Nike's Brand Strategy

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Nike is a multinational corporation founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman in 1964. Knight was a middle distance runner from Portland and Bowerman was his track and field coach (Mathew 2016). Nike was previously known as Blue Ribbon Sports and was “operated as a distributor for the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger (Asics)” (O’Reilly 2014). Nike’s first employee, Jeff Johnson came up with the company’s name, which was derived from “the Greek goddess of victory, and it’s pronounced ‘ny'-kee’” (O’Reilly 2014). Nike focuses its business on “design, development, marketing and sale of footwear, apparel, and equipment, accessories and services” (Nike Inc. 2016). The athletic footwear is designed mainly for athletic purposes, but many of the products …show more content…

One of the brand strategies of Nike is that it stays “constant” throughout the years. “Its swoosh logo hasn’t changed, nor has its signature ‘Just Do It’ slogan, but the brand is constantly adjusting its messaging to stay relevant” (Conran 2015). Nike is a well-known brand, and one of the reasons that makes it popular is that people know what the brand is when they see the “swoosh” logo and the “Just Do It” slogan. If Nike changes its logo and slogan all the time, no one will know what the “new” logos and slogans are for, nor will they know that they represent the Nike brand. The logo and slogan of the company stay the same over the years, but Nike is constantly coming up with new ideas to grow and change. Another brand strategy of Nike is its store layout, and it uses this strategy to increase the chance of customers purchasing products from the stores. “If walking into the Nike store, the most enticing element is the highly made and symmetrical layout. Every sport is provided its part that arranged in color and product type” (Branding Strategy of Nike 2013). The Jordan brand of Nike is popular, but it does not only focus on selling the products for one sport, therefore it is important to give customers the chance to look at every product of every sport. In order to increase the chance of customers buying …show more content…

The asterisk in the mission statement means, “If you have a body, you are an athlete” (Nike 2016). From the mission statement, it is not difficult to tell that Nike does not make the “real” athletes its only target market. Nike is an athletic brand, but it wants to reach out to every person in the world, instead of just focusing on the ones who play sports. Although the company wants to reach out to a wider audience, it still works closer with the athletes because the CEO of Nike said, “I always say that as an innovation company, we're privileged to work in the world of sports because our source of inspiration-the athlete-never stops progressing” (Lebowitz 2015). Athletes always want to have better performances, and none of them would want to stop making improvements. Nike is like the athletes because it is a company that strives for better performances and more innovation ideas. The company also let its designers to work with athletes, such as Kobe Bryant to design better products. For example, Nike’s designer Eric Avar and basketball player, Kobe Bryant worked together in 2008 to design the Kobe 9, which it is a better fitting shoe and has lighter weight (Lebowitz 2015). Constantly making improvements and coming up with new ideas are not the only reasons why Nike works with athletes, the publicity of the athletes is the other reason because they can attract

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