1. Adam Kolb
Nike: The Fashion Brand
The leading sports brand in the world is Nike. Do to their advertising and
marketing campaigns, advanced footwear technology, and iconic “swoosh” logo, they
have comfortably landed themselves at the top of the sports market, and they aren’t going
anywhere. To increase brand popularity and put an even bigger gap between them and
their competition, Nike has surrounded its footwear and apparel with the world’s best
athletes through expensive endorsement deals. Two athletes most notably associated with
representing the “swoosh” are basketball legend, Michael Jordan and golf legend, Tiger
Woods. Nike’s goal is to achieve $36 billion in annual revenues by 2017. In order to do
this they need to expand their women’s business which in 2014 only amounted to 18% of
Nike’s revenues (Forbes, 2014). A new use for sports wear has recently emerged that
shows lots of promise for the leading sports brand in achieving these goals. While most
male athletes are idolizing their Nike endorsement idols and buying the products the
professionals wear to play with in sports events, women are now starting to wear athletic
apparel not just for sports but also as fashionable apparel. Nike, without meaning to, has
become not just a sports retailer but also a fashion brand. In order to remain on top of
their competition in the athletic department as well as expand their women’s department
revenues to reach their annual goals for the future, Nike needs to alter their focus from
strictly athletic representations, towards more fashionable styles, endorsements and
collaborations to meet the needs of this new fashion market.
Nike CEO Mark Parker has stated, “Our motivation isn’t to make products that
resonate with the fashion consumer…while the aesthetic is important, we are not a
designer for fashion per se” (Leitch, 2014). Nike’s owners have expressed that Nike is
strictly a sports brand and not a fashion brand. The advanced innovative technology and
product performance has been and always will be the main focus for the leading sports
brand. Nike wants their customers to feel the best and perform the best while using their
products for sports. Fear of losing their masculine brand image and weakening their
dominant endorsement deals have caused Nike to hesitate jumping into the fashion world
of athletic apparel. The image that Nike has made around the world as the best athletic
brand that sells apparel and equipment of the highest and most advanced quality will not
be hurt due to advanced creative styles. Consumers use Nike for its quality, which would
not be altered but only enhanced with style. Adidas, Nike’s main competitor, has made
advances by targeting the teenage female market, who have recently grown fond of
wearing active wear for fashion, through product segmentation strategies that focus on
the brand’s style and fashion divisions (Hendriksz, 2014). Nike has realized this but
needs to put more focus into the younger female consumer that buy athletic apparel to
show off a sporty, active, fashionable look off the field.
Nike is known for specializing products to meet specific sports needs for best
performance. To capture a larger female market, Nike needs to take this a step further
and create specific fashionable athletic wear with style and leisure as the leading focus
and promote this through the “swoosh” off the court for their women’s department as
well as on the court. As studied through Heidegger, Nike needs to capture this specific
world of leisure fashion expressing the state of mind and location that Nike products can
be worn as fashionable active wear. Heidegger’s idea of Daseincan can be used by Nike
2. as they now must promote their athletic wear as “a way of being that can change the field
of possibilities in which it acts,” showing it as athletic equipment on the court but then as
fashionable style on the streets (Heidegger, World of Fashion). Nike already creates
specific worlds of sports apparel and is able to create another specific world in which
their products can be worn for style, which will inevitably capture this growing female
market for active fashion. Three areas in which Nike can continue to capture the world
of female active wear both for fashion and sports are to focus on creating stylish yoga
pants, sports bras and leggings with bright colors and cool textures. Yoga has become
very popular in USA for females. Better yet, females often also wear yoga pants as
fashion apparel and leisure clothing (Forbes, 2014). Leggings, many females consider to
be the new “denim.” They are seen on young women during many different occasions
lots having nothing to do with sports (Friedman, 2014).
Nike is known for its advanced technology in creating ultra light yet the most
durable shoes and cleats and has taken it a step further with its “Nike ID” brand feature
that allows people to design their own Nike shoes online with the same technological
advancements. If Nike takes it even further allowing customers not only to design their
own shoes but also to design athletic tops and bottoms to match the shoes as full outfits,
the brand will capture more of the female consumer interested in athletic fashion. As
seen through McLuhan’s works, Technology is “an extension of self” that enhances our
individual voice and helps us communicate across time and space making everything
more personable (McLuhan). Nike ID could potentially enable consumers to make outfits
and styles to fit their personal styles enhancing their views of authenticity and ownership
(Heidegger, Worlds of fashion). This feature of Nike will really allow consumers to
become the designer and connect with the styles of athletic wear they are able to create
while still having the same advanced technology and performance Nike products are
known for. On the men’s side of athletic fashion, Nike’s high tech lightweight fleece
resembles a very smooth and stylish look while being lighter and warmer than other
fleece. The jackets, sweatshirts and sweatpants that Nike make for men now have a clean
and modern finish to them and can be worn casually any time of day (Tudela, 2013).
Nike needs to take the time to focus as much on apparel style as it does on its shoes.
Through fieldwork, it has been decided that Nike runners, the advanced mesh like foam
absorbing featherweight running shoes, are worn just as much if not more for leisure and
plain comfort than for athletic events. These shoes come in all kinds of fun colors that
can easily be matched with yoga pants, leggings, shorts, sports bras etc. Nike has made
great technological apparel advances that have already captured an audience but they
can’t stop now since competition is on the rise with clever styles and designs from Under
Armor and Adidas.
By focusing more on fashionable active wear, more fashion designers around the
world will gain interest in collaborating with Nike enhancing the brand’s appearance and
awareness worldwide as a stylish brand combined with athletic performance. In fact,
some already have. Nike recently teamed up with Brazilian designer Pedro Lourenco to
create a collection of woven jackets, mesh tanks and paneled tights for women. What
really intrigues designers to want to work with Nike is the brand’s enhanced product
performance (Molvar, 2014). With help from fashion designer collaborations combined
with the advanced technological products of Nike, the brand’s fashionable active-wear
will most likely blow competition away boosting the brand’s sales for women. Women’s
3. apparel is only a third of the value of Nike’s menswear so there is lots of room to
collaborate with designers and grow the women’s department. Other designers like
Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy and Jun Takahashi of Undercover, have since collaborated
with Nike with more on the way (Friedman, 2014).
Now, Nike needs to cut back on some of its male endorsement spending and use
that money to endorse more female athletes that can be seen advertising Nike’s enhanced
styles of leggings, bras, yoga pants and running shoes for the female consumer market.
To also capture the female market that are not athletic but buy Nike products for their
looks and styles, Nike can advertise its products on television through iconic figures who
are not athletes displaying Nike’s versatile apparel in more fashionable scenes such as a
runway show. Nike can also participate in more runway shows to help promote its new
lines of active wear and gain more designer collaborations. Last year, Nike promoted a
runway show in New York dressing top models like Karlie Kloss and Joan Smalls as well
as brand ambassadors like tennis star Li Na and track star Allyson Felix, in their new
apparel lines which really impressed designers in attendance (Friedman, 2014). The
brand can also have their popular male endorsement athletes advertised wearing
fashionable Nike active wear outside of their sporting events to promote fashionable
active wear for their followers. By promoting new fashionable active wear on its
endorsed celebrities that the athletic market follows, Nike will enhance its sales and
brand exposure not only as a sports brand but also as a fashionable active wear brand.
This exposure relates to Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” in which Nike uses
society’s popular and concentrated celebrities that the public follows and indirectly
relates to through mediated images and sporting events in order to promote Nike’s new
products (Debord, The Society of the Spectacle).
Active-wear has become an influential part of fashion in the last couple of years.
Young adults and teenagers have started to wear athletic apparel just as much for style
and leisure as for sporting events. This has been seen especially in women and their
display of yoga pants, leggings, Nike runners, sports bras and caps worn as fashionable
leisure outfits as well as athletic gear. Athletic brands therefore have had to adjust and
invent new styles of athletic wear to meet this new fashionable market. Nike, the biggest
sports retailer in the world, has become as much of a fashion brand in the last few years
as it is a sports brand. Although the brand will always put sports and product performance
innovation first, recent attention to enhanced athletic styles and collaborations with
designers around the world have had a successful impact on Nike’s increased sales in
their women’s department.
Promoting Nike apparel not just to play in but to wear following or before a
sporting event as a fashionable outfit will need to be a continued focus for the brand.
Mass advertising and expensive athletic celebrity endorsements will always be part of
Nike’s business plan to maintain its unbeatable brand exposure over competition as long
as they can afford to do it. This aspect of the brand relates well to the Zeitgeist map by
using the media, celebrities of sports, and technology to promote brand exposure and
awareness about new innovative products throughout the world. New designer
collaborations and fashionable athletic styles worn on and off the playing field have come
to be a new and improved part of Nike’s image that has increased its women’s sales and
kept Nike on top of the athletic empire. Nike will need to keep focusing on enhanced
“green” designs to pitch to consumers and could also add accessories to go along with
4. athletic outfits for heightened affect. Their worldwide support and popularity will
continue to grow as long as Nike keeps its products versatile and of the best most
advanced quality while adding a new feature, fashionable style.
Advanced technological lightweight breathable Nike Fleece. (Tudela, 2014)
5. Nike’s Latest Fashion Play: a Capsule Collection with Pedro Lourenço (Molvar, 2014)
Woven Jacket, black “cool” line.
Nike’s Latest Fashion Play: a Capsule Collection with Pedro Lourenço (Molvar, 2014)
Mesh tank top with paneled tights and form fitting sports bra that comes in over 20
different sizes for yoga and leisure.
7. Works Cited
Debord, Guy. “The Society of the Spectacle.”
Friedman, Vanessa. "Nike Stakes Its Fashion Claim." The New York Times (2014)
Heidegger, Martin. “The World of Fashion.”
Hendriksz, Vivian. "Clash of the Fashion Titans: Adidas vs. Nike." Fashion United. N.p.,
4 Sept. 2014.
Leitch, Luke. "Nike CEO: "We Are Not a Designer for Fashion per Se"" -
Telegraph.CO.UK, 26 Mar. 2014.
Lourenço." TMagazine 23 Oct. 2014: The New York Times [ProQuest]
McLuhan, Marshall. “In A Global Village Without A Map.”
Molvar, Kari. "Nike’s Latest Fashion Play: A Capsule Collection with Pedro
Team, Trefis. "How Nike Can Grow Its Women's Business." Forbes. Forbes Magazine,
26 Aug. 2014.
Tudela, Alex. "Nike's Newest Collection Looks Runway Ready." TMagazine 21 Aug.
2013: The New York Times [ProQuest].
