
Originally Posted by
yankee
And we think the water is crowded now ... ?
Just wait until Nike's campaign hits full stride.
Advertising
Nike Tries to Enter the Niche Sports It Has Missed
In an attempt to leave no sport unmarketed, Nike, the sports apparel manufacturer, will begin the next phase of its current “Just Do It” campaign with a focus on action sports like skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing.
“When we looked at action sports, we saw a unique consumer segment that was underserved in terms of product innovation,” Mark G. Parker, Nike’s chief executive and president, said at a shareholder meeting in May.
Action sports are a $390 million business for Nike, and executives hope that figure doubles over the next five years.
Big brands that want to enter the action sports market have to contend with the somewhat insular culture of certain sports and with the athletes’ loyalty to smaller, edgier brands. For the last few years, Nike has been on a steady mission to penetrate the market by creating sub-brands like Nike 6.0 and buying smaller brands like Hurley.
And they seem to be getting it right.
“They did their homework,” said Bernie Baker, the former Hawaii editor at Surfer Magazine and the contest director for the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, who cited Nike’s “relentless promotion of youth events” as one of the driving factors in the brand’s success.
The campaign features a contest in which athletes can submit videos showing themselves in action. The videos will run on the campaign’s Facebook page, and visitors to the page will be able to vote on which video they like best.
Winners of the contest will be chosen at the U.S. Open of Surfing, which is held in Huntington Beach, Calif., and completely owned and sponsored by Nike.
The company has been ramping up its action sports products and branding over the last few years, most visibly with surfing and skating. In 2002, Nike acquired the Hurley brand of skateboard- and surf-oriented apparel to compete directly with brands like Quiksilver, O’Neill and Billabong. A year later, it acquired Converse, the canvas sneakers popular with skateboarders.
Since 2009 it has sponsored the U.S. Open of Surfing, a weeklong surfing competition. This year, Nike produced a short film featuring a cast of female surfers like Malia Manuel and Monyca Byrne-Wickey called “Leave a Message.”
The new campaign will hit an international audience as well. Broadcast spots will be shown in countries like France, Italy and Germany, and Nike will use a Chinese social media site, Renren Tudou, in addition to Facebook to show the commercial.
Emerging markets like China, India and Brazil are estimated to represent 19 percent of overall sales for Nike, according to research by Edward Jones, and 60 percent of sales come from international markets. Matt Arnold, an analyst who covers Nike for Edward Jones, said, “To have a pair of Nikes elsewhere is a very big deal.”