Min Soo Yoo's Blog

I am a huge fan of soccer. I always surf internet related to soccer. So today, I was looking though as usual and saw how Nike turned French soccer team uniform in fashionable way. Then, I thought hmm…… France then Paris, one of the biggest fashion cities, then how can soccer uniform be fashionable? So I clicked on it just to see its new look. The uniform actually did not look like a soccer uniform at all. It was more of day-to-day wearable shirt. People could wear it with jeans and jacket and it would look fine. I got interest and start to actually read the article. Nike had “designed new uniform radically different from the previous generation of jerseys” to target the new segment market.

Soccer uniform is around $100 and higher which is expensive relative to other day to day wearable shirt. The uniform is unfashionable and can’t be worn casually which makes it impractical. So it is usually bought by people who are really into soccer. In order to overcome these and appeal to more people, Nike is promoting how the new uniform is fashionable and how it provides unique personality to each individual. The new uniform can be customized to suit the wearer by using collar and sleeves. This uniform now has collar so people can either button, unbutton, up or down. Also, people can leave the sleeves as roll down to show blue (understated effect) or they can roll up to show bright red. Lastly, they took inspiration from techniques by top French fashion houses to make uniform longer and close-fitting with narrower waist.

Nike is using differentiated segmentation strategy to target people who are looking for more practical uniform/shirt that gives individual’s own distinctive style and personality. By adding more features Nike is providing benefit and these new benefits are targeting the new segment. I think it is a great strategy that covers up the traditional uniform’s weakness. But I wonder how much this will increase Nike’s profit.

Here is youtube video about new uniform.