As a former athlete it is hard to think about the study of marketing without thinking of Nike. A month ago Nike celebrated its 25th anniversary of its ‘ Just Do It’ marketing campaign. The following post summarizes and emphasizes Nike’s marketing greatness throughout the years.
Not many know that in the mid 1980’s Nike fell from its position as industry leader. They had badly miscalculated the aerobics boom giving their competitors an opportunity to capture and develop part of Nike’s market share. In order to regain top position Nike worked on a new campaign in order to differentiate itself from its competitors.
This began with Michael Jordan’s commercials and the development of the most popular shoe in modern history, the Air Jordan.
Following this series starring the greatest basketball player of all time. In 1989 Nike’s cross training business exploded by once again branding itself with a famous athlete. This time it was dual athlete Bo Jackson, and the “Bo Knows” campaign which vaulted them once again to the top of the industry and have yet to lose that position since.
In the 90’s Nike decided to expand and dominate new markets in attempt to further their global reach. Naturally, Nike signed several individual Brazilian soccer players and a bunch of other national soccer teams. Furthermore, in 1996 Nike Golf partnered with the unproven young golfer Eldrick “Tiger” Woods. Who would later become one of golf’s best and one of the most polarizing sports figure today.
Today Nike has somewhat changed its approach to solely focusing on partnerships with one athlete. Nike has somewhat stepped away from the big athlete, big ad strategy that was so successful for them before. Now, with the development of technology Nike has once again dominated their industry through marketing through viral culturally relevant videos. Nevertheless, Nikes marketing strategy through the years have allowed them to dominate their industry.
Here are some of my favourite new advertisements by Nike.