We all think we know Nike’s marketing strategy. “Just do it” comes to mind pretty quickly, as do Air Jordan sneakers, famous athlete endorsements, and the swoosh logo. But is that really all there is to what Nike is doing?
The Nike marketing strategy that most of us recognize isn’t the one that made them made famous, at least not in the early days. Discovering the Nike marketing strategy that put them on the map is where the gold is. And, just like any true content marketing, it isn’t much of a “strategy” at all. Like many similar success stories, it was as simple as providing real customer value.
The First Nike Marketing Strategy
Bill Bowerman was a track and field coach, as well as one of the co-founders of Nike. In the mid 1970’s he began experimenting with his wife’s waffle maker to design a better tread for running shoes. As the story goes, he ruined the waffle maker but invented a brand new type of shoe. He later used that design to create the first Nike shoe commonly referred to as the “Nike Moon shoe.” It was the first step of many that put Nike on the map, but there is more to the story than just a great tread-wear design and a waffle maker. Nike’s marketing strategy was also pretty incredible, if not accidental.
Bowerman, you see, is also credited as the man who brought about the jogging craze that swept America in the late 1960’s and 70’s. While you would think that jogging wasn’t something that needed to be invented, it wasn’t all that popular as an exercise or activity at that time. Bill’s work and research truly brought jogging out of obscurity and to the forefront of the minds of the public.
After observing a jogging club in New Zealand, Bill began to understand the value of jogging as a traditional fitness routine. Bill immediately began writing articles and books about jogging and how it could be used as part of a fitness program. His first three-page pamphlet was called the Jogger’s Manual, and was later expanded into a 90 page book titled Jogging that he wrote along with an experienced cardiologist.
Along with Bill’s other involvements with professional athletes, his work helped inspire the 1970’s running boom that Nike clearly benefitted from. Marketing strategy? Coincidence? Maybe both.
It would be really great to point to Bowerman’s story as a case-in-point example of content marketing at its finest, but it is difficult to do. The book was technically released before the first pair shoes, and even before he invented the waffle tread. So, if it wasn’t true content marketing, what was it?
Nike’s Marketing Strategy Put Customer Interests First
Customers like great products, and they like serious benefits.
For them, things that benefit them personally are easy to justify. The Nike Moon shoes did this, but only because the customer was beginning to understand jogging and its benefits on their health. Bill’s secret goal wasn’t to sell shoes, he was simply promoting something that he believed in. This may not sound like marketing, but it certainly should.
Nike’s Strategy Was Based On A Felt Need
As first, the felt need wasn’t for better running shoes, but rather jogging itself.
Certainly, running, was already popular among kids and athletes in the 1970’s, but it wasn’t the social activity that we see it as today. The growing white-collar workforce helped pave the way for social activities that included the promotion of cardiovascular health. Once the trend was ingrained, the need shifted and the “jogging shoes” themselves became the felt need.
Nike Believed In the Product They Were Selling
It’s unlikely that Bowerman’s original goal was to become a millionaire as he penned the pages of his first jogging pamphlet.
That wasn’t why he did what he did. His only goal was to promote a sport and an idea that he believed it. As marketers, shouldn’t we believe in the product and the ideas that we are selling? For Bowerman, it sure made marketing a lot easier. He was “marketing” without even realizing what he was up to.
Products That Have Easily Identifiable Benefits Sell Themselves
Will jogging is pretty easy to understand, the waffle tread isn’t. At least it isn’t until you understand why Bill made it in the first place. His goal was to make the world’s most light-weight running shoe. He believed that this factor along could dramatically improve the speed of a distance runner. His product worked, and quickly gained the industry respect that it deserved.
The Benefits Of Not Selling
Here’s the cool thing: Bill didn’t sell shoes; he didn’t need to. Instead, he sold jogging and all of the benefits that came with it. This should make us pause as marketers. Instead of selling our products we should be selling the benefits that products like ours promote. Running shoes matter to people who jog, so selling them on jogging is always a good first step.
The same goes for us here at CoSchedule. We are a content marketing and planning tool. The more people that use content to market their business, the more copies of our software we sell. We also gain the added benefit of understanding why our customers buy what we are selling in the first place.
Even in the world of content marketing, there is a lot of selling. This is fine, but it misses the real point that Bowerman so aptly understood–spread ideas, not products.
Good Content Marketing Doesn’t Sell, It Spreads
Content marketing is growing, and that usually brings fuzzy definitions that blur the lines between what something actually is and what it is becoming. Content marketing is often pegged as a process rather than a technique, but content marketing doesn’t depend on a specific set of tools or a common workflow. It is about providing value and building trust with customers.
Bowerman’s book built trust and provided immense value–a trait that naturally carried over to his products. He didn’t really intend the book to be content marketing, but because, with content, the lines between value and marketing are so blurry, marketing is exactly what he did.
Strategy is great. Using keywords is smart. Blogging is the future. But providing customers value, no matter the medium, will never go out of style
Posted By: Nick Capparelli
Tuesday, May 12th 2015 at 8:29PM
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