October 9, 2013
How The Nike Social Media Campaign Is Killing It
What brands do think of when you think of awesome social media marketing? Many people think of Google, Instagram or Pinterest. Make space on your list for Nike. When it comes to the Nike social media campaign trail they are killing it.
What Does The Nike Social Media Campaign Do Differently?
The people who told you “Just Do It!” are going the extra mile to make sure that you do and they are using social media to make it happen. They want you to find greatness in your individual exercise no matter what it is.
Digging Deep Into Nike
It’s important to understand Nike as a brand. They are an athletic apparel company. They make clothing, sports equipment and shoes for people of all sizes and ages to exercise. Their end goal is to make sure you buy their clothes rather than clothes from Under Armour or Adidas.
Nike moved away from traditional advertising and focus on digital marketing. They invested in social media like Twitter and Facebook. Then they created their own social network, Nike+. Using these social media channels they introduced services under Nike+. These allow activity tracking all day either generally or with activity specific apps. Their goal here is increasing brand loyalty. Nike realized that the purchase of a Nike product isn’t the end of the marketing cycle. It’s the beginning. One purchase leads to more when they offer a wide variety of products and services tailored to individuals needs.
To that end Nike has introduced Nike+. Nike+ is currently in its infancy as a brand and service but has already captured a lot of attention. The central piece to Nike + is something called Nike Fuel. Nike Fuel is a fabricated unit of measure that shows people how active they are during the day. Even as of this writing, we can find no corresponding unit of measure. It’s Nike’s own unit measured so you can compare it with your past activity. You can also compare yourself to other’s activity if they are on the Nike+ network. To measure the metric Nike has introduced apps and gadgets to quantify fuel. This data is shared via Facebook and Twitter and recorded on the Nike+ website.
Gadgets And Gizmos
Introduced in early 2012, the Nike Fuel Band will appear at the London Olympics. Like a Livestrong band in size and shape, the band measures activity. The main metric is steps taken. The fuel band syncs with Nike+ via Bluetooth on an iPhone or Android App or USB plug-in. The benefit of using a Fuel Band knowing whether you hit your goal. If you don’t hit your goal, nothing happens. If you hit your goal you start earning achievements. These are badges and videos encouraging you to keep going. Every day feels like a video game where you earn a virtual badge for getting a high score. The difference being that you are actually moving your body rather than your thumbs. It gives you feedback on how bad sitting at a desk can be because of the lack of movement. Even going out for a quick walk can help put Fuel in the bank.
There’s An App For That
Another Nike+ application goes back to the roots of Nike: the running app. We asked our Director of Design, Marissa Treece, to demo it. Marissa was a Division I track athlete in college. The app shows the total mileage and how you stack up against your other runs. Once synched, you can see a map of your runs, your speed, and runs logged in a specific time frame. There are many touches within the app that tell you Nike listened to feedback from athletes:
- A countdown before starting allows runners to get their smart phones secured.
- After a run a Nike athlete like Tim Tebow or Raphael Nadal, gives an “atta boy”. These are different for finishing a work out or setting a personal best.
- Everything syncs to Nike+ on the web. You can track how many miles you’ve run, your best times and how you are doing against your friends.
- Nike plans on introducing personalized training plans to further enhance their services.
The last item in the Nike+ universe is Nike+ Basketball. Nike+ Basketball shows how Nike is tailoring each application for the individual sport. Instead of miles run, you can see stats like quickness and vertical leap. The app uses Nike Fuel, which is the common element across the apps. The shoes have a removable pod that you can sync and recharge similar to the Fuel Band.
What’s The Future Hold?
Nike is at the cusp of rolling out Nike + products. We expect most Nike brands to be using some kind of fuel gizmo with a tailor made app that measures statistics. A Nike+ golf app may measure swing speed, keep score and measure yardage while you play. A device in the glove is a good prediction. Nike + Football could measure hits via a helmet or shoulder pad sensor. This doesn’t solely provide “trash talk data” but also tell a doctor how bad the hit was. A Nike + soccer app could measure quickness and the force of a kick. Nike + cycling could measure miles and revolutions. The possibilities are pretty much endless. The brilliance of all the apps is Nike provides the service for free and only advertises Nike products. Some equipment may cost extra at first. As technology keep getting cheaper, it will most likely be part of every shoe Nike sells.
What Nike is doing is really the way brands will have to market themselves to consumers in the 21st century. They are creating not only products but services to keep people engaged. They use social media to raise awareness, answer questions, share videos, and allow sharing of results. They keep those results under lock and key in the Nike + website. The results allow Nike to offer the consumer more gear tailored to that user. It’s brilliant and it’s one of the best uses of social media we have seen to connect a brand to a consumer.