Thursday 24 November 2016

Promotion- Nike

The Marketing Mix-Promotion

Promotion is the business of communicating with customers. It will provide information that will assist them in making a decision to purchase a product or service. The hype, pace and creativity of some promotional activities are almost alien to normal business activities.
The cost associated with promotion or advertising goods and services often represents a sizeable proportion of the overall cost of producing an item. However, successful promotion increases sales so that advertising and other costs are spread over a larger output. Though increased promotional activity is often a sign of a response to a problem such as competitive activity, it enables an organisation to develop and build up a succession of messages and can be extremely cost-effective (Huang and Sarigollu, 2014).

Nike-Promotion

Nikes primary form of promotion is making its swoosh logo prominent on all of its merchandise and adverts. The location of the swoosh generates maximum exposure, which ensures the brand is recognizable worldwide. Nike takes this approach in tandem with using sports stars to promote its products. Below are some of the famous athletes of Nike.



In 1988 Nike sales were at $800 million, by 1998 sales exceeded $9.2 billion. 'Just Do It' was short and sweet but stated everything people felt when they were exercising and people still feel that feeling today (Sharkey, 2015).


Sponsorship

Nike pays top athletes in many sports to use their products to promote and advertise their technology and design. Such as Lebron James, Tiger Woods, Rory MCilroy, Serena Wiliams, Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Neymar, Maria Sharapova, Cristiano Ronaldo and many more.


According to Weber (2016) Nike spends $2 billion a year on marketing, spending extravagantly on endorsements from superstar athletes. Nike spends minimally on TV ads as they would rather spend money on advertising at events, like the three minute viral video featuring Brazillian soccer star Ronaldhino which got 35 million hits online (see video below). Also the pre US open fashion show Maria Sharapova put on for reporters revelling her wardrobe for the tournament. Nike holds endorsement deals with the top players in almost every major sport.



Advertising

Nike advertising is one of the most effective emotional branding examples in the marketing world today. Their customer loyalty is off the charts, all thanks to the Nike brand strategy and masterful application of emotional branding (Hall, 2009).

The video below explains how Nike use emotional branding through the story of heroism.


From early on Nikes advertisements have been very successful. With many of their advertisements receiving awards such as 'The morning after ad' below which won an emmy award for the best commercial in 2000.







During the 2016 Rio Olympics opening ceremony Nike aired their brand 'unlimited' campaign which was stated to have went beyond the expected.  

The Nike Unlimited campaign also includes a series of ongoing short films highlighting both everyday and professional athletes who push their limits, as well as profiles on how its premier athletes use the brands latest innovations. See video below.




Nike used 'Short a guy' advertisement which promotes many of their products and equipment in a short video. (see below)




Along with their many successful television advertisements Nike use many strategies to advertise their products. For example their famous posters with 'inspiring' quotes and sayings which they adapted from early on and have continued to produce over the years. Below are some of Nikes famous posters.



         







Personal Selling
Personal selling is described as a sales promotion where a sales representative displays the product to the potential customers by directly visiting them (Surbhi, 2015).

For personal selling Nike really depend on all their employees and all so the persons they gave endorsement deals to. For all their retail stores Nike only wants dedicated and great personalities working for them as a salesperson. A salespersons with a bad attitude and a good one will be the outcome if they get a sell or not. That's the reason why Nike only wants the best for their stores. Another example of personal selling for Nike would be the deal they did with the NFL. Starting from the beginning of this NFL season and years to come, Nike will be the manufacturers of all the NFL uniforms.

Sales Promotion
Sales promotion uses schemes, offers and incentives to boost their sales (Surbhi, 2015).

Nike has a way to attract their customers and save them money. Nike have around 931 store worldwide, this is not enough stores to meet the demands of their consumers so they use franchise stores such as schuch, office, footlocker, JD sports and many other stores to sell their products (Presta, 2015).
Nike also have an online store where they sell their products and has many features such as customising your own footwear. The link below will take you to Nike official online store.
Nike has an enormous amount of sales promotion to advertise all their new products. The four main ways Nike uses sales promotion are currently through tv ads, social media, magazine ads, and they use the athletes who represents them (Estevez, 2012).

Direct Marketing

Nike uses direct marketing to promote new products to the target market. These new products are usually advertised heavily. However, to make a bigger impact, the firm uses salespeople to approach certain organizations or individuals in target market segments. For example, the firm approaches sports organizations in colleges to promote its products. Nike’s marketing communications mix uses direct marketing to establish stronger relations with target customers and motivate them to purchase the company’s products (Gregory, 2015).


Overall, I think that Nike promote their products extremely well. By using top athletes in many sports their products are seen by millions. Their advertising is excellent and personally I could sit and watch their video advertisements for hours. They know how to get a message across using their products. Nikes promotion techniques are outstanding. However, the only downfall I feel is they do not produce many television advertisements but this may only be the case for the UK and with or without them they have created a successful global brand.  
























































































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