Nike The Chosen. How the use of social media influenced this global brand and helped continue Nike s global. impact worldwide. Ronaldo Cook-Martin

Transcription

1 Nike The Chosen How the use of social media influenced this global brand and helped continue Nike s global impact worldwide. Ronaldo Cook-Martin COMM307: Social Media Section 02 MWF 9-9:50 am 1

2 Introduction Nike launched their campaign The Chosen, a global campaign designed to intrigue a new brand of an audience for Nike involving action sports. This campaign was one Nike believed would continue their expansion in the global market. As we know, Nike is one of the world s most well-known brands out there, and many athletes such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and others have been associated with Nike s success over the years. The idea for this campaign was for it to focus on action sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing (Vega, 2011). The Chosen was the biggest campaign for Nike involving action sports bringing together more of the well-known athletes in BMX as well as other sports. When we looked at action sports, we saw a unique consumer segment that was underserved in terms of product innovation, Mark G. Parker, Nike s chief executive and president said (Vega, 2011). Analysis When The Chosen was launched in June 2011, Nike felt that social media would play a crucial part in displaying the material and would be a huge plus for the campaign to get full recognition. Nike also looked to launch the campaign in order to compete against other brands like Quiksilver, Volcom, and Billabong, which are other youth-oriented brands involving action sports. Action sports are worth $390 billion dollars for Nike, and many executives believed that by launching this campaign, the figures could double within the next few years (Vega, 2011). Once the campaign was launched, Nike looked to Facebook as being their starting point. Because of the popularity Facebook has had in recent years, Nike felt that recognition of this campaign would increase more if it were put on Facebook. Nike wanted to put their entire premiere of The Chosen, which also included a 90-second television spot. In addition, the 2

3 campaign was to include video content for certain user-generated content across each of the sports that the campaign had been targeting (Fisher, 2011). When the campaign took place, individual sports pages were created to feature content such as the BMX Facebook page. Facebook is the premier partner and platform to use globally that has the biggest global reach, Davide Grasso, vice president for global brand marketing for Nike said (Fisher, 2011). Once the campaign was established on Facebook, the idea was for action sports fans to go on the Facebook page and ask for different submissions featuring people s crews. Fans could watch as many videos as they wanted and make their vote of which athletes videos they liked best. The crews were to create as much insight and buzz around their entries using different social media tools. Votes can be determined by professionals such as skateboarder Paul Rodriguez, and they would choose a winner who can potentially win The Chosen lifestyle (Fisher, 2011). Rodriguez gave his own insight for voting for videos, saying he looks for The quality of the skills of course, the best maneuvers, creativity with the editing and the music they choose (Vega, 2011). Many believed that this aspect of social media was the right approach for Nike to take, instead of the usual television route. According to some, television will continually fall in the coming years when it comes to marketing brands and agencies. It s said; by 2015 social media is expected to quadruple as Nike follows in the footsteps of Pepsi to focus their advertising by using social media (Fisher, 2011). There are no particular statistics that show the impact this campaign had over the past year. However, there are important factors of social media that have shown why this campaign has displayed success over the last nine months. We talk about social media aspects such as understanding, collaborating and sharing and content. Understanding was used in this campaign, 3

4 because Nike understood the videos that were created and displayed on Facebook would relate to action sports fans. They knew the more videos shown on the Facebook page, the more action sports fans could relate to the material in a positive way. Collaborating and sharing was a driving force of The Chosen, since collaborating and sharing is described as being a place where people can come together from anywhere. The Chosen is a global campaign where everyone all over the world can watch and see how this brand is making its mark in the social media world. Content is also important to this campaign, because it has to be produced for people to converse about. The videos displayed on the Facebook page can allow action sports fans to talk and discuss what s being seen and give their insight of what they like or dislike. There are also the elements of a successful Facebook fan page, which include networking with other platforms, creating a resource, creating contests that include participation, empowering pre-existing pages, and targeting the proper demographic (Balwani, 2009). When it comes to networking with other platforms, The Chosen has their own Nike Chosen Series site to display their material. This can allow people not just to go on the Facebook page, but allow them to explore other events and promotions that are occurring. However, you could click a link to the Facebook page if you are on the Nike Chosen Series site. The Chosen also uses creating a resource because by creating a resource page, the campaign is able to target as many consumers as they can outside of the U.S. They want to try and target as many people internationally as possible. There s also targeting the proper demographic element relating to The Chosen. In this instance, Nike was confident that they could generate enough interest from viewers in order to create the Facebook page. Because there are action sports fans globally, Nike seemed sure that this interaction with Facebook would be successful enough to work. Based on the information I found, there did not seem to be enough evidence to show the other two 4

5 elements of creating contests that include participation and empowering pre-existing pages relating to the campaign. Nothing was clearly shown that displayed The Chosen either offering viewers something or rewarding them for observing the Facebook page. The Chosen was created to compete with other brands, while also targeting the niche market of action sports fans. It was launched to create participation through the use of numerous videos and voting aspects in order to get as many people involved as possible. The idea of this campaign was to have as many involved worldwide, as well as finding new ways to advertise through the use of social media. Although there isn t immediate statistical information mentioned regarding this campaign, The Chosen has not received any significant negative feedback and will only continue to expand. Conclusion For Nike, their goal is to continue to impact the world with its brand through the use of social media. Nike is one the most productive companies in the world today, and one of their biggest obligations is to advertise, having spent over 200 million dollars in advertising between 2009 and 2010 (Vega, 2011). Nike has used other social media elements, such as YouTube and MySpace, to help sell their products both past and present. The goal for Nike is to select social media websites when they want to connect with their consumers in local markets throughout the world. I believe Nike feels that the use of social media will only continue to keep their company at the top. Even though not every person in the world will see what Nike does on a regular basis, Nike will manage to do everything to expand globally, and the use of social media will be the premiere tool to help them achieve that. Nike s Global Digital Brand and Innovation Director 5

6 Jesse Stollak said, The rise of social media provides us with new ways to do this. The future will have new tools and methods and Nike will continue to push the edges (Swallow, 2011). 6

7 Works Cited References Balwani, Samir. 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page. 30 March Web 16 March Fisher, Lauren. Nike s new campaign The Chosen premieres on Facebook. 7 June Web 8 March Swallow, Erica. How Nike Outruns the Social Media competition. 22 September Web 9 March Vega, Tanzina. Nike tries to enter the Niche Sports it has missed. 1 June Web 8 March