Marketing Examples Nike & Social Community Marketing

This New age Marketing example is from USA and demonstrate how Nike has increased its sales by tapping into social community marketing initiatives and how it is transforming itself from traditional marketing to new age marketing techniques and channels like Youtube instead of mass TV advertising and how the shift is towards creating a brand experience. This story is also an example of how to engage the users and use experiential marketing techniques . In this extensive report New YorkTimes tells the story of Nike+ where users can connect and compete with each other. In conjunction with Apple’s iPod, runners can time their laps, download their progress, and keep track of how their friends are doing–all without forceful participation by Nike.

Since April, Mr. Saenz, 53, has been running with a Nike+, a small sensor in his running shoes that tracks his progress on an Apple iPod he carries. After each run near his home in Louisville, Ky., he docks the iPod into his computer and posts details of his run on the Nike+ Web site. There, he has made friends with other runners around the world who post running routes, meet up in the real world and encourage one another on the site.

Nike’s famous swoosh is there all along. For Nike, this is advertising.

Instead of simply putting out more and more TV and print ads Nike is instead shifting its marketing budget to non-traditional channels.

Last year, Nike spent just 33 percent of its $678 million United States advertising budget on ads with television networks and other traditional media companies. That’s down from 55 percent 10 years ago

Behind the shift is a fundamental change in Nike’s view of the role of advertising. No longer are ads primarily meant to grab a person’s attention while they’re trying to do something else — like reading an article. Nike executives say that much of the company’s future advertising spending will take the form of services for consumers, like workout advice, online communities and local sports competitions.

“We want to find a way to enhance the experience and services, rather than looking for a way to interrupt people from getting to where they want to go,” said Stefan Olander, global director for brand connections at Nike. “How can we provide a service that the consumer goes, ‘Wow, you really made this easier for me’?”

It also tells how now Nike uses only internet for some of its advertising with some of its ads only appearing on Youtube thus changing the traditional rules of advertising and marketing here is an excerpt

Today, however, many Nike ads are shown only on the Internet. Wayne Rooney, the British soccer player, is currently featured in a series of online videos for Nike. In 2005, Nike placed a 2-minute, 46-second clip of the Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho online, instead of on TV. The video has had more than 17 million views on YouTube and became so well known that some television networks like Sky Sports and the BBC showed it in their news coverage — free.

Nike is keen on serving up a brand experience rather and is not forcing up its products to consumer

Nike even calls the third floor of its New York store the “Nike Running Club.” There, runners can map out running routes, receive training advice and attend an evening speaker series — all free, even if they trot in wearing Adidas or Brooks sneakers.

Aanyone who saw them jogging would surely notice the Nike swoosh on most of their shirts. The group, though sweaty and of varied athletic abilities, flashed by — turning heads of passers-by and other runners.

A human billboard for Nike.

Thanks to Marketing Pilgrim for providing the link