I grew up playing ‘soccer’ and I am one of the most fanatical followers of the sport anyone can speak to. Back in high school my friends and I would regularly show off new soccer cleats to each other. We were very particular about the type of boot and the perks we perceived each had. Speed, Comfort, Accuracy, Power, and Touch were words associated with different boots. In this market, Nike and Adidas are main competitors and both command a huge majority of the market share, mostly due to the amount of effort spent on differentiating its boots from one another. For this post I have chosen to look into Nike’s line of soccer boots.
Nike’s Mercurial Vapor lightweight material promises consumers speed and agility.
Nike markets its Tiempo line as the ‘classic’, providing touch, class and comfort. After all, players play at their best when most comfortable.
and finally, the T90 Accuracy is marketed as a precision tool. Giving consumer’s the ability to place a ball wherever they want it.
Theres no denying that Nike can market its product well and that they have. These products have been around for almost a decade and consumers now are very familiar with each product brand. Players who prioritize speed will go for the Vapor, and players who want accuracy will go for the T90. Nike has actually created these images in the consumer’s head so well, that most players firmly believe that real abilities and skills like speed, strength, precision all come from a boot. A very good example of this marketing strategy is when Nike sponsors certain players with different boots. The very quick, agile Cristiano Ronaldo loyally wears the Vapor every single game and dead-eye strikers who rely on accuracy like Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres are users of the T90. When consumers see real professional players who use different boots to accommodate their personal and individual skills, consumers can sometimes be mislead to believe that these skills come from their physicality rather than the shoe. I mean, come on, will the Vapor which weights half a T90 actually give you much more bursts of speed? Doesn’t the direction of a moving ball depend on the contact spot and not on what a shoe is made of? The only boot that I believe in is the Tiempo. I believe in it because I feel that comfort does affect your performance on the pitch and Nike has done very well on getting that message across to me.
Sometimes marketing can be so powerful that it can sometimes further consumers away from practicality and reason when maybe they should just base their strategy on a realistic selling point. But hey, i’m not the rest of the world.