Nike Brand Company was officially established in 1972, co-founded by Bill Bowerman and alumnus Philip Knight***. It is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, USA. It is a world-famous sporting goods manufacturer. business. For this reason, I would like to share with you the brand management philosophy of Nike. Welcome to read it.
The business philosophy of Nike brand company
(1) Personalizing the company culture
Sports, performance, and free and easy sportsmanship are what Nike pursues Personalized company culture. This distinctive corporate culture, which defies traditional corporate image, was created by company founder Philip Knight.
Nike Brand Company was founded as Le Cordon Bleu Sporting Goods, modeled after a paper Knight wrote while attending Stanford Graduate School of Business. Knight randomly collected the thoughts of some track and field athletes and sports fans and wrote them in the article. They had the same goal in mind: to defeat Adidas and let more and more athletes wear high-quality, low-quality products produced in Japan. Price running shoes? Tigers.
As the founder of the company, Knight integrates never-ending personal struggle and business ethics into the entire operation of the company. After Knight was selected for the Oregon State University track and field team and became a professional middle-distance runner, his passion for sporting goods was worn away. Later, he worked as an accountant at a price waterhouse in Poland for 5 years, and it was at that time that his business awareness was developed. Oregon's legendary track and field coach Bill Ball always made custom-made running shoes for his star athletes. He told Knight that a track and field team is composed of individual players, and each person must never stop working hard to improve his or her performance. The creed of track athletes is: "There is no end point." The inspiration given by price waterhouse is that there are the most basic principles of business behavior. The history of Nike is a process of continuous dialogue between the above two creeds, and a process of harmonizing athletes' personal fighting spirit with commercial constraints. Knight and Bowerman co-founded Le Cordon Bleu, which was renamed Nike in 1972. Since then, it has begun designing shoes with the company's trademark and producing them in Asia.
Never-ending is Nike’s corporate culture. At that time, Adidas, Puma and Tiger dominated the U.S. sneaker market. In the early 1970s, jogging craze gradually emerged, and millions of people began to wear sports shoes, because sports shoes are not only comfortable to wear, but also a symbol of health and youth? This is the image that most people aspire to. Sports shoes are about to become popular, but The "Iron Triangle" headed by Adidas did not grasp this development trend, but "Nike" entered quickly. In 1974, Coach Bowerman fiddled with a urethane rubber in a waffle iron mold to make a new type of shoe sole. This kind of sole is "Wal Biscuit" style, and there are small rubber round nails on the sole, making it more elastic than other popular soles on the market. This seemingly simple product innovation has promoted Knight's business. Quickly opening up the market, Nike's sales window in 1976 soared from US$8.3 million the previous year to US$14 million. Nike grew like wildfire, and the company spent heavily to develop new styles of running shoes. By the late 1970s, Nike Brand Company had nearly 100 researchers, many of whom had backgrounds in biology, chemistry, experimental biology, engineering technology, and industry. Degrees in design, chemistry and various related leadership. This strong research force has developed more than 140 different styles of products, many of which are the most novel and technologically advanced in the market. These styles are designed for different foot types, weights, running speeds, training programs, gender and different skill levels. These products of different styles, different prices and multiple uses have attracted thousands of runners and made them feel that Nike is the manufacturer that provides the most complete range of running shoes. Millions of people of all kinds and abilities Runners have this mindset, and it's a very attractive image in a growing industry.
Relying on the never-ending corporate philosophy, by 1979, through planning the launch of new products and strong promotion, the market share reached 33%, and finally squeezed into the original Adidas, Puma and Tiger. Build an "Iron Triangle" and become a sales star.
By 1981, its market share even reached 50%, far ahead of Adidas, and Knight himself entered the coveted list of the 400 richest people in the United States by Forbes magazine. Nike is a pioneering company with an adventurous spirit. It has cultivated a well-designed culture in the verdant Oregon city where the company is located. A senior Nike manager once recalled: "It was like being in an environment full of brotherhood." work. The colleagues drank together, talked endlessly about sports, and regarded themselves as active and iconoclastic figures. ?Every six months, Knight's management team meets to discuss strategy. This noisy party is known for its tit-for-tat confrontation. Knight always encouraged and even encouraged confrontation, and he, like everyone else, accepted loud accusations from others. The location of the Nike enterprise, like the campus, has forests, jogging trails, lakes, and football fields. Knight hopes to create a peaceful work environment. He believes that the world is chaotic enough and that work time should be as free as home.
Nike's distinctive corporate culture attracts a large number of young people. 40% of Nike employees are under 30 years old. Their day's work is arranged like this; at noon, they exercise two hours in the sports and leisure center on the campus. hours, and then work until night. They are very loyal to the company. The management of Nike Brand Company is not strict, but the strong belief that must break Adidas unites the whole team together. The company's marketers said: "We can instinctively judge what Nike Brand Company does and what Nike Brand Company does not do." Because Adidas is orthodox, Nike can place great emphasis on endorsing athletes who hate orthodoxy, such as Steve Prefontaine, the James Dean of track and field, and the Amateur Athletic Association; ?'s Ile Nastase is a creepy figure in the tennis world. After these anti-traditional athletes were funded by Nike, they gave the Nike brand company an image of challenging orthodoxy and enterprising energy. Knight was as passionate about the company he founded as he was about his own children. He was very involved in the company's affairs every day, going in and out of the office whenever he thought it was necessary. Knight spent most of his time in the cabin next to his office. Dirty laundry lay on the floor of the cabin next to piles of stuff and papers, and almost no one else came into his house. Knight complained: "Once you let people into your house, they'll be in and out all day long." , and what I need is to think about the problem. ?
With its own entrepreneurial spirit, Nike could eventually defeat Adidas in the U.S. market, but when Reebok emerged as a major competitor in the early 1980s, the Nike brand focused on producing men's sportswear. The culture seems a bit short-sighted. Nike failed to foresee the importance of soft-leather areobic shoes, which are favored by women. In 1986, Reebok surpassed Nike Brand Company and became the industry leader. Inspired by this, Knight developed administrative rules to support the central task of maintaining trademark integrity. In 1981, he embarked on a new transformation within the company. He divided a large footwear department into several smaller departments, each of which was responsible for a kind of sports shoes, thus speeding up the product development process. He established a set of production, sales, and advertising links to The system constitutes the company as a whole. As a result, the company worked together to develop various shoe styles and used advertising as a means to create a strong and sensational image of Nike shoes.
(2) The driving force for marketing strategy innovation comes from the innovation of cultural concepts
It is the company's strategic goal to create a perfect and dynamic image of the company and products. Knight believes that teenagers have a strong ability to imitate and are extremely sensitive to brands. The clothes of celebrities on campus often become the object of imitation. Therefore, as long as the most attractive athletes can wear Nike, they will surely attract millions of people across the country. Imitation of many people. The greatest world-class star and popular man Jordan brilliantly grasped the unique ethos of the Nike brand, that is, a perfect and dynamic work style. By sponsoring this "first flying man", Nike has also become an idol for millions of people who love sports. Now that Nike has become a large company with sales of 4 billion US dollars, its anti-traditional image is under threat. One business critic scolded: Knight found that the Nike brand company is rapidly becoming a combination of American business and sports. A lightning rod for the ordinary ambivalence that arises.
?Knight himself believes:?When your family business gets bigger and bigger, you must pay attention to cooling down the business, but never put out the fire. ?In the United States, although one of every three pairs of travel shoes sold is marked with Nike Brand's trademark Swooshk, analysis shows that as of May 31, 1994, Nike Brand's total financial revenue for the year will decrease by 6%. dropped to $3.7 billion. The largest basketball shoe sales market has also declined sharply. Nike Brand Company's most important markets with development potential are Europe and Japan, but the economies of these two countries are not very prosperous.
At the heart of the problem is that the same consumers who have driven the Nike brand over the past few years—teenagers and their early 20s—have given up on travel shoes, tired of the deluge of athlete-involved shoes. Class advertising. They're looking for something new, a little less commercial? Something like wrinkled leather shoes. All this affected Nike's stock. The stock price reached its peak in November 1990 and fell by 40% by 1992. Knight's 35% stock, which used to be worth $2.3 billion, is now worth only $1.3 billion. Many analysts believe that the Nike brand has reached its lowest point. They estimate that in 1995, Nike's profits will rise to 12%, or approximately US$316 million. Although still lagging behind fiscal 1992 profits, the three-quarter results released on March 15 gave Wall Street a sign of the good news they had been looking for. Orders have improved a bit over the summer months, and new styles, including a new line of basketball shoes, will be popular with retailers, but the 56-year-old Nike Brand chairman remains concerned, knowing he will have to It is no longer possible for the saturated American market to achieve the kind of growth he once created. He spent a lot of time thinking about two things; how to achieve the above goals without losing the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit that is crucial to the company's success. Knight is enigmatic and withdrawn.
To achieve the company’s goals, the reform of corporate culture is imperative. Knight has not been involved in the day-to-day affairs of Nike Brands for several months. In order to cope with the company's current unmanageable situation, Knight once again participated in the company's decision-making. That's exactly what happened, Nike Brands said to division chief Chris Van Dyke: Knight is back. ?In mid-February, the chairman convened a meeting with 31 senior management managers at the Oregon beach villa, 8 of whom were managers of overseas branches. At the meeting, he announced that in June, the 42-year-old Clark will succeed Chad Donahue, the 66-year-old president of Nike Brand Company. This new appointment was widely supported by the company. It fully affirmed Clark's ability to draw on the strengths of others by strengthening communication ties, and at the same time, it also set up a big stage for the "laggard" of Nike brand company to fully display. But this new strategy requires full cooperation from all parts of Nike Brands. At a middle-level management meeting, President Keweike explained the importance of "cooperative management" to 60 managers. Although Knight usually did not like meetings, he also attended the meeting in the back row. Clark said Nike Brands hasn't done enough to make communication channels clearer and speed up decision-making. "Cooperation is in our DNA," he concluded, "but gone are the days when a few people gathered in a hall and made decisions." Knight listened patiently until Clark invited his unexpected guest to the front desk. Dressed in a double-breasted suit and a pair of shabby loafers, Knight looked a little disheveled. He walked slowly down the aisle, his dim eyes narrowed as the lights caught him, and he emphasized the importance of communication channels with a joke: A few days ago, Sean Eckhardt walked into a house with a frog on his head. Wine bar. The bartender asked: "What is that?" The frog replied: "I don't know either." It started out as a tumor on my butt. ?The message Knight imparts to managers through jokes is: We must succeed without losing our sense of humor and our rebellious culture. In the United States, there are only a few CEOs who can make employees happy as soon as they appear in front of them like Knight. His legendary charm lies in the fact that he can make people recall the entire glorious history of Nike with the smallest gesture. history.
Sportsmanship and business spirit built Nike and tempered Knight’s shrewdness and ability. When Knight started, Nike Brand Company was just a nobody, but he defeated Adidas and made his own brand. The secret to his success is: first, love for sports, and second, break the rules in business practices.
He still wears folding Oakley sunglasses and isn't shy about making some unflattering jokes. He is an excitable and calm person. His employees are willing to work with him to create the Nike myth, and they want nothing more. Nonetheless, Knight was first and foremost a capable man. He clearly knows that in the past years, when they made marathon and unremitting efforts to win in the competition, Nike brand company hit a wall. After 6 years of the most difficult development, the company became the strongest in the sports world. A big force. Now, with annual sales stuck at nearly $4 billion, Knight is looking for a way out of that stagnation.
(3) Further reform and innovation and implement new marketing strategies
In order to gain a foothold in the saturated US market, Nike has updated its appearance and technology and launched a series of new running shoes. shoes and various training shoes. He will also work to expand the $200 million off-rent sportswear division that Van Dyke oversees. Travel shoes, which have a rough appearance, are the only popular product in the shoe industry. The outdoor sporting goods division will compete in this area with powerful peers such as Timberland Co., which has doubled its output and doubled its profits. Knight is confident that by 1996, it will become the most profitable division of Nike Brand Company, with sales reaching $500 million.
At the same time, Nike also changed its sales methods. The outdoor unit has focused its sales on yuppies and a new generation of unknown customers, but there are doubts about Nike's ability to get them interested in Nike shoes through athlete endorsements and television ads. To attract them, and to counter public cynicism, Nike launched its largest publicity campaign ever. In the spring of 1994, Nike Brand Company adjusted its advertising format. Retired basketball star Michael Jordan showed up at the adult spring league in a Chicago White Sox uniform, and Nike took the opportunity to turn it into a tour merchandise display, much to the chagrin of baseball purists.
While planning the corporate image, there is another important thing: the inventory control system, but companies often ignore it. This system is called "futures" and is the key to Nike's continued profitability. Nike requires retailers to reserve 80% of their total purchases 6 to 8 months in advance. Only in this way can Nike guarantee delivery time and give a 10% discount. As a result, because Nike Brand Company has full knowledge of the order supply situation, it has enough time to arrange production according to the order. This avoids excessive inventory and also ensures that we can obtain ideal ex-factory prices from its branches in Asia. Retailers hate this system because if their estimation of the market is wrong, they will be stuck with these shoes. But Nike's market attracted them to try their luck. Even though Nike's competitors were doing the same thing, by the time Nike Brands started shipping products under the deals it had struck, it was already a step ahead. Reebok's Carmody said: "Nike has a strong logistics system, which is much stronger than ours." ?
(4) Cross-cultural issues in marketing
Cross-cultural issues are problems that every multinational company must encounter in its operation and management. Germany's Adidas is Nike and Reebok's biggest competitor in Europe. Europeans instinctively prefer everything produced on the continent. Adidas is taking advantage of this to launch a powerful offensive against Nike. In addition, Nike sports shoes are expensive, with each pair selling for as high as 80 to 200 US dollars, making it difficult for some Europeans to accept them. In response to this, Nike brand company deliberately speculates to cater to the psychological characteristics of Europeans. For example, French young people like to show off, so Americans put price tags on their shoes to satisfy their desire to express their status. People in the Netherlands over the age of 25 like to wear white sneakers, while people under the age of 25 like brightly colored sneakers, and Nike treats them differently.
The differences between European and American cultural traditions also make some Europeans hate American products. Ms. Luo Li from a fashion design school in Paris, France, is extremely disgusted with wearing sneakers. She said: It is simply degenerate. Not polishing shoes is one of them, but the most disgusting thing is wearing sneakers. Another Italian said that wearing sneakers Women at work are ugly. But at the same time, like Disneyland and American movies, American culture has a big market in Europe, and Nike is using the American image to shape the "sports shoe family" in Europe.
The international market is Nike's strategic focus, Knight said. "We are all strongly aware that in a few years, the company's business abroad will be much larger than at home." The problem is that even though foreign sales currently account for 1/3 of Nike brand company's total sales, the development of these businesses is only achieved by branches simply imitating American machines. The company must open up markets in football and other international sports. Knight worries that overseas, Nike shoes are losing their original image of authenticity and first-class workmanship. This is all due to neglected marketing strategies and a lax sales organization. Foreign retailers are also complaining that Nike brand companies always use high-pressure methods to force them to order Nike shoes early, and only American retailers are accustomed to this method.
In order to change this situation, Nike bought out distribution businesses around the world in order to gain more control. Knight called on his subordinates to focus on developing business in the super important markets of Germany, Mexico and Japan. There, Nike Brands will convince retailers that ordering in advance won't be a pain in the ass, advertising will focus specifically on the sports world, and Nike will launch travel shoes that cater to specific markets. For example, badminton shoes are sold to Asia, and handball shoes are sold to New Zealand. The real challenge remains in finding a group of competent managers and instilling in them the Nike way of doing business. But this process is full of hardships. In the United States, Knight trusted his company's managers to do a great job because he knew they understood the significance of the Nike brand. That is: sports, performance, free and easy sportsmanship. This is the rich connotation of Nike's collective culture explained by the legendary president. Now, Knight is eager to find a group of trustworthy managers abroad who can pioneer the domestic market while maintaining Nike's credibility.
But the question is, can Nike culture be truly translated? While exporting Nike shoes, Knight is always obsessed with exporting his Nike culture. The reason is simple: In Oregon, high-profile sports games and performances are plastered around the Nike compound, and these reports encourage people to buy those sneakers, even though 70 percent of those sneakers sold are Including Nike shoes, they have never appeared in the stadium. A sports shoe marketing expert believes that consumers have always had a great interest in sports, and this interest is sustainable. This criterion is crucial. ?In order to strengthen its international marketing power, Nike is buying out distribution rights around the world to allow the company to exercise more control. On the one hand, Nike wants to keep good business coming from foreign markets; on the other hand, it aims to maintain the Nike brand and implement strategies formulated based on suggestions. Nike's experience in Japan is the best example of how difficult this process can be. A year ago, Knight knew clearly that Nike's Japanese branch had a large sales business, but because it did not combine sports, performance and the company's brand image, Nike bought the company and revamped it. Knight selected Yugi Akimoto to lead the effort. Akimoto has made great contributions to KFC's expansion in Japan
Due to the different cultural backgrounds and national habits of various countries, the company should attach great importance to this smoker who is always like Akimoto when formulating marketing strategies and strategies. Sports are often understood as a very gentle pastime, such as golf. Akimoto was sent to Beaverton to receive a four-month education on Nike's culture and business methods. He threw away his cigarette and started running. In December, he returned to Nike Japan in Tokyo and issued an order to ban smoking within the company. For this smog-filled country, the ban is undoubtedly a big deal. At the same time, he also forced Nike employees in Japan to participate in long-distance running training in preparation for the 1994 Hawaii Marathon. After the relationship between Nike's head office and its branches was strengthened, Nike's first "dividend" was the advent of a special lightweight running shoe designed specifically for Asian feet. But for many important aspects, especially the Nike brand itself, Akimoto did not fully understand. Knight said that before Akimoto left for Tokyo, he wanted to translate "Let it go" into accurate Japanese and submit it to the managers of the Nike department. Nike people were horrified by this. "We said, 'No,' don't translate it," Knight recalled. We never want to hide one thing? Our brand is an American brand. ?Can Nike outperform the international competition with its emphasis on cultural power? Nike, a big company with a big business, is no longer facing greater challenges than Knight, the legendary entrepreneur in the early days of his business.
3. Comments
1. The stock return rate of Nike Brand Company has increased by an average of 47% every year since 1986. From 1986 to 1996, Fortune magazine ranked it among the 1,000 companies in the United States. Among the companies, the company ranks among the top 10. What's the secret? If you study the company's philosophy in depth, you will find that taking risks, breaking conventions, and being new are important reasons for the company's miracles. Gary Hamel, a senior researcher at Fortune magazine, said that the driving force for instrumental music innovation comes from the innovation of ideas and corporate concepts, which is the ability to change the core of competition in existing industries and the ability to create new industries. This will become the next fundamental competitive advantage for global enterprises. In an increasingly non-linear world, only non-linear strategies can create huge new wealth. This kind of adjustment of strategic concepts is not something every company can achieve. It will cause pain to the enterprise. It cannot take this step without first changing the corporate culture. More and more companies are proving this and will continue to prove this.
2. Continuous reform and innovation and the implementation of new marketing strategies are the magic weapon for Nike to win, and it is also the magic weapon for all industries and enterprises to win. In the past decade or so, although some large companies have created huge wealth, they cannot be compared with companies like Nike that continue to innovate in corporate culture and corporate image. While conservative companies in the department store industry focus on improving supply chains and making massive, inconsequential expansions of production lines, innovative companies are creating entirely new product categories and retail concepts. Between April 1995 and April 1996, the capitalization of Internet-related companies increased from almost zero to nearly $10 billion in two years.
3. When building company culture, you must pay attention to your own personality and develop your own personality. You must fully develop your own unique personality characteristics and establish innovations that are good at seizing various new opportunities to implement cultural concepts. The market performance of Nike Brand Company
Nike Brand Company’s advertising in the female market is even more ingenious and charming. Nike entered the women's market later than Reebok, in part because Nike believed that its advertising theme of revolutionizing air cushion technology was aimed at men. If it were to attract women at that time, it would inevitably damage the growth momentum of the men's shoe market. At that time, Nike management promptly corrected some promotional activities in California. The company believed that the activities exceeded the company's original intentions. Company managers did not want to jeopardize their reputation as a technologically advanced, pioneering sporting goods company by becoming a feminine fashion company. When the Nike brand company established a firm foothold in the youth market and the male market, it turned to focus on attacking the female market. Janet and Charlotte, the planners of the advertising creative plan, use the method of self-assessment to understand women's inner world, using "dialogue" between women as the main means of communication. The advertising work uses black and white images with strong contrast. What stands out on the background are the intertwined characters "bu". The advertising text is affectionate and meaningful, with a soft tone but full of touching care and hope:
Throughout your life, there will always be people who think you can’t do this or that. Throughout your life, there are people who always say that you are not good enough, strong enough, or talented enough. They also say that you cannot make a difference because you are not tall enough, weight is not good enough, and your physique is not good enough. They always say you can't do it, and thousands of times throughout your life they will quickly and firmly say you can't do it until you prove it yourself.
The advertisement is published in women’s favorite lifestyle magazines. The advertising text is not like the sales appeal of a sporting goods dealer, but more like a woman's inner confession. The advertisement reflects the true characteristics of Nike advertising: communication, not stimulation. This advertisement was a huge success. After the advertisement was published, the phone in the company's switchboard room kept ringing. Many female customers called and said: "The Nike advertisement changed my life. From now on, I will only buy Nike, because you understand I. ?These results are also reflected in sales performance, with Nike's sales growth rate in the women's market outpacing its men's market. In the late 1980s, Nike's situation in the women's market was far inferior to that of Reebok, and a fundamental change occurred. Research shows that the mention rate and reputation of the Nike brand in this market have exceeded that of Reebok.
In just 20 to 30 years, the Nike brand company has grown from a humble small shoe company to an industry hegemon, from being little known to being famous all over the world today (its popularity in the United States is almost 100%), Nike’s marketing communications have made great contributions.