Just Do IT-Nike

INTRODUCTION

The Just do it campaign for Nike was responsible for seeing the company become the second most recognized brand globally. While the physical fitness craze of the 80’s provided the perfect timing for Nike, the marketer aimed at acquiring a share in the popularity of fitness and also making people believe that they could also excel in other areas of life other than sports. This can be attributed to a number of strategies that are discussed in this paper

Positioning

The first thing that Nike ensured during the production and the implementation of the “just do it ” concept was to ensure that they were sure about the idea and the image that they wanted the campaign to convey about Nike. The idea that Nike was not just a brand about shoes and clothes, but a brand about sport took the recognition of the brand completely away from the league of rubber and soles to the world of sport. The idea also helped focus the energies of the Nike advertisement campaigns to the function of sport and helped it in making the choice of the brand ambassadors a lot easier (LePla and Parker, 2002). According to T-C-B positioning model, the target audiences as shown in the YouTube ad cuts across sportsmen and women. However, in one of his more famous quotes, Bowerman said, “If you have a body, you can be an athlete”. Thus, the product was targeted to serve the entire market and not only people active in sports but all those who dared to achieve in life. This entailed the use sports and non-sports enthusiasts by using their heroes as brand ambassadors. Furthermore, to prevent people from feeling left out by not getting the chance to try it /experience it while their heroes and celebrities were doing it. Basically, the idea was to create a movement, and to ensure that Nike was identifiable with this movement.

C- The Nike brand is presented as a utility one with the shoes and other sports apparel being applicable in everyday life. As a matter of making the Nike shoes an all round shoe, the campaign also targeted non-sports celebrities such as movies actors and singers by creating the hip fashion trend among them and make Nike part of it .

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B – The Nike Brand offered comfort to the wearer and the courage, motivation, and inspiration to achieve. The campaign concentrated on empowering people to do things by “commanding” them to “just do it” and providing comfortable quality shoes to them.

Under normal marketing conditions, IMC strategies give weight to enlightening the market on the quality and value in certain products and services. For instance, British American Tobacco, used the “smooth all the way” slogan on their embassy brand. This phrase promises nothing more other than the feeling of smoking that cigarette. Another example is the Mercedes Benz slogan adopted in 1990, “Mercedes-Benz, The future of the Automobile”. These slogans have no connection with the ordinary non-consumer of cigarettes and automobile. However, the “Just Do It” slogan alone has no relation to sports or even a product and it’s even more of a command. The slogan is more oriented to a dilemma situation or even a point of indecision regarding a particular person where an outsider or the inner voice of that person urges him/her on. Therefore, Nike sought to bond with the people in the market by making them give a second look to something they were not sure about or those who had doubt about their potential

Creative strategy

The Nike shoes do not claim anything extra ordinary in quality of the shoes directly but rather the difference is best understood through experience. The advert on YouTube displays various scenarios of courage and determination by persons sporting the Nike brand. The brand is presented as a part of a success story through which the target market is encouraged to be part of. The ‘just do it’ slogan is nothing near to highlighting the quality of shoes that the marketer was selling. The slogan made it the work of the people to think of something that they wanted to do and just do it as empowered by the Nike brand, which is the key benefit claim for this campaign.

Brand awareness tactics used in the campaign

Nike has made use of intensive and extensive marketing to increase brand awareness in the market.

The Nike swoosh was simple and easy to remember. In fact the company did away with the word Nike and just used the “swoosh”. Its simplicity and curiosity by the people increased its popularity.

The Nike slogan ‘just do it’ was presented in the market not as a slogan to for a particular brand but a way of doing things. This way of doing things was associated with success through supporting adverts and brand ambassadors.

Nike launched vigorous advertisements through the media and products placement and sponsorship of sporting events.

In addition, the company used popular celebrities as their brand representatives who enhanced brand recall and popularity. By using celebrities recognized for their success, Nike was also regarded a contributor to the success of the people’s heroes and thus they sought to emulate them.

The final thing that one has to note about these ads is the technique employed and the nature of the aesthetics. The creative are perfect because none of the sport stars have ever been shown doing anything but the thing that they are good at. The grit and determination that it takes to be the stars that they do has always been an underlying theme in the campaigns. The advertisements are shot in a manner that recognizes the viewer and his or her personal sensibilities and aspirations rather than his material needs. The viewer is spoken to as an intelligent peer, respectfully helping in building a parity. The idea therefore has always been to give the wearer the personality of the brand. Nike therefore became an aspiration rather than just footwear.

In Conclusion, one could identify the factor that has held the brand together for as long as it has creating one of the most known brands in the world. The messaging, the campaigns, the methods have been original and authentic. The basic underlying themes in the advertisements come across clearly- there is an intense marketing plan that goes behind every ad, this ranges from searching for and finalizing the faces that would endorse the ad, or the nature of the ad itself- the biggest thing to note is the fact that there is a sense of truth about these promotional ads. There is a belief and a well founded belief within the consumer that while the Marlboro Man might not touch a cigarette in reality there could be no doubts about the fact that a Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods do in fact stick to the brand that they are endorsing