Last year Nike spent a whopping $2.4 billion last year on Marketing! They take big data, social media and digital marketing very seriously, tracking and tracing ROI is becoming more prevalent within Nike and other big brands as the move these days is to track everything, focusing on what is working.
They setup an entire new department to focus on this called Digital Sport back in 2010, with a view to focus on sensors and integrating them into their marketing mix to bring a much better understanding of their sports users, assisting them to track their sport activities. The Nike+ running sensor is the best known product and was designed with Apple. Now 5 million runners log on to check out their workout statistics. There is also another product a wristband that tracks energy output called a the Fuel Band.
Some people understand the implications of giving away their data and realise clever marketers will utilise that to sell them products and services just as they need them or begin looking for them. This for most people will become an awful intrusion of their privacy over the next few years we will see lots of programs and apps launched to stop the flow of personal data.
What Nike are doing is very clever they are taking age old marketing techniques and becoming the trusted adviser to their customers or sports clients as they should be called.
They are building communities and strengthening relationships to such a point that people will not only buy one pair of shoes and a wearable device but if managed correctly, if the marketing is not too aggressive, they will create that feel good factor that a brand is looking to give their customers for life!
Enabling their revenues to grow even further and it will lower their marketing costs dramatically. We all know that it’s considerably more expensive to obtain a new customer through marketing, rather than nurture our existing clients!
MarketingWeek reports that Nike has moved its social media management in house, like a lot of larger businesses they have realised that to effectively communicate and build customer advocacy they can do it much better than an external agency that isn’t on the front line.
However a symbiotic Brand-Agency relationship can still be successful, but it can only exist if there is a knowledge base or tool base that the agency can provide in a more cost effective manner or in a better way than the brand. Ie. providing data analysis from fp markets or certain tech products that the brand doesn’t have. Or bringing expertise on board from people who are at the cutting edge of new developments and technologies within the marketing industry.
The reason a good agency / brand relationship still needs to exist is that tools are being built every day and new platforms and products are being launched which will potentially disrupt the brands themselves; hence why its crucial for them to be connected to expertise that can not only monitor those disruptions but can assist them to be the disruption themselves with their creative ideas and technological solutions.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that over the next few years Nike and others will take on sports niches one by one providing devices that integrate into the daily lives of the people and their sport activities, without hindering sports performance. Hold on to your hats people the ride into IoT is going to be lots of fun!
Founder Dinis Guarda
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