Digital Marketing In A Recession? Just Do It (Part 2 of 4)

NIKE AS A CHANGE AGENT

Welcome to ‘The Digital Reality’, a discussion forum in partnership with Microsoft Advertising. Over a series of 4 parts, we look at how marketers can overcome their fears of the digital frontier, which they can capitalize on to create competitive advantages for the brands they manage as well as for their own marketing careers.

This week, we traced the history of Nike going from cool brand to cool digital brand.

According to advertising folklore, one of the most famous and easily recognized slogans in advertising history was coined at a 1988 meeting of Nike’s ad agency Wieden and Kennedy and a group of Nike employees. Dan Wieden, speaking admiringly of Nike’s can-do attitude,reportedly said, “You Nike guys, you just do it.” The rest, as they say, is advertising history.

But the famous slogan is more than just advertising, it embodies the spirit of innovation within the Nike organisation.

Here’s why.

In the late 80s, before the internet age, Nike was already ahead of the marketing curve when they engaged Michael Jordan to endorse the Nike Air range, making the partnership one of the most successful endorsement deals in history. Before long, Reebok jumped into the fray with Shaquille O'Neal. Pretty soon it seemed that every major athlete (especially basketball) had a shoe contract and kids were wearing the athlete's shoe they admired most.

By the late 90s, Nike’s perceived competitive advantage started to slip, as overall sales slumped in the athletic shoes industry. Consumers had grown accustomed to seeing athletes endorse a brand and were not excited anymore. Consumers were bombarded with ‘same old same old’ marketing strategies and as a result, ‘me too’ campaigns permeated the industry.

Nothing lasts forever. No winning strategy can last forever. Nike acknowledged that if they continued to rely solely on the celebrity endorsement route, when all other brands are already doing it, they will hit a dead end in no time. ‘Just Do It’ was already an established motivational mantra to consumers, so how else can Nike top that?

Either you innovate or die. And Nike knows this very well.

So realising the emergence of the internet as a powerful consumer platform, Nike embraced it not only to sell its products online but implemented a full scale digital strategy to engage the New Consumers.

Nike is still pervasive with sports personality endorsements and cool TV ads, but digital is now an integral part of its big plan.

Over the last few years, the success of its various digital platforms like Nike+, a training system partnership with Apple that lets runners track and share their data online, have inspired marketing practitioners to study Nike’s digital strategy as the benchmark for their own digital campaigns.

Every Crisis Presents Opportunities, But Only For The Brave

Nike didn’t wait for a crisis before they explored the internet as the next wave of its marketing renaissance. Dan Wieden didn’t praise the Nike folks for sitting and waiting for something to happen. Nike made things happen, whether during the good times or bad.

The US Centre For Applied Research, in a research paper on Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ Slogan, stated the following :

‘The Nike brand has become so strong it is placed in the rarified air of recession-proof consumer branded giants, in the company of Coca-Cola, Gillette and Proctor & Gamble……’

With the majority of marketers on the sidelines during the current crisis, those that invest in the digital platform can expect less competition and better returns, given the medium is able to track response rates and even the quality of the responses. During a recession, every advertising dollar has to be accounted for and digital media can measure the effectiveness of your marketing investments.

During the current crisis, consumers are more cautious about spending, and they may well do even more research on products and services online, before they commit to a purchase. With the fear of job losses looming, people are also spending more time at home. That’s where the opportunity lies.

With ubiquitous broadband connectivity, and online search as the research tool of choice among consumers, it’s much easier now to use digital media to communicate and reinforce a brand identity, and its brand values as part of its advertising campaign.

The internet not only creates opportunities for sales and brand loyalty, it also conveys information about the company behind the product or service. Never before in advertising history have marketers had the tools that can so readily facilitate the need to deliver messages to consumers about their products and services, effectively and efficiently, and with a wide range of creative delivery methods.

Sadly, although consumers are increasingly embracing the internet as a major part of their lives, slump or not, most brands are far from undertaking digital advertising. For the most part, they continue to see digital as an unproven, experimental or risky medium.

With such hesitation, brave brands like Nike are already speeding towards the horizon of greatness.

Next week, we look at managing change in the face of increasing competition.

Contributed by :
Jimmy Lim
Mindshare Singapore
jimmy.lim@mindshareworld.com