Nike is an American
global corporation that is engaged in the design, creation, manufacture and
global marketing of selling footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and
services. Nike is among the largest athletic shoes and apparel supplier. It initially started as blue ribbon sports in
1964 and changed to Nike inc. in 1971.
It sponsors high profile sports persons and sports teams globally with
the highly recognized trademark of just do it.
Adidas is a German global
corporation that designs and manufactures sports clothing accessories and
shoes. The company also creates other products such as bags, eye wear, shirts
and other sports related goods. The company is leading in Europe and was
founded in 1948.
Adidas and Nike, being
the two principal foot wear companies, as compared to others, have to sustain
and maximize their market shares therefore they are both investing more in
marketing their products by employing diverse communication strategies
Nike:
Internet exploitation as a communication strategy
Nike has established a
strong presence on the internet. Nike applies a variety of network tools to
gain advantage as a leading seller in
the market,
To begin, the company’s
campaign on the internet and the media sometimes do not even mention the name and only using Nike’s slogan. This
attributed to prior campaigns that have had success and led to customer’s
relation of them to the company. Using these advantages, Nike has developed a
variety of ways of using social networks as a communication channel with their
customers while promoting their products.
Nike has many accounts on
twitter that focus on specific products and to develop significant demand for
them. Twitter is a clear example of Nike’s web strategy. Twitter is a better
communication tool as consumers can get updates on the latest news. Twitter
allows the company to advertise products to the public and provides information
regarding the company while building relationships with customers.
It helps the company to grow in popularity.
The company has also hired famous professionals who have twitter accounts too,
and this is used to gain considerable attention from the public. The athletes
post their photographs in Nike products. Doing this, they are able to develop a
marketing approach that is competitive.
Facebook is also another
valuable accessory to Nike’s communication strategy. The company uses its Facebook to inspire people and athletes who are its spokespersons also appear
on their Facebook page and act as reminders of that call for action. While
twitter builds relationships with clients, Facebook is market oriented and
provides product information and information about the company.
The company’s website is
another vital communication tool; the company has a range of web pages that
gives information and helps the customer to make purchases online with less
difficulty. In the websites, there are
videos that promote the company’s products. The videos are used to associate
the products with personal satisfaction. It thus created a competitive image as
well as achievement in an individual doing their best . The website gives
customer avenues with which to communicate with the company.
YouTube is used to
strengthen the company’s strategy tool. YouTube has revealed to be highly
valuable as it brings reliability and accuracy. More so, it has demonstrated to
be an outstanding avenue for promoting clips and publicity for the company. Here, the company created its channel as a
creative way to stay in touch with consumers with ease, this way; it provides
special consideration for every product while focusing on particular market
targets. The company’s clips show professionals excelling after the use of their
products.
The videos bear an emotional effect and hence,
the objective is to correlate specific feelings to their products in a manner
that often ends up boosting sales. The videos express motivation and individual
success and as such they manage to push customers into purchasing its products.
The company also uses special events to its advantage using them to highlight
its advertising approach and makes very emotional videos; for instance the
Olympic 2012 campaign and the world cup 2014 campaign recently.
Finally, in Nike’s
communication strategy is Flickr and blogging, Flickr allows the company to share photographs of its products while allowing users to air their opinion of
the products. This helps the customers to communicate problems with products
and what they need to do different. The company’s blog, on the other hand, is
exclusively an information sharing avenue. It promotes the company’s latest
products and shares information with the public regardless of if they are
prospective clients or not.
Nike’s success is
attributed to the company’s approach to communication and the fact that it has
established itself as one that gives inspiration to all sports enthusiasts. It
is a very social brand and has given new importance to communication through
the internet while gaining immense success that has resulted to the global
extension.
Adidas:
Campaigning as a communication strategy
Adidas is focused on developing
plans of communication that are not only creative and inspiring, but also
support the global positioning, create equity of brands and enhance the
achievement of goals. The central precept of Adidas’ plan for communication is
to tap into the emotion in sport and advantages of a sport filled way of life
in all channels of communication. The company regularly brings aspects of
global marketing that can easily be leveraged to develop brand messages that are
simple while still powerful. The company endeavors to guarantee that all its
brands stay in the lead in communication plans.
“Adidas is focused on developing creative and inspiring plans of
communication”
The company uses digital
marketing as the foundation of its communication activities. Bearing in mind
the fact that consumers are online most of the time, the company’s strategy
allows for its transition from campaign based communication, which has been
primary in its activities, to creation of rapport with the target audience.
Adidas is mostly reliant
on campaign based communication as a communication strategy where it focuses on
developing campaigns to raise awareness on its products. One such method is
sponsorship of events. The company has
sponsored a variety of sporting events such as the soccerex football festival.
Deals such as this one are aimed at promoting its products to sports lovers .
This draws to people’s emotions while investing in youth development through
sports.
The company also uses
professional sports men and women to conduct campaigns aimed at popularizing
their products. For instance, the
company sponsors sports team and with the success of every team and good
performance, the message of the products’ effectiveness is being put out there
and as such, prospective customers are encouraged to use the same products.
Another campaign tool is
outdoor advertisements. This includes creative billboard concepts that draw
customer’s attention while effectively communicating their product. Customers
are therefore able to see the products in their drives home or even from their
office windows. The billboard adverts
serve to inform the customer’s of the company’s presence and products using
well known individuals in the sports industry and relating success to their
products. This communicates the idea that association with the company brings
with it success, and that, therefore, is an attraction for sports oriented
customers. A particular shortcoming of this is that it does not allow the
client to ask questions or rather does not provide an avenue to ask questions
or even air their opinion.
The company also conducts
online campaign activities to correspond to their customers and to endorse
their products. Through the company website, clients can view pictures of the
products and give their views on the same and as such helping in the
development of relationships with clients. The company has a considerable
online presence, but it is meager in comparison to its largest competitor. It
has not been as aggressive as Nike in social media as a communication tool.
In 2014, the company
intended to invest further in the digital space. This is likely to bring better
online presence as compared to the current situation. By investing more in the
digital space, the company will enjoy a larger audience from their customers
and easier more efficient way of sharing information regarding their products.
These platforms will help the company be in constant communication with its
customer’s allowing them to share an opinion and giving insight on ways in
which the company can improve a particular product based on the criticism
received from the clients
In conclusion, it is
evident that Nike’s web based communication strategy has proven to be more
effective in ensuring brand success. The hands on approach and its dominance in
the online platform has only worked to its advantage. With the increased
popularity of social site, s and more people relying on these sites for
information, the social sites are the perfect tool for the company efficiently
to communicate to the customers while allowing them to gain insight from the
consumers and market their products in simple, efficient ways.
While Adidas has had
relative success from its methods, it has not fully incorporated the issue of
social media into its communication plan. This has slowed down its penetration
into the online platform of communication. As such, can be said that Nike’s
strategy is more practical and social media is a more feasible communication
plan since a large proportion of individuals have social media accounts
particularly the youth who are the main target group for both companies.
It is thus recommended
that companies do not limit themselves as pertains to what plan to use in their
bid to communicate information on their products and services. Every possible
channel should be used, and particular emphasis laid in the online platform as
a tool for the exploitation of the internet as a communication strategy. Bearing in mind the current trends where
social media is the go to place for information. It is only proper, for them to
tap the full potential of these sites.
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