Nike is having a total expansion in virtual world: How were NFT and Gaming able to enhance the digital marketing of Nike?
Nike, the most influential sneaker manufacturer in the market, has been seeking innovation since its very inception. Today, the company is increasingly focusing on digital marketing to strengthen its presence within the market.
According to statistics from Winmo.com, after investing a significant amount in broadcast advertising in 2021 and spending 73 million on media advertisements, Nike reduced its marketing budget to approximately 40 million in 2022. Clearly, the unusually high expenditure on broadcast seems to have been suspended due to internal reasons at Nike. However, readers can also observe a significant increase in proportional spending on digital media, with a boost of nearly 50% from 2021 to 2022.
People in their twenties in the 21st century are well aware that digital marketing has been growing at an astonishing pace in recent years. This growth has been particularly pronounced in 2023, with notable developments such as ChatGPT, Stable diffusion, and the announcement of Apple Vision Pro etc. signaling the definitive arrival of the digital era. Major corporations like Nike have undoubtedly recognized the immense profit potential concealed within this digital trend. I believe it is crucial to view this recognition as the primary driving force behind Nike’s decision to increase its budget by 60 million for digital media, whether it be for content creation or digital advertising purposes.
If you are an avid video gamer, Fortnite would undoubtedly be one of the most widely recognized online games today. In Fortnite, players have the freedom to customize nearly every aspect, including their avatars, weapons, and apparel. This extensive customization option has coincidentally led to a significant boom in in-game fashion. To this day, numerous fashion brands, including Ralph Lauren, Balenciaga, and Moncler, have conducted collaborations within the Fortnite game. Naturally, Nike has also joined in by launching a project called “Airphoria” within the game.
I personally hold a positive opinion about the Nike x Fortnite campaign. As a gamer myself, I am delighted to witness the integration of the real world into the virtual realm. This collaboration has the potential to attract more individuals to participate in the game, extending beyond the traditional video game community. Many people perceive indoor activities such as video games as disconnected from outdoor exercise, and these two communities often have limited interaction. However, “Airphoria” serves as a perfect bridge, highlighting the shared excitement between physical sports activities and electronic sports activities. It effectively brings together these two groups and encourages their interaction.
If Nike were to stop at that point, I would consider it a flawed or clichéd approach to digital marketing. Simply offering a computer code within the game, which provides no real distinction from other average in-game items, would be underwhelming.
However, I believe that “Airphoria” is just a small aspect of Nike’s broader digital marketing strategy in the metaverse. It is aimed at conveying the idea that virtual products can also be appreciated by sneaker enthusiasts. This suggests that Nike has a larger vision for engaging with its audience in the digital realm and creating meaningful experiences beyond simple in-game transactions.
Indeed, Fortnite has evolved beyond being a traditional online video game focused solely on delivering an exciting shooting game experience. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, it has also emerged as a gateway to the metaverse. Notably, events like Travis Scott’s virtual concert demonstrated to society at large that Fortnite is transforming into a cultural hub or platform capable of hosting large-scale real-world events. This demonstrated capability strongly supports the notion that the metaverse is not merely a fictional concept aimed at inflating stock market prices. Instead, it showcases the tangible potential and feasibility of the metaverse as a significant part of our future.
Therefore, when Nike decide to conduct collaboration within Fortnite with its brand, people watching all these happening could automatically connect this to Nike’s NFT strategies, and the fact is, Nike’s NFT items are among the most popular product on RTFKT, one of the NFT trading website: as you can see in the website, the product pops up in the main website is the RTFKT x Nike Dunk Genesis CRYPTOKICKS.
My individual opinion toward NFT marketing before was negative. I would rather not spend money on something that is intangible. Moreover, I believed that the metaverse was something made up by Facebook to gain the strongest influence in digital marketing content creation. However, as more technology companies provide various products to enhance the experience of AR and VR, such as the Apple Vision Pro, my perspective has changed. I now believe that large corporations’ digital strategies on the metaverse could become a lifestyle of the future, just like Nike’s strategy may change gamers’ perspective upon virtual product. I am now looking forward to witnessing the boom of the metaverse and Nike’s virtual products in the near future. Isn’t this the first step of changing today’s world? I am sure that is a successful digital marketing!
