Advertising Plan:
Nike Athletic Apparel
Written by: Volume Digital
Trinh Nguyen – Situation Analysis
Linh Lam – Budget & Goals
Rachelle Maust – Creative/Message Strategy & Tactics
Tina Phuong – Media Strategy & Tactics
Dena Yasen – Measurements & research Plan
Table of Content
Situational Analysis (Trinh & Linh Part C) 2
Budget and Goals (Linh) 3
Creative/message Strategy & Tactics (Rachelle) 4
Media Strategy & Tactics (Tina) 5
Measurement & Research Plan (Dena) 6
Goals below
Increase awareness among youth by 10%
Create more awareness among diverse communities like LGBQ, Black Lives Matter, and Asian Americans. Be more inclusive which will increase sales.
Trinh: Agree with this. Also I think we could leverage this community-driven narrative by partnering with a celeb to strengthen our voice and create a deeper impact. E.g. Nike partners with Simu Liu to launch a new product collection advocating Asian Americans. (we can tag along a donation of $20 for every purchased item of this collection to Asian Americans support organizations)
-> Tactic:
Print ad -> IG, Twitter post
Video advertising (with Simu Liu) -> YT, IG story, Snapchat story, TikTok
Social media: social posts on Nike and Simu Liu’s social media announcing this partnership
Launching event to introduce the collection, announce this partnership and Asian Americans advocacy & donation -> invite press, celebrities, influencers
Influencers: gifting this collection to influencers to garner earned outcomes on their social media
Part 4:
The media platform that I was planning on using for our ad campaign is Instagram ad stories, Snapchat ad stories, Youtube ad, TV commercial, etc.
Media not to use is a newspaper ad, radio ad, print ad, etc.
I’ll just go more into detail about each one and why they’re effective and not effective in our campaign.
Situational Analysis:
Nike, Inc. is an American multinational corporation founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in 1964. The company specializes in athletic wear, providing footwear, apparel, athletic equipment, and accessories and its primary goal is to supply athletes with exceptional products and wearables that aid them in better sports performance. Nike is one of the most recognizable brands in the world as its name alone is memorable, easy to pronounce, and very unique. Its swoosh symbol is easily recognized by everyone. At a cost of 80 U.S. dollars per sneaker pair, Nike had the highest median price of popular sneaker brands worldwide in 2017.
Part of Nike’s huge success is its focus on partnerships with professional athletes. Nike partners with many top athletes across the board to promote and advertise their products, apparel, and designs. The first professional athlete they brought on for endorsements was the Romanian tennis player Ilie Năstase. One of their most successful partnerships was that of famous basketball player Michael Jordan. The long-term partnership between Jordan and Nike resulted in the Air Jordan brand, one of Nike’s most popular and well-known brands. In developing and maintaining its marketing communications mix, Nike Inc. applies a strategic combination of advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sales promotions, and public relations. This combination allows the company to effectively promote its products and strengthen its brand image. The brand has excellent marketing campaigns and recently released the “Don’t Do It” ad campaign in support of Black communities against racism.
From humble beginnings to now, Nike is the world’s largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel, surpassing its many competitors, including Adidas, New Balance, and Puma. Established in 1949, Adidas is a global brand and Nike’s top competitor. Nike vs. Adidas rivalry cuts across different sectors from footwear, apparel, and sports equipment, and accessories. The brand value of Adidas has increased year-on-year for five consecutive years and reached $12.07 billion in 2020. On the other hand, Nike, since its founding, has expanded across the world and its brand value has increased year-on-year since 2010 to around $34.4 billion in 2020.
Although with apparel and sports the market can be broad, for the most part, Nike primarily targets consumers who are between the ages of 15-40. The company caters to both men and women athletes equally and is placing an increasing focus on tweens and teens to build long-term brand loyalty. As of May 31, 2021, Nike operated a total of 1,048 retail stores throughout the entire world. Nike uses geographic segmentation to market nations, regions, cities, and population density differently. In the United States Nike focuses on American football and baseball and creates and deploys many advertisements and marketing campaigns about football and baseball products using athletes specific to those sports. However sports tend to vary by region, so it is unlikely to see American football or baseball commercials in Europe. Instead, you are more likely to see Soccer, where Nike uses soccer stars to market Nike’s products. Similarly, in India, you are more likely to see cricket and rugby in England or Australia. Nike’s largest markets are North America followed by Western Europe and China. In these geographies, Nike’s marketing efforts are largely focused on urban areas with high market densities.
Budget and Goals (Linh):
In the past months, we have been sending products from our new season collection to artists and influencers asking them for promotion. Due to the new products being worn and promoted by various influencers and artists, Nike were able to reach millions of potential customers, especially on the new season collection. Our goal is to create a strategy to keep more loyal customers that would keep coming back, instead of seasonal ones.
For the upcoming holidays, we are launching a new campaign collaborating with Simu Liu as Nike’s new brand ambassador, mainly through social media platforms. As Nike is a well-known worldwide brand, we are focusing on reaching a specific audience for this campaign, which are young athletic consumers (14-23 age group) who spend most of their time on the internet. Simu Liu is a Canadian actor and stuntman best known for portraying ShangChi and the Legend of Ten Rings. By having him as a brand ambassador, we can approach more consumers who are looking up to him as a role model or have interest in action movies in general. Simu Liu is suitable to be Nike ambassador because he is viewed as an athletic person. It has been noted that he engages in “basketball, volleyball, gymnastics” among other sports. Therefore, announcing Simu Liu as the new brand ambassador by having print ad on billboards, video advertising on various social media channels can attract the customers’ attention and keep running ads in order to
Print ad:
Billboards: Costs associated with running ads on billboards can vary depending on location and population, from around $250 per month for more rural, less-traveled areas to up to $15,000 per month for billboards that can get many thousands of impressions, such as on a major highway in a metropolitan area, according to fitsmallbusiness.com
Video advertising: most promotional videos fall well in-between this range in the price range of about $3,000 to $5,000 per finished minute. Therefore, the cost of a 30-second promotional video is typically around $1,500 to $2,500. (https://beverlyboy.com/how-much-does-it-cost/how-much-does-a-30-second-promotional-video-cost/)
Social media:
social posts on Nike and Simu Liu’s social media announcing this partnership.
Upload digital contents (videos, pictures and interviews) about Simu Liu with Nike on multiple social media channels (Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tiktok)
Launching event to introduce the collection, announce this partnership and Asian Americans advocacy & donation -> invite press, celebrities, influencers
Influencers: gifting this collection to influencers to garner earned outcomes on their social media
Creative/message Strategy & Tactics (Rachelle):
Nike is an extremely valuable brand, as it remains the largest sportswear brand in the world. With over 1,048 retail stores worldwide, as well as being sold in 170 countries, it is no wonder why Nike has become such a common household name. One way in which we have become such a common household name is by partnering with celebrity athletes, as well as popular sports teams, in order to increase our global brand awareness. For example, we have had partnerships with famous athletes such as Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin Durant, and Tiger Woods. Since our overall goal is to reach large populations of our target consumers with the greatest impact possible, these partnerships have been a successful tool in doing so.
In the 80s, most Americans were obese, as well as coming out of a recession, which is what caused Nike to realize that they needed to appeal to a much larger audience, rather than strictly college or professional male athletes. Therefore, our current selling proposition, Just Do It, was created. This slogan is a simple, yet effective way to deliver its message to all people rather than just strictly elite athletes. These three simple words are not only able to be applied to fitness, but also to the struggles that people face in their daily lives. We strive to inspire people to push themselves beyond their limit, which has ultimately created an association between the brand and overcoming obstacles.
The athletic footwear, apparel, accessories, and equipment that our company sells leans more towards the emotional appeal. Since the signature swoosh has become a fashion statement, the emotional appeal can be seen in regard to the status level that consumers feel they reach when they buy our products. Our products allow consumers to feel good about themselves, as well as be confident. Furthermore, emotional appeal can also be seen in regard to the euphoric feeling of victory and success which is what our brand message inspires people to achieve. Although emotional appeal is utilized more, there is still a presence of rational appeal. For example, rational appeal is in relation to the fact that our products are high quality. Not only do we value the customer, but we also value the durability and quality of our products. That is why we are able to set a fair, and reasonable, price point for everyone to enjoy.
Media Strategy & Tactics:
With the advancement of technology and the ability to reach a mass audience in today’s world, using social media is our best option in promoting Nike’s advertising campaign. Nike is an innovative company with a household name. This gives Nike a huge advantage when it comes to having quality and being trustworthy. Using social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, and Billboard ads is a great way to promote and communicate our campaign message. Using these media strategies we’ll be able to draw attention and engage with our consumers on a new level. By creating social media ads that are eye-catching, informative, and meaningful, we’ll be able to increase brand awareness and sales.
Our Nike campaign’s top two media to use are Instagram and Snapchat since a lot of our consumers are ages 15-45 years old. We want to create a space where our consumers can like, share, and be interactive with the campaign. We want our ad to create a sense of community that allows people to connect with one another. Using Instagram, we can create unique story post ads, interactive filters, and hashtags. Instagram provides a space for our campaign to create word of mouth. Celebrities like Simu Liu could do a 30-second Instagram ad that talks about his partnership and Nike’s association with Asian American communities. This will create a sense of inclusion and boost Nike’s brand name and product. Instagram is a great way to spread the word and increase awareness among consumers everywhere. A feature that is unique to Snapchat is its interactive face filters and its geotag. Face filters could be a fun way to immerse the consumer directly with our products by allowing them to play around with the filter and post on their story to share with friends. We could also include “swipe up” features that will allow easy access to the Nike website where they can learn more about the campaign and our mission. This feature takes away the lingering time it takes consumers to make a decision and allows users easy access in seconds. Our Nike Instagram and Snapchat campaign ad should be posted during lunch and night time wine down. Lunchtime would be anywhere from 12 pm – 2 pm when consumers are on break from classes and work. This time will be perfect since most viewers will be on their phones looking to kill time. Nighttime could be anywhere from 6 pm – 10 pm. By posting our campaign during these times, we’ll be able to gain more viewers and news coverage about our products and partnership with Simu Liu.
Other effective forms of media strategy would be Youtube ads and billboard signs. 20-30 second Youtube ads will also be a quick way to promote our campaign. It’s easily integrated into the Youtube video which will create exposure. Billboard signs are another great way to promote. We could create a giant billboard sign in a high traffic metropolitan area.
Forms of media that we will not be using for Nike will be newspaper ads, radio ads, and print ads. These forms of media strategy don’t line up with our campaign mission and goals. These methods seem old-fashioned and don’t reach the age group of consumers that buy Nike products. We want to reach the consumers where they are at and that is on social media and not newspaper ads or radio ads. We want to use platforms that give consumers the experience they can’t get through listening to radio ads. By being interactive with our campaign we can create a lasting impact on the consumers.
Measurement & Research Plan (Dena):