more and more on advertisements. In 2007 Nike is estimated to spend about $260 million on the sponsorships. In starting of 1008 Nike came up spending $143.4 million on its advertisement campaign. However due to negative publicity of star like Tiger Woods the brand went down with him, therefore this time they introduced a campaign on YouTube. According to the Stifel Nicolous Analyst, Shaw Nike has been smart to come up with this rather than an expensive ad campaign. “It's more bang than bucks.” (Arsenalt, 2010) According to knight the key strategy to Nike’s advertisement strategy is to awake the consumers. Make the consumers realize that they relate to the products it offers and Nike has done it! Nike’s vision is to be the leader of its industry. To provide their consumers with comfortable advance designed foot wear. Their main objective is to satisfy their customers ever changing needs and demands. Alternative Slogans: Nike has done it with it’s just doing it slogan however it has some alternate slogans as well which fulfils the Shrimp CAN model of an advertisement to have connection with its audiences, appropriate interms of promotion and novel with creativity. (Shimp, 2007) Alternative Slogans: Nike, try to catch us. (Lisa) Give yourself an edge. (Brian) For the top athlete in all of us. (Kim) Finish First. (Sheetal) THE WINNER…Second Place is for Losers (Dan) No wonder Nike has an edge over its competitors through advertisements and promotional activities. It has been part of sports events like Olympics and Fifa. Have been conducting fashion shows to showcase its latest designs and exhibiting its offers of discounts. Advertisements are the key component for Nike’s success apart from the quality standards it maintains. Today’s youth has high interest rate in fashion and media entertainment. People like to follow their ideals and look alike them. Through different Medias like TV, billboards and magazines Nike have managed to attract a huge number of consumers and by satisfying them it have managed to gain their loyalty. Package offering of a complete kit with iPod or especially designed footwear or just by wearing a swoosh shirt makes a person realize that they have an identity, they are here with are purpose and with Nike they just do it! List of Refrences: Agrawal, J. (1995). The economic Worth of celibrity endorsers. Journal of Marketing . Arsenalt. (2010). Just buy it: Nike advertising aimed at Glamour readers: A critical feminist analysis. Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science , 16. Butterfield, L. (2000). Excellence in advertising. United States of America: Butterworth Heinemaan Publications. Fletcher, W. (2010). Advertising: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joseph Straubhaar, R. L. (2009). Media Now: Understanding Media, Culture, and Technology. United States of America: Cengage Learning. Katz, D. (New York). Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World. 1994: Random House. Kotler. (2008). Principles of Marketing. South Asia: Pearson Education. Rajput, H. Covert Advertising. Utar Prades: Amity University. Rehman, M. U. (n.d.). Advertising Strategy of Adidas. Advertising andd Market Relation , 14. Shimp, T. (2007). Integrated Marketing Communications in Advertising and Promotion. USA: Cengage. T.Yeshin. (2006). Advertising. London: Thomson. Tellis, G. J. (2004). Effective advertising. Sage Publications. Nikebiz, 2010 Available from < HYPERLINK "http://www.nikebiz.com" www.nikebiz.com > Wikinvest, Available from < HYPERLINK "http://www.wikinvest.com" www.wikinvest.com > Suite101 Available from < HYPERLINK "http://www.suite101.com" www.suite101.com > NNDB, 2010 Available from < http://www.nndb.com/> Read More