Promotional Experience of Nike Incorporation - Essay Example

Promotional Practice Report of the of the Introduction to the organization and the campaign Nike Inc. is a market leader in the industry of design, manufacture and distribution of sport accessories, apparel, and footwear. The brand functions is six major geographical markets which include Eastern and Central Europe, Western Europe, North America and Japan, Grater China and other emerging markets of the Asian Pacific Region. The main competitors of Nike are Adidas and Puma, which are two other leading companies operating in the sports apparels and accessories market. Nike is the largest company in the globe in the foray of sportswear and sports accessories with a total of 2.2% market share measured on a global scale. Nike holds the leading position in this industry with the total sale of USD 37 billion which is USD 9 billion ahead of its primary competitor, Adidas Group (Nike Inc., 2014, p.1). The brand equity and the innovative promotional activities and campaigns have acted as the major drivers of the growth and continued popularity of the company since its inception till the current days of operation (Porter, Harris and Yeung, 2002, p.200). Nike Inc. is considered to be one of the most valuable brands across the globe and is renowned for its innovative communication techniques. The company holds the 26th position in the list of the top 100 global brands as published in the year 2012 by Inter brand. The brand value of Nike in 2013 was USD 13, 179 million. Brand image is a significant factor required for any company to ensure continued success and create competitive advantage in a dynamic global business environment. As such, Nike Inc. has been continuously working on developing strong promotional practices as a part of its integrated marketing communication strategies. In this report, an analysis of the very successful recent campaign of the company “Risk everything” would be discussed and analyzed. This advertising campaign was released in April 2014 and went on to become one of the most impactful and successful advertising campaigns in the history of the company thereby taking the brand image, perception and awareness of the company to new heights. Discussion of the campaign objectives The main objective of the “Risk Everything” Campaign launched by Nike was to inspire the consumer groups of the company to take risks and succeed. This campaign used celebrity endorsements by various famous athletes to promote the brand and create high levels of inspiration and euphoria among the fans of these famous athletes. The celebrity endorsements were also used as a strategy to establish the acclaimed quality of the products by directly associating the professional expertise and image of the athletes to the products (Ataman, 2003, pp.237-250). This advertising campaign of Nike was launched as a strategic initiative to develop higher communication impacts on the various consumer groups through the active use of media channels. The ultimate objective of this promotional campaign was to build up strong brand equity through the use of professionally managed innovations, celebrity endorsements, wide distribution channels and sponsorship while adhering to the basic integrated marketing communication strategies and models used by the company. Figure 1: The Integrated Marketing Communication Model of Nike. (Source: Ridley, 2014, p.12) The DRIP model for advertising was effectively used as the basic framework for the “Risk everything” campaign of Nike. The basic elements of the DRIP model are Differentiate, Reinforce, Inform and Persuade which are used to develop interest and awareness among the customers by creating association and familiarity of the customers with the brand and then by converting the potential purchasing considerations into actual buying decisions. Figure 2: The DRIP Model (Source: Arora and Stoner, 2009, p.102) The reinforcing and informing stage of the DRIP model was extensively focused upon in the ‘Risk everything’ promotional campaign of Nike Inc. The promotional activity is aimed at reinforcing the core message of the brand and strengthening the brand message by focusing on the differentiating factors of the products and the brand itself. Also, the reinforcing phase of the DRIP model is focused on with the aim of making the existing and potential customer groups aware of the brand, the features of the products, the differentiating factors and the availability of the products as well. Discussion of the target audience for the campaign The target audience groups for the “Risk everything” campaign of Nike were the sports lovers and the fan groups of athletes. Mostly the young age group of customers was targeted through the use of this advertising campaign. One of the advertisement films included in this campaign open on a football play field in which two sports teams of young players play a football match under the agreement that the team which wins the match would be entities to stay on the pitch. While playing, the young players are transformed into the football heroes for which famous celebrities like Portugal’s Christian Rolando, England’s Wayne Rooney and Brazil’s Neimar Junior. The target audience group for this campaign was the same as the previous promotional campaign of Nike Inc. the extended “Just Do it” advertising campaign with the theme of “possibilities” added to it (Nike Corporate Website, 2013, p.1). Since this advertising campaign was launched just before the FIFA World Cup of 2014, therefore, the main target audience group for the campaign included the young football fans. The main segmentation variables considered for the selection of the target audience group for the new adverting campaign of the company were the geographic variables, demographic and age variables, lifestyle variables, psychographic variables and the behavioralistic variables. Mostly the brand loyal groups of audiences were selected as the primary segment for targeting through the new campaign. Also, the young age group of people who were much interested in sports, especially football was considered as the target segment and Nike being an expensive and premium sport lifestyle brand, the middle to high income groups of sports consumers who had considerable interest to spend more towards high quality sportswear and accessories were targeted (Caroll, 2009, pp.146-148). The diffusion of innovations is used as the main theory for explaining the why, how and at what rate a new product, idea or advertising campaign is being absorbed and accepted by the target audience groups. The innovator group of the target audiences is considered for the campaign. These groups include those potential consumers which are willing to take more risk, have adequate financial liquidity, have high social status, are socially active, are willing to spend more towards accessing high quality and premium products and have established the closest contacts with other groups of potential buyers (Bagozzi and Nataraajan, 2000, pp.1-11). The risk of tolerance for this group of target audiences makes it possible for them to take higher risks and adapt to new information at an early stage of the information generation. List of the promotional tools used in the campaign Nike Inc. used a number of diverse promotional tools in the "Risk everything" promotional campaign. Since this campaign was launched as a major marketing communication strategy of the company to create brand awareness in the scenario of the FIFA World Cup 2014, therefore, the company invested heavily into using diverse promotional tools like direct marketing, social media use and celebrity endorsement (Berkowitz, Allaway and D’Souza, 2001, p.50). The campaign was developed on the basis of the use of a primary message that can be related to by the target customer groups. As such, the five M’s of advertisement were used effectively. These five M’s include Money, Message, Media, Mission and Measurements (Euromonitor International, 2013, p.2). Apart from this, the use of popular video sites like YouTube, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hi Five and the traditional visual media were used as the main promotional tools for this campaign. Nike commonly uses the internal communications, email advertising, website promotions and sponsoring of popular sports teams as its traditional promotional tools which were also used in this latest campaign launched by the company (Drumwright, 2004, pp.71-87). Thus, the main promotional tools used by Nike Inc. for the "Risk Everything" campaign are listed as follows: Mass communication Social media sites Electronic mail marketing Celebrity endorsements Message creation Sponsoring of football as a sport Media engagement List of the media used in the campaign The “Risk everything” campaign launched by Nike Inc. used a number of slogans, messages and images to communicate with the consumer groups through the use of diverse communication platforms like the visual media, print media, social media and other digital media sources (Batra and Homer, 2014, p.54). The social media were mainly accessed through social media posts and digital content creation done from the official accounts of Facebook and Twitter used by Nike and through the blogging activities done by the marketing communicators and loyal customer groups of the company. Nike being a worldwide recognized company and a well known brand, the use of the conventional and traditional media give back multiple benefits for the business. The main media used for this campaign were the basic media used in the integrated marketing communication models of Nike Inc. which are given as follows: Reporters and newspapers Blogging sites Visual media Print media The internet Electric media Other forms of digital media The suitability of the promotional tools and media used in the campaign The promotional tools and media used for this campaign were strategically decided by the marketing and promotional personnel of the company. The use of multiple media channels for delivering the message of the company on a worldwide platform can be identified to be the most appropriate promotional strategy considering the fact that the campaign was launched at the time of the FIFA World Cup 2014. However, many campaign analysts argued that the prices of the replica products of the football team jerseys were priced at GBP 90 which was considered to be too high for the target consumer groups. But Nike responded appropriately to this criticism by suggesting that the majority of the shirts sold by the competitive brands of the company are priced a similar levels. Moreover, the general England shirts were priced at an affordable GBP 60 while only his limited edition replicas of the jerseys were sold at premium prices. The pricing of the promotional products was in line with the campaign objectives so that the campaign could attract the attention of audiences from different socio economic backgrounds. The company used this campaign as an aggressive carrier of the message that it wanted to deliver to its existing and potential consumer groups. The consistency of the main theme of the promotional campaign which was to encourage the audiences to have the guts to risk everything for achieving their dreams and objectives was major plus point that added to the success value of the marketing communication campaign (Arora and Stoner, 2009, pp.100-102). The theme of the campaign was easily associated with by the target audience groups and helped in further stabilizing the personality of the brand by motivating the customers and establishing the factors of strength, toughness, endurance and fulfilment of dreams in the message delivered by the campaign. The high repetition of the campaign context and messages are usually done in the marketing and promotional campaigns of Nike. This advertisement included the use of a story line which helped the target audience groups to easily relate to the theme of the campaign and as such, the acceptability of the campaign was fast and widespread. The traditional marketing communication strategy of celebrity endorsement was again done successfully by the company after the famous advertising campaigns like Just Do it, Winner Stays etc. The campaign promoted the idea that the great players risk everything in their way of participation in the FIFA World Cup and ultimately achieve high rewards of prestige, success and fame by risking these. Thus, the campaign encouraged and inspired the general public to take risk and fulfil their dreams which was completely in line with the basic corporate philosophy of Nike Inc. to inspire and motivate the audience groups (Calder and Malthouse, 2003, p.44). Conclusion The paper discusses the different marketing campaigns of Nike, Inc. how the campaign was used by the company and the effectiveness of the campaign has been discussed in the paper. The aim behind the campaign was to cement the brand equity and promotional effectiveness of Nike. The discussion has evolved around DRIP model with closing in with target audience. This campaign further established the fact that the communication strategies of the company are directly linked to the brand personality and brand image of the company which motivates people across the world to break the limits, push harder and emerge as winners in the personal and professional levels. Recommendations The promotional plan could have been made more efficient through the active use of the social media networks. The tie up with the sports organizers of major events is a strong move taken up by Nike Inc. in the ‘Risk everything” campaign. The company can also focus on promoting the products through celebrity endorsements across other sports categories by partnering with sports personnel from a wide range of athletic and sporting arenas. Also, the company could have used the direct interaction sessions of fans with their favourite sports personnel as a way of making the campaign more visible and popular among the target audience groups. Reference list Arora, R. & Stoner, C. (2009). A mixed method approach to understanding brand personality. Journal of Product Brand Management, Vol. 18(1), pp. 100-102. Ataman, B. (2003). A note on the effect of brand image on sales. Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 12 (4), pp. 237-250. Bagozzi, R. & Nataraajan, R. (2000). The year 2000: looking forward. Psychology and Marketing, Vol.17 (1), pp. 1–11. Batra, R. & Homer, P. (2014). The situational impact of brand image belief. Journal of Consumer Psychology. Vol. 14(3), p. 54. Berkowitz, D., Allaway, A. & D’Souza, G. (2001). The impact of differential lag effects on the allocation of advertising budgets across media. Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 41(3), p.50. Calder, B. J. & Malthouse, E. C. (2003). What is integrated marketing? New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Caroll, A. (2009). Brand communications in fashion categories using celebrity endorsement. Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 17(1), pp. 146–148. Drumwright, M. E. (2004). Company advertising with a social dimension: the role of noneconomic criteria. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 60 (10), pp. 71-87. Euromonitor International. (2013). Nike Inc. in Apparel World. Retrieved from http://www.portal.euromonitor.com.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/. Nike Corporate Website. (2013). Nike redefines "just do it" with new campaign. Retrieved from http://news.nike.com/news/nike-evolves-just-do-it-with-new-campaign. Nike Inc. (2014). Company profile. Retrieved from http://about.nike.com/pages/company-profile.  Porter, J., Harris, M. & Yeung, G. (2002). Nike- Management. International Business Management. Vol. 44(1), pp.200-202. Ridley, L. (2014). Campaign viral chart: Nike winner stays enters in top position. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-nike-launches-risk-everything-campaign-ahead-2014-world-cup-156680. Read More