Nike’s Brand Equity
Nike’s Brand Equity
As we all know, Nike is the most successful sportwear company in the world. It is undeniable that Nike’s brand equity has a great impact on itself. So, how Nike build and maintain its brand equity? How Nike turn sportswear into something greater than the whole of its parts? How it compares to its competitors? We will discuss in the following passage.
In 1980s, the founder of Nike — Phil Knight put forward a new concept of operation mode, it is called “Asset-light”. So, what is “Asset-light”? The “Asset-light” refers to the product manufacturing and retail distribution business outsourcing, and thus focus on capital power into the product and its concept design and marketing business, the use of celebrity endorsements and creative advertising, reduce the company’s capital injection, especially the production line of a large number of fixed assets investment, resulting in high return on capital model. The mode has become a standard mode for the sports company, which makes Nike focus on building its core value, such as the technology development, product design, advertising creative and so on.
In 1979, Nike show its new technology called “Air”, this kind of technology helped Nike produce lighter running shoes and then in 1982, the “Air Force 1” became the first pair of basketball shoes. Besides, in 1987, Nike show another excellent technology called “Air max”. After then, Nike went on inventing new product named “shox shock and support system” in 2000. The invention of these advanced technologies of sportwear must thanks to the “Asset-light”. And these creative technology help Nike produce high quality products, which contributes to his brand equity building and people has recognized this brand because of these excellent products. However, it is more significant and meaningful for Nike to possess a lot of loyalty fans.
Besides, Nike pay attention to the advertising creative. Nike’s ads are famous for its creative thoughts and popular sports stars. For example, Nike signed a contract with CR7(Cristiano Ronaldo), the most successful football player in the world now. CR7 has a lot of fans and not just the football fans. Nike makes full use of CR7’s great influence, so he always shows in many of Nike’s ads. By cooperating with CR7, Nike attracts increasing number of people to follow it. When fans buy the football shoes, they do not only buy a pair of shoes, they buy the emotion, passion and culture. We can imagine that when we see a person wear CR7 shoes in the playground, it is easy for us to recognize that he is a fan of CR7. So, Nike turn sportswear into the greater something than its whole parts. Another example is 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. At the beginning, Nike did not acquire the opportunity of sponsoring this Olympic Games. However, Nike has signed the contract with Liu Xiang (a famous running star in China) and many other sports teams. So, though Adidas sponsored the Games, it can only provide clothes for China and volunteers, Nike depend on many stars to obtain more profits. The more meaningful thing is that its brand awareness and brand association has been enhanced, so it is significant for its brand equity building and brand equity maintenance.
There are many other things about the competition with its competitors. As the development of society, more and more women start doing sports. This change attracted the attention of Nike, it began putting some attention to the market of women. It is worth to talk about that Nike’s slogan “Just do it”, this is the most classic slogan in the world. Almost everyone knows it and the slogan came from this change. It is obvious that this slogan helps Nike a lot. Its brand equity has been maintained stronger.
So, let’s make a quick summary. Firstly, Nike adopt the “Asset light” mode, so it can focus on the core value. Then, Nike invents advanced technology and put more time and finance in the ads creative. All these things help Nike build and maintain its brand equity including brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand association and perceived quality.
That’s all I want to discuss about Nike equity.
