Introduction
Nike Inc.’s branding strategy focuses on creating an emotional connection with its customers. The company implements this strategy by selling emotional stories to market its products. The tagline, Just Do It, is the epitome of this brand strategy as it connects with various demographics, allowing them to interpret the message individually (Pride, 2019). This slogan creates a relationship between the brand and its consumers as the company curates its advertising content based on meaningful, inspirational stories. The brand objective is to associate winning with the company’s products. The winning mentality psychologically affects the consumers who view buying the brand as buying a winner’s mindset.
This brand purpose is reinforced with promotional messages that persuade consumers of the inherent mindset when purchasing Nike’s products. Nike differentiates its products from competitors such as Adidas and Underarm through its logo design and product superiority. The swoosh design on Nike products is a recognizable emblem that helps differentiates its products from its competitors and gain a competitive advantage through brand recognition (Rocchio, 2021). Nike differentiates its products by marketing them as superior to others as sports personalities promote them.
Technology and Social Media
The company will use the online buying app and eCommerce tools to amplify the brand message globally. Nike places a significant emphasis on direct-to-consumer channels through its retail stores; thus, these tools present the best strategy to amplify its advertisement as they offer the best access to its target market. The company can use differentiated retailer platforms that provide quality services to highlight its powerful storytelling strategies. These retailers have access to the most popular products and thus are poised to have massive traffic that can view the promotional messages. Amazon dominates the eCommerce market; thus, Nike should leverage its huge market base to create promotional messages on its product page to gain global coverage.
Nike will use its app as the default customer relations tool. The app will enable Nike to communicate more effectively with customers about their needs and enhance their shopper experience. The company will get customers’ data that allows Nike to decipher their shopping habits and product preferences, thus personalizing their future purchases (Amin, 2022). The app will allow Nike to give loyal customers exclusive products and priority to products based on app usage. Nike will use two social media tools, Instagram and Twitter, as they as the most active channels. The social media strategy entails using user-generated content and increasing customer engagement with interactive challenges.
Implementation
The primary tactic to implement the marketing plan is to create videos that customers easily understand. The video will seek to engage viewers with an inspirational story presenting them with a solution in a simple manner that helps them ascertain what the product offers. Good quality videos will increase website traffic, which translates to sales. The video will contain informative visualization that will assist customers in knowing more about the product and demonstrate the offers provided. The video will conclude with a call to action that reminds people of the benefits of purchasing Nike products. The video can be availed within three months to ensure the crew captures all relevant information. The most viable strategy is to use celebrity endorsements to ensure continuity in sales growth after performances. Consumers are fans; thus, sports endorsements can increase brand visibility through sponsorships. The celebrity endorsement can run for a year with a four-month duration per sports personality.
Evaluation and Control
The objective of the marketing plan is to increase profitability; thus, the evaluation of the marketing campaign’s effectiveness will entail an increase in sales. An increase in revenue in the first quarter after the marketing campaign will highlight the effectiveness of the project (Smith, 2018). On the other hand, a stagnation or decrease in revenues shows an ineffective marketing plan. However, the company will keep track of long-term changes in the fourth quarter of the financial year to monitor delayed effects. Questionnaires are the most viable method of following up with customers. The company can send surveys to a random target audience sample to determine product satisfaction. It is prudent to consider customers’ recommendations as they affect the product catalog in terms of product perception.
Conclusion
Nike Inc.’s emotional branding strategy highlights how anyone can overcome challenges and excel, thus compelling fans to buy their products. The apparel industry is dynamic and competitive; thus, Nike needs to maintain its competitive advantages, including logo design and product superiority. The company will use digital marketing as its primary marketing strategy to amplify the brand message globally and ensure efficient customer relations. The implementation will entail video content detailing the products and celebrity endorsements. Evaluation will help the company reduce inefficiencies regarding product perception.
Executive Summary
Nike’s differentiation approach must rest on offering its unique sneakers to younger fashion-conscious consumers. This differentiation yields two segmentation concepts, demographic and psychographic, which hold most of its consumers. The company should collaborate with celebrities and influencers as part of its promotion strategy and focus on offering consumers conventional and exclusive sneaker models. Nike positions its products to be trendy, thus aligning with its brand strategy entailing storytelling through famous sports personalities. The marketing plan will involve creating a product, promoting the product through celebrity endorsements, and sending surveys to determine how customers perceive the product. The marketing plan will culminate in evaluating sales through the year’s four quarters.
References
Amin, Z. (2022). Nike’s eight powerful marketing strategies & tactics. Squeeze Growth. Web.
Pride, A. (2019). What you can learn from Nike branding strategy. Rival IQ. Web.
Rocchio, F. (2021). Nike’s brand positioning: Just do it, but differently. Lone Fir Creative. Web.
Smith, E. (2018). How to evaluate marketing strategies. Bizfluent. Web.