Nike jumps on AI
Founded in 1962, Nike not only revolutionized footwear by making fashionable athletic shoes but as one of the early adopters of outsourcing. Nike being a mega-sports brand has always embraced technology and it’s a company known for innovation in marketing: they are now combining the two to deliver a personalized customer experience and improve their product offerings.
Nike in 2019 acquired Celect, a predictive analytics company that would help Nike to improve their strategy of selling directly to customers. According to Nike’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Sprunk, “It’s really difficult to work… predicting the retail shopping patterns and behavior… this [acquisition] gets us much more accelerated.”
Nike’s main app offers a wide range of sales support and houses its general loyalty program. Nike has also released workout & training apps, its SNKR app for shoe enthusiasts, and the Nike Fit measurement tool. Though the primary purpose of these apps is, of course, to optimize the customer experience, they also help Nike collect a treasure trove of customer data. An example of such an app is Nike Fit which uses a combination of computer vision, data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to cultivate a digital foot morphology based on 13 data points
Last year Nike launched a new system that allowed its customers to design their sneakers in stores and online. This acted as a great gimmick to drive sales and also to collect a huge amount of useful data that machine learning algorithms can use to design future products and deliver personalized recommendations and marketing messages.
Nike has grown steadily over the past 2 years due in large part to its successful transition from classic consumer goods business to a technology-driven DTC (direct-to-consumer) company.
