Marketing is not just about selling products or services. As we’ve seen in class, marketing is about creating and managing a deep relationship between a company/a brand, and a customer/a user. One of the best examples of successfully marketing strategy in the past decades is Nike. Not only the company managed to overflow our screens and stadiums with its famous logo, the “swoosh”, that became one of the most worldwide well-known brand symbol, but they also built a strong brand community with its customers.

Last week, Nike announced the release of a shoe for which some Nike customers, and actually a lot of other people, waited for a very long time. The “2011 NIKE MAG” are the exact replicas of the the self-lacing and glowing shoes that appear on the feet of Marty McFly in “Back to the future II”, in a scene setting in 2015:

A lot of fans of both Nike and Back To The Future were expecting Nike to produce these shoes, and some of them actually tried to make their own “home-made” replica like this guy:

For many years Nike was urged by some customers and movie’s fans to make these shoes real. By releasing them in limited edition (1500 pairs will be produced), Nike makes a kind of “gifts” to BTTF fans and its customer that all dreamed of wearing/owning this collection item, and strengthens the relationship with customer. I think Nike especially targets “baby-boomers”, a generation on which the movie (released in 1989) had a very big impact. But people from more recent generations like Ne(X)t Generation (born between 1970-2000) are targeted as well, and among them the sneakerheads for instance.

Nike also produced a TV ad with Kevin Durant (famous NBA player) to promote its new shoes:

But that’s not all: all the net profits of this operation (the 1500 pairs will be auctioned on eBay)  will be given to the “Michael J. Fox’s (the actor that interpret Marty McFly in BTTFII) Foundation for Parkinson’s Research”. So the final goal is not to make money, but to promote the brand with a value-based marketing operation that supports fight against Parkinson’s disease. By doing this, Nike: 1) reaches a large number of people (through all videos and link posted on social medias about the shoes = the “buzz”) 2) reinforces its relationship with its current customers by offering them a collector item, that was for a long time expected 3) delivers a message and affirm some values (support of fight against Parkinson).

And, damn I have to say, these shoes really rock!!