What can startups learn from Nike’s campaign
It’s been a more than a week since Nike dropped the social bomb with the campaign to celebrate 30 years of the famous ‘Just Do It’ slogan featuring Colin Kaepernick.
The dispute over whether the move was right is still on, though let’s keep the politics aside for a time being. From a startup marketer point of view, the campaign is much more than a marketing move. I think it has something to teach us all.
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On Monday 3rd September, Colin Kaepernick tweeted his black and white photo featuring the Nike logo and ‘Just Do It’ slogan and the quote ‘Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.’
Nike has been supporting Kaepernick for years, though hasn’t been featuring him in any of the campaigns since 2017 when he left the NFL. Back in 2016 Kaepernick, the quarterback for 49ers, was the first athlete to kneel during the national anthem to draw attention to police killings and in protest against racial discrimination. He was soon joined by other athletes, shaping a movement that divided the society.
What did actually happen?
Fast forward to 2018, Nike is celebrating 30 years of the legendary ‘Just Do It’ slogan and makes Colin Kaepernick the face of the campaign. The campaign quickly escalated. Social media buzzing as the divisive issue brought back up again, resulting in some rushing to the store to buy new Nikes and other burning theirs.
Few days after the graphic bomb was dropped, Nike tops it up with an inspirational video in its iconic style. The video continues the storyline and inspires us all to ‘Dream Crazy’.
What's the fuzz about?
Nike chose to celebrate ‘Just Do It’ 30th anniversary in a controversial manner. Direct Nike’s consumers argue whether the move to bring Kaepernick was right. The issues that caused kneeling during the anthem are all brought back afresh. While some support the campaign and remain brand-loyal, other starts burning their Nikes demonstrating their position to the cause.
From the marketing perspective, the competition has long moved from product to brand. It’s really not about which snickers are of a better quality. And it’s all about the brand purpose and vision.
Today, talking about the campaign, we also talk about sports, politics, social movements and Nike. The opposite is also right. Bringing up the #blacklivesmatter movement will also mean talking about Nike.
Nike understood the risks of bringing Kaepernick back to the spotlight. But they have always been more into strategic long-term marketing, rather than short and quick one.
There is something startup-y about the campaign. Making an ex-celebrity athlete a centrepiece of the campaign (i would guess, inviting Kaepernick costs much less than any of the TOP athletes, I may be wrong though), hitting the painful spot with the messaging, sturring the conversation that not many can resist. There is nothing traditional corporate ‘playing safe’ about this campaign.
What can we learn from it?
Thinking about it from a startup perspective, there are 5 takeaways any startup can gain.
- Clear your vision
Every startup hears about vision every day. It’s pretty much how every mentor and sales conversation starts. Though let’s be honest, when you are 2 people in a garage building next big thing, you don’t necessarily know your strategic game. And it’s hard to keep your eyes on the vision when your inbox has a million urgent emails, the server is crashing and the key client hesitates whether they want to work with you.
In 30th ‘Just Do It’ campaign Nike shows us how important it is to have a clear communicable vision. Yes, it does make a difference as we can see.
Lesson: as often as possible, remind yourself about your vision and why you do what you do. Talk to your team, bring it when brainstorming or developing the product. Keeping vision in the centre makes a difference.
2. Know your game
After the advert was released, Nike’s favorability rating had dropped from 69% to 35% according to Morning Consult. Furthermore, according to the federalist, Americans have stated they are now 10% less likely to purchase Nike products.
With the share prices and brand rating drop, as well as competition acquiring the market share, the campaign really starts to look like a bad idea.
But. There is always a but.
Nike’s been trying to make millennials the core of their audience for quite a while. In 2019 millennials are also set to surpass the baby boomers for the first time. 44% of this group will be of colour in America. Even more, Generation Z (comes after Millennials) are 48% of colour, with more than 50% of children under 10 are being non-white.
From the phycological perspective, millennials tend to make a different choice from their parents. Like with social media, smartphones and career decisions, generation of 1981–1996 goes away from the baby boomers.
This changes the campaign estimation. In a short-term, Nike lost the audience. The audience that is mainly comprised of white baby boomers. In a long-term, this loss opens the door to acquiring the majority of the generation that is soon to become the one of the biggest purchase power.
Movements like #BlackLivesMatter are often born in and massively supported by the group described above. Furthermore, Nike’s announced focus on 12 cities (Los Angeles, New York, London, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Milan, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona and Mexico City), where we see the concentration of such ideas and demographics.
All of this makes Nike even more appealing to their target group. It’s a long shot, but indeed a smart one.
Even talking short-term, the campaign featuring Kaepernick is a hit. Nike received more than $43million worth of media exposure with the vast majority being neutral to positive in just 24h after revealing the campaign on Twitter (source: Bloomberg).
Lesson: Know your game. Sometimes, sacrificing short-term value may make sense. The game is not to win the battle, the game is to win the war.
3. Stand up for your beliefs
Corporates are often accused of playing too safe. But actually, I think that’s also applicable to startups. With a very limited client base, standing up for your beliefs may mean losing some of them. That also means a quick death.
That’s why every so often, we see startups trying to play nice. The idea is that if you relate to both sides, both sides may want to do business with you.
What we see in the Nike campaign, is that standing up for a cause can play in your favour in the long run.
Lesson: Take calculated risks and don’t be afraid to lose a piece if it can help acquire a cake.
4. Time it
The campaign rolled out before the scandal. Serena Williams was the first to be featured, and both sides fans loved it.
But the bomb started with one tweet. Followed by the media covering the story. Followed by a video.
The campaign was smartly executed in a way to keep the fire burning. In the real-time world, timing is crucial.
Lesson: Plan your campaign in a way to keep it at the top of the minds. Don’t let your audience forget about it. And yeah, they forget it quick, so act fast.
5. Choose your action figures
Nike’s never posted the Kaepernick visual. The first and only source of the campaign was Kaepernick’s channels and it was enough to start the chain.
They do have Serena Williams poster tweeted (as part of same ‘Just Do It’ campaign), but not Kaepernick’s.
Nike chose to keep Kaepernick as a marketing underdog and it did play well.
Lesson: Learn where your audience is and make it appealing. Not everything has to go from the company’s account in order to build the association. People talking about you is a bigger force.
I assume we’ll see the development of the story. Nike already announced that they gonna support Kaepernick law suite against NFL for allegedly colluding to keep him unemployed as punishment for protesting police brutality. So the story is deffinetly to be continued.
But also, i’m keen to see how it all gonna turn out for the company and the brand. Will it work in their favour in the long-run? I do think so, but only the future can show.
