Nike; Just Do it, and how they achived ‘Victory’

While watching CNBC’s Special on Nike called Swoosh! Inside Nike. I’ve noticed Nike would be an excellent company to pay attention to if you wants to know how to do well in communications.

As a runner I think Nike’s success is blessed by the ghost of Steve Prefontaine. But that’s a whole different type of blog. With that said, Nike has always been a company for the athletes, or the wanna be athletes, not the every day consumer. Nike came about and was successful at around the right time in the market, where the fitness boom started to come about. The intertwinement of sports and fitness of everyday people allowed Nike to grow tremendously. Had it have been founded in the 60’s Adidas would have been the worldwide leader in sports apparel still.

Watching the special I have had many realizations about Nike, and noticing their advertising structure. There is no basic informal structure, of product information. Most of their ad’s would force an individual to see how it would be to dunk a ball, or to shoot a 3 pointer, or to just laugh. When Nike started out, Phil Knight did not believe in advertising. They started out with John Brown and Partners where they had a tagline “there is no finish line” specializing in informal ads, Phil Kinght did not like the idea of Advertising, and thought of it as some sort of trickery. Soon after dealing with John Brown and Partners they switched over with eager persuasion from Dan Wieden (Co Creator of Ad Agency Wieden+Kenedy). They took a more than generic approach.  In the 80’s they utilized a lot of up and coming athletes to stake their claim in basketball and other sports as well. Michael Jordan was one of their first athletes, Bo Jackson was another. When I was five, I wanted to “Be Like Mike,” and attempted to dunk on my 3 ft hoop with my tongue out before bumping my head on the ground. There have been many athletes that have Nike attached to their names; Labron James, Michael Johnson, and Tiger woods to name a few. None of these athletes had the effect on the brand like Jordan. Now any rain maker athlete in any sport tries to be the Jordan of their sports while getting a Nike deal.

The ‘Just do it’ tag line became the integral part of Nike. Back in the 70’s and 80’s Nike benefited more than any other sports apparel brand from Viral Marketing because of their products use in the fitness boom and their famous phrase.  Nike was a great benefactor of Viral marketing, but now their aim is Niche Marketing. There are many different personalities they have taken on. They have created Nike+ which measure distances and pace of runs, which caters to runners. Although I am not an advocated of their running sneakers, I always wore their track and field shoes.

Another surprisingly lucrative niche is the “Sneaker Heads.” Sneaker heads, own multiple pairs of sneakers for various reasons; some for fashion, for bragging rights to add to their street status as a fashionable individual, also are art. On the CNBC special there is an individual who spend in excess of $2000 a month on sneakers. If there are any readers who watch Entourage on HBO, there was the one Fukijama episode where the character Turtle paid $20,000 for these sneakers. The only way I can see it is as art, in that case I would never wear them. I feel with this Niche, this is strictly by Word of mouth, which Nike was mostly about in the beginning.

To stay on the topic of communications, I will go to a PR issue which almost ruined them. They were accused of unfair labor practices below minimum wage. When discovered by the head soccer coach at St Johns University.  The sweat shops which were outsourced in Vietnam also had hazardous working conditions, sometime forced to work overtime without pay. There are many ways to look at this, and think Nike is guilty for not doing more research on the companies/ factories that are making their products, or blame it on the Vietnamese government. For many years Vietnamese factory workers have been treated unfairly compared to government employees. Should the Vietnamese government have taken responsibility for Nike’s tarnished reputation?

I digress from a point where I am pointing fingers, and go to how Nike turned it around. Nike then hired a staff of 100 plus to manage its corporate responsibility initiatives. They also provided free meals, and high school equivalency classes. However due to the flawed culture of the factory worker in Vietnam, they still suffer from unfair conditions, but that is part of the red tape that exist when trying to get things done when outsourcing.