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DEFINING THE NIKE IMAGE AND IDENTITY
Implicit in the company’s name, Nike is the mythological Greek winged goddess of victory.
Ruler of the Olympic pantheon in Olympus, Nike symbolizes victorious encounters and honored
conquests. Today, Nike products lift the world’s athletes to new levels of mastery and
achievement; the iconic swoosh logo embodies the spirit of the winged goddess.
Over the years, Nike has cemented its reputation as the world’s leading sportswear, footwear,
and sporting goods brand. Although the company’s global dominance is a departure from Phil
Knight’s humble beginnings of selling track shoes out of the trunk of his car, the company’s
fervent commitment to serving the needs of its athlete customers has remained constant.
From its namesake’s Greek mythology roots to creating icons of some of the greatest sports
figures, Nike embraces the art of creating and telling stories. Internally, it uses story to better
understand Nike team values and the direction the company wants to take its products. Any big
meeting at Nike starts and ends with a story, usually shown as a video. The video might connect
to content in the meeting, or at a high level, the values of the organization. Nike continues to
invest in design thinking, leveraging content that design thought leaders such as IDEO have
developed.
Externally, the role of story becomes even more apparent. Nike humanizes its athletes through
story, connecting use cases for products with that of its consumer audience. With legendary
icons, from Michael Jordon and Pete Sampras to Kobe Bryant and Derek Jeter, Nike explores
how sport hits on the most compelling and universal parts of the human psyche that every athlete
in the world faces: the pressure to perform, live up to internal expectations, and handle both
victory and defeat.
ASSESSING BRAND MISSIONAND PHILOSOPHY
At Nike, product specs do not define product launches. Instead, Nike uses stories about what a
product can do for its athlete as the basis of its product development. Nike’s mission statement –
To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world – and by the way, if you have a
body, you are an athlete – is captured in the following four Nike brand pillars:
Innovation – Nike prides itself on constantly improving the technology in its products to bring a
best-in-class experience to athletes. Nike makes the thought process that goes into developing
new products transparent by not only identifying how the technology behind its products works,
but also what motivated the design of a product to fulfill the needs of an athlete.
Inspiration – the brand seeks to empower every individual to be an athlete. It depicts athleticism
and sport in an approachable and motivating manner, humanizing the world’s best athletes as
individuals that struggle like everyone else to train, improve, and win.
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Determination – captured with its famous tagline, “Just do it,” this brand pillar resonates as not
only a company value, but also the candid and forward tone that characterizes the brand’s voice.
Everyone with a body can aspire to greatness in sport with the right mindset.
Achievement – reminiscent of Nike co-founder Bill Barmen’s competitive spirit that you must
compete in order to win, Nike sells the feeling of achievement and victory.
These pillars are used as a gut check for the brand to ensure that the content it creates stays true
to Nike’s mission and values, especially as the organization evolves. The growing maturity of the
Nike brand has posed interesting challenges, as simple brand recognition does not always
translate to engagement and brand loyalty.
In line with its pillars of continued achievement and innovation, the company adjusted the way it
engaged with customers at the turn of the millennium. In 2002, the organization unveiled a new
cross-platform approach at the 2002 World Cup that would guide the organization to present day:
a multi-faceted consumer experience that incorporated advertising, the Internet, public relations,
retail and consumer events to create excitement around Nike’s products and athletes. This new
integrated approach has since become the cornerstone of Nike’s marketing over the past decade.
To better meet the demands of an increasingly digital world, Nike continued to iterate and
identify new ways to engage with customers.
STARTING HUMAN-CENTERED
“We used to think that everything started in the lab. Now we realize that everything spins off the
consumer. And while technology is still important, the consumer has to lead innovation. We
have to innovate for a specific reason, and that reason comes from the market. Otherwise, we’ll
end up making museum pieces,” said Phil Knight in 1992.
Although the Nike brand is not an aspirational brand (one in which its audience wishes to own it,
but cannot afford it), it does give its customers something to aspire to: their personal best
through sport. This emphasis on consumer empathy and strategy has guided the organization for
the past two decades, as Nike shifted its product development focus from serving solely players
at the top of the game to understanding the majority of their customers, comprised of weekend
jocks and amateur athletes looking to improve their game. Product developers and designers
attend amateur sports events, spending time at the gym, court, and track to talk to people and
understand what they want out of their athletic gear.
The company’s take on products serving athletes is simple and unifying: they make sure that the
product is the same functionally whether it is for Mike Trout or your hometown high school’s
top varsity baseball recruit.
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CREATING WITH PURPOSE: THE NIKE LUNAR VAPOR TROUT
In sports such as running, training, and basketball, Nike had always been a worldwide leader
among premiere footwear and apparel brands. Nike’s foothold in baseball, however, had fallen
behind. Over the years, the company lost its grip on the sport, as competitors began sweeping up
star athletes and, as a result, market share. Nike needed to make a move.
With Derek Jeter set to retire in 2014, Nike saw an opportunity to reestablish its relevance in
baseball with an up and coming superstar. Nike set sights on the Los Angeles Angels’ star
outfielder, 22 year-old Mike Trout. Trout would not only serve as the face of Nike Baseball, but
also be the inspiration for a signature line of cleats named after him. The last time Nike created a
signature shoe for a baseball player was in the early ‘90s for Ken Griffey Jr.
The Nike Lunar Vapor Trout was a revolutionary, reimagined baseball cleat. It was inspired by
Trout’s powerful combination of speed and strength on the field. In contrast to the clunky,
leather-based cleats on the market, the cleat brought modernity, athleticism, and speed to
America’s past time. It was an effort to show a new generation of baseball players that by
wearing the Nike Lunar Vapor Trout, they could inject innovation and speed into a traditional
game, thereby enhancing their caliber of play. Below is an excerpt from the official Nike blog
post for the product launch:
Baseball is a game of incremental advances and steady progress - from first to second,
from the minors to the majors - and traditionally, that same progression has been
mirrored in the sport’s technology. Enter the Nike Vapor Collection: ultra-light, ultra-fast
equipment engineered to accelerate baseball athletes to the next level.
Nike Vapor represents supernatural speed and the product attributes required to attain it,
with lightweight support and lockdown fit. In baseball, speed is the difference between
being safe or out, and winning or losing. By enabling athletes to be faster, the Nike Vapor
Collection shrinks the field and helps push the game of baseball to new levels.
The first signature cleat for star outfielder Mike Trout, the Nike Lunar Vapor Trout
redefines the balance of speed and power in baseball and embodies the future direction of
the game. Informed by Trout’s own insights, the Nike Lunar Vapor Trout is designed for
the directional speed needed to steal more bases, get to more balls in the outfield, and get
out of the batters box quickly. Equipped with a durable, lightweight Nike Lunarlon foam
midsole for comfort, the cleat features a split Pebax speed plate for ultra-responsive
movement across the field. The midsole also informs a lively aesthetic that captures the
spirit of Trout’s game and Nike Vapor technology - sleek, modern, athletic, and
extremely fast.
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Source: Nike Blog
FOCUSING ON A SINGLE GOAL: GENERATING ORGANIC EXCITEMENT THROUGH MEDIA
Seven weeks before the Nike Lunar Vapor Trout’s official launch, Nike Baseball visited Perfect
Game in Fort Myers, Florida, a baseball league devoted to shaping the country’s top high school
talent for Division 1 college baseball, or in some cases, the MLB. At a Perfect Game tournament,
Nike Baseball parked a black trailer adjacent to the field, teasing visitors with only Nike’s
swoosh logo and the statement: The Future Gets Faster.
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The goal of the trailer was to spark interest in and curiosity about what Nike Baseball was
unveiling. Nike used the trailer to organically start a conversation with its target audience about
the mystery Nike Baseball product. The strategic move worked. Fans across the country saw
pictures of the mystery box and tweeted questions to Nike Baseball about what was inside. Nike
Baseball’s response: Wait until the All-Star Game.
As Nike Baseball posted content with the hashtag “#FutureGetsFaster” to social channels and
Trout, himself, spoke to the press about his cleats, speculation over Nike’s mystery product
continued to build leading up to the 2014 All-Star Game. Over All-Star weekend, eyes were on
Trout not only to watch his play on the field, but also to see his highly anticipated signature Nike
cleat. Trout took to the field donned in cleats that unmistakably resembled a trout. Fans
immediately took to Twitter to share their thoughts on the Nike Lunar Vapor Trout Rainbow
cleats, post images of Trout in the shoes, and most commonly, to ask Nike Baseball where they
could get a pair.
The storyline around the Nike Lunar Vapor Trout culminated when Trout won the game’s Most
Valuable Player award. Baseball’s rising star not only played the game unlike anyone else, but
he did so in a shoe that did not resemble any other cleat on the market.
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DESIGNING STORY ACROSS CHANNELS
To leverage this defining product launch, Nike’s digital marketing team built excitement around
its baseball revival by encouraging consumers to produce and engage in content they cared
about, using digital as a platform.
Eric Toda, Nike’s Global Digital Director of US Baseball, described effectively leveraging
digital channels in a strategic, content-oriented manner.
“If you use social media as it’s intended, in a non-corporate, packaged way, you can use the
momentum of the consumer conversation to propel the message forward,” he said. “We’re going
to reach on average maybe 10 percent of our audience; however, that 10 percent is so key since
they’ll engage with the messaging, and in turn get their friends to engage organically.”
Toda characterized each social channel as a tool, or billboard. If one were to imagine each
channel as a billboard standing next to each other, the billboards in conjunction should tell a
larger, encompassing story about the brand and experience. Yet individually, each billboard
could stand alone with its own story. This billboard analogy characterized the Nike Lunar Vapor
Trout launch, as its success was rooted in leveraging different channels to build speculation and
foster relationships with new customers.
The Perfect Game mystery black trailer was a prime example of Nike Baseball creating a cross
between traditional and digital mediums. The box can literally be seen as having a traditional
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billboard function in the campaign, i.e., a physical medium to advertise (or in Nike’s case, tease)
something. Over the course of the tournament, young baseball players would gather around the
black crate, taking pictures of the mystery Nike black box and sharing images on social media
channels. In this, Nike demonstrated how an investment in a traditional medium could have viral
payoffs digitally.
To further its efforts in digital, Nike Baseball also invested in Twitter efforts for outbound and
inbound marketing of the Vapor Cleat. As an outbound strategy to reach consumers, Nike
maintained real-time updates about Trout throughout the MLB season. By the time the All-Star
Game weekend arrived, Twitter had become an expected and established platform for dialogue
about Trout between Nike and its consumers. So when Trout debuted his cleats at the All-Star
game, Twitter exploded with fans tweeting at Nike asking what shoe Trout was wearing and
where they could purchase them. Nike took these inbound requests on Twitter as an opportunity
to have a real-time conversation with consumers regarding the cleat. In essence, Nike
transformed the transactional “buy-this-and-leave” experience of online purchasing into an
intimate consumer experience.
In addition to Twitter, Nike Baseball leveraged its social presence on Instagram to reach
consumers. Nike valued the photo-sharing platform for the Nike Lunar Vapor Trout launch,
because it was an opportunity to present content through the lens of the consumer, as opposed to
other platforms where an affiliation with MLB players could be potentially viewed as distant and
unattainable. Nike Baseball first began a conversation around “The Future Gets Faster” by
posting an image of the Perfect Game’s black box on Instagram. Even after the Perfect Game
initiative and All-Star Weekend, Nike continued to push content related to the cleats through
Instagram. Nike posted images of baseball players training, conditioning, and practicing, all
tagged with #FutureGetsFaster. This move tied the cleat to not only one of the world’s best
baseball players, but to any passionate baseball player who wants to inject intensity and speed
into his play.
Nike’s Instagram strategy came from an implicit understanding that its biggest competitor for
consumer attention was not a competing athletic brand, but instead, other interesting sources of
content consumers followed; that of friends, family members, inspiring figures, and other
lifestyle brands. Building off the concept that an individual’s direct ties produce more
compelling and personally relevant content than a corporate brand can, Nike selectively curated
content to be personal and relevant, featuring content that told stories about athletes who loved
their sport, as opposed to product advertisements with specs. Marking its content with
“#FutureGetsFaster,” Nike Baseball encouraged thousands of followers to participate in the
visual conversation about the cleats by digitally sharing their personal stories. Through these
personal anecdotes, Nike leveraged its consumer base to help make its content more engaging.
Finally, Nike used videos and graphics on Nike.com to give further context to the Nike Lunar
Vapor Trout story. Nike produced videos that showed the design and technology behind the
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cleat. These videos featured Mike Trout along with the cleat’s product designer and product line
manager. In these videos, the three men discussed the merits of the cleat, from its dynamic
flywire technology that added lightweight support to its split pane that enabled the cleat to mimic
the comfort of a running shoe. With insight into the product design process that went into
creating the cleat, coupled with a conversation with the player who inspired the cleat, Nike gave
consumers a uniquely compelling reason to choose—and buy – the cleat.
MEASURING IMPACT OF THE CAMPAIGN
Harkening back to Eric Toda’s foresight into using digital to redefine and reinvigorate Nike
Baseball, Nike continues to rely on digital and social media to tell Nike’s story on its own
channels and connect with customers on its own terms. For the past five years, Nike’s marketing
strategy has been focused almost exclusively on digital, as the company has significantly scaled
back on traditional advertising spend.
When considering the success of a campaign, Nike focused on qualitative attributes to measure
impact. Toda called this the “water-cooler” effect of running a successful viral campaign. It
measures not just the dollars and cents, but also the influence a campaign has on people. That is,
to what end did the campaign inspire people to talk about a great piece of Nike content on
television, in-person, or on a Facebook or Twitter post.
Nike’s digital team believed that the most platform-agnostic data points to measure were
engagement rates. These are defined as reach (the size of a platform’s audience), divided by the
number of shares on social channels, i.e., Facebook shares or retweets. Using this engagement
rate, Nike normalized for traffic swings, dictated less by quality content and more by seasonality,
to determine what pieces of content elicited the most positive responses from consumers. In
addition, Nike also considered sell-through percentages of its products from click through rates
to judge the quality of a piece of content.
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CONCLUSION
By all means, Nike Baseball’s carefully crafted, digitally oriented launch of the Nike Lunar
Vapor Trout baseball cleat was a huge success. The campaign virally diverted sell-through to the
product site, intertwined the cleats with the meteoric story of the MLB’s rising star, Mike Trout,
and most importantly, established Nike not only as a player, but also a leader in the sport of
baseball.
As Nike’s storytelling tactics have evolved with the digital world, it has steadfastly captivated
global audiences with its storyline of endless human potential through sport. Yet, the heart of the
company’s digital strategy is one that continues to be inherently consumer-driven. For a brand
that is aligned with some of the world’s biggest and best athletes, Nike does a remarkable job of
keeping its message relatable to every athlete across the globe. Nike’s enduring dominance in the
sporting apparel industry lies in the strength of, and its commitment to, its brand pillars of
innovation, inspiration, determination, and achievement. Moreover, the company’s genuine
commitment to customer engagement makes it one of the most appealing storytellers in the
digital world.
