Digital Marketing: A Comparative Analysis of Nike and Puma's Digital Activities

This report provides a comparative analysis of the digital marketing activities of Nike and Puma. The report evaluates the effectiveness of the strategies used by both organizations in enhancing customer service, using social media channels effectively, and integrating offline and online marketing channels. The report also provides an overview of the organizations, their products, and their market position. The analysis is based on data collected from the official websites and social media channels of Nike and Puma.

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Content
1.0 Introduction-.........................................................................................................................2
Overview of the organizations...............................................................................................2
2.0 Analysis................................................................................................................................4
2.1 The ability to enhance a desired level of customer service..................................................4
2.2.1 Response to customer:...................................................................................................5
2.2.2 Interaction with the customers:.....................................................................................5
2.2 The ability to use of social media channels.........................................................................7
2.3 Online and offline integration............................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15
Appendices...............................................................................................................................18
Appendix 1: Facebook Activity of Puma and Nike.............................................................18
Appendix 2: Content for official website.............................................................................18
Appendix 3- Detailed social activity of Nike.......................................................................19
Appendix 4: Display advertising of Nike.............................................................................19
Appendix 5: Detailed Website Content of Nike..................................................................20
Appendix 6: Facebook posts with highest engagements......................................................20
Appendix 7 -Overview of the twitter page...........................................................................21
Appendix 8: Overview of YouTube Channels.....................................................................21
Appendix 9: User Statistics..................................................................................................22

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1.0 Introduction-
This report provides a detailed evaluation of the digital activities of two large clothing
organizations namely Nike and Puma. Both the organizations have a stabilized position in the
market and having a complete control on the operation in the global environment. The digital
activities of these two organizations are comparable because both the companies produce a
similar types of products. The sportswear giant Puma is planning to ramp up its customer
based marketing campaign by integrating its offline and online channel via a new proposed
platform. Similar, Nike is going to reinforce its digital media strategies introducing few more
e-commerce sites for some particular nations Canada, Switzerland, Norway and widening its
official site to coverage to engage sports-obsessive culture. Therefore, it can be mentioned
that both the organizations are heading towards the goals with the similar digital activities
approaches. The purpose of the report is to evaluate the digital initiatives taken by the
organizations. The effectiveness of the strategies has been discussed with three particular
criteria such as:
 The ability to enhance a desired level of customer service,
 The ability to use of social media channels effectively
 Create a similar integration both in offline and online marketing channels
Here, the secondary purpose is to gain a detailed insight about how Puma and Nike
implement these activities as the part of their operation. Both the organizations provide
similar products but these criteria determines how they differ in managing business operation.
Overview of the organizations
Puma is one of the largest and leading apparel brands designing, developing,
marketing and selling the footwear and apparel accessories. It is identified that for more than
65 years, the organization is delivering the most innovative products with its focus on

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offering performance as well as sports-inspired lifestyle products in several categories such as
Football, Training, Golf and Motorsports. This sports and apparel brands offer products in
more than 120 nations with the workforce strength of 13000 people worldwide (puma.com
2018).
Figure 1: Puma’s Products
(Source: puma.com 2018)
On the other side, it is also identified that Nike broadly incorporate people’s culture
in its operation. Nike was founded in 1954 and since then this American multinational
apparel brand is engaged in the design, development and manufacturing with worldwide sales
of footwear, apparel, accessories and other equipment’s (nike.com 2018). The organization
has acquire many several apparel and footwear organizations over the course of its history
and some of which since the inception been sold.

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Figure 2: Products of Nike
(Source: puma.com 2018)
Figure 3: Overall Statistics of Nike and Puma
(Source: Taken from the previous assignment)

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The figure 11 indicates that Nike’s turnover with $8.7 billion is higher than Puma and in
world ranking Nike has acquired the top position even though both the companies serve the
similar products with the same segments. It is estimated that Nike has the highest response
from its large market North America which is comparatively higher more active than the
major markets of Puma. In the mentioned segment, Nike reported 63% of their overall
turnover.
2.0 Analysis
In the following paragraph, the digital marketing activities of Nike and Puma have
been compared with the help three different criteria which will include the scale 0 to 5 to
broaden the comparison. The support the analysis, the data has been taken from the official
website and other ecommerce sites of Nike and Puma.
2.1 The ability to enhance a desired level of customer service
The performance of score of Puma’s corporate site’s overall performance rate is 76,
with the performance score hitting 21/30 but the SEO score of the site is 15 out of 30, which
requires attention (Berman 2012). However, the site has highest traffic rate due to the recent
initiative on the integration offline and online activities involving customer newsletter and
enhancement of “automated customer communications” as well as broad data management
and customer contracts through emailing and Facebook. On the other side, when it comes to
customer service Nike uses a two way dialogue between the operation and the customers,
Nike believes that to enhance service, it is highly to important to understand customer
expectation; once the customer needs are identified, the “customers are yours” (Martin and
Todorov 2010), To identify customer needs Nike uses the digital media, as the pathway.

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2.2.1 Response to customer:
Nike’s ads do well because they include emption in the customer through emotional
branding. As put forward by Kobayashi (2012), each add of Nike is crafted to instigate
particular feeling and needs of the customer that can help to satisfy the needs of customers.
On the other side, Puma pays attention to practical interaction with the customers. Before
developing the digital advertising, Puma from its customer feedback portal collect feedbacks
about the products and services and based on the identification of issues and queries in the
form of feedback, the digital marketing approaches are developed. These different set of
activities of two brands indicate that Puma is more responsive to customer because their
customers come firs in customer services improve initiative through digital media.
Conversely, Nike implements some effective but risky approaches, where customer’s
feedback may come later.
Furthermore, the 10 C’s of marketing conducted in the previous assignment indicates that the
organization Nike is worldly known for their consumer driven principles and innovative ideas
related to marketing. With the long days of operation, Nike is able to portray a strong sense
of bonding amongst the customers and the company itself. However, it has also been
identified that Puma tends to apply more direct approach towards their customers, which
remains as the crucial factor behind organization’s present current positioning in the market.
When it comes to uniqueness in marketing approach, Kannan (2017) mentioned that Puma
tends to pay attention to their retail partnership to maintain a desired level of interaction with
the customers.
2.2.2 Interaction with the customers:
In order to enhance interaction with the customers, both the organizations takes advantage of
the digital media channels. For example, Nike uses Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
and Linkedln, while Puma is active on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. According to

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nike.com. (2018),Nike currently has 381 social media profiles in which, 147 pages are
created on Facebook, the number of twitter handles is around 105, Instagram accounts holds
23 profiles, 42 advertising subscription channels are created on YouTube and two other
profile on Linkedln. The following figure provides the detailed digital media activities of
Nike containing three channel Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Figure 4: Interaction with the customers through YouTube
(Source: Taken from the previous assignment)
The figure 3 indicates that compared to Puma, Nike has 14 different channels on YouTube
but the total number of the updates is less while Puma’s updates is around 2945. On the other
side, it has also observed that even though Nike’s updates in number are less, it has the
highest subscribers while Puma is lagging behind in this context. Therefore, it can be
mentioned that overall Nike is more responsive towards its audiences on social media
channels compared to its competitor Puma.

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Figure 5: Digital media activities of Nike
(Source: Kobayashi 2012)
On the other side, Puma has developed an effective social media strategy as the part
of their customer interaction, in which the brand has incorporated several themes such as
“Valentine Day Campaign”. However, this campaign went viral on 2010 World Cup due to
misinterpretation (Westerman et al. 2012). Presently, Puma is active on Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and Instagram. At the initial stage of digital interaction, Puma took the decision to
focus on their social media effort on enhancing customer engagement instead of creating a
means to promote online sales. Thus, to achieve this, the Puma restricted the number of posts
that it sent globally referring to the target customers (Chi 2011). Presently, Puma’s strategy
helps them to increase their social media profiles in the last three year to above 1.3 million
twitter followers, over 15 million Facebook likes. However, they have 50 other social media
profiles referring to the target audiences.
Puma Nike

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Is the firm able to
provide desired
level of customer
service?
Table 1: Measuring the level of customer services provided by the brand
2.2 The ability to use of social media channels
As put forward by Kim and Ko (2010), to compete in today’s dynamic and competitive
market environment, the organisations should have an online presence. In this context, De
Mooij, (2013) also commented that at the initial stage of interaction, maintaining a corporate
website was adequate but now it has become so necessary for the organization to become
active on the social media. Hence, it is particularly identified that both the organizations
analyse their social media traffic as well as tracking advantage of insight which provides an
optimal return on investment. When digging into Puma’s activity, it is identified that in spite
of admittedly being somewhat of a late-comer in identifying the market potential of digital
media, the organization Puma is now active on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram as
well as several domain specie network falling under the global territories (puma.com 2018).
Conversely, Nike is one such brand which enjoys the greater levels of involvement on social
media. Chu, Kamal and Kim (2013) argued that several social media campaigns have gone
viral; for example, the case across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedln. Nike tends to
maintain a large range of page dedicated to its different products and different geographical;
locations (Hadija, Barnes and Hair 2012). Hence, each of these profiles are managed with
social media strategy and deep thought. The following figures describe the intensity of the

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activities of Nike on social media tools. According to the statistical figure given below Nike
has 7 million Twitter user, in which the daily tweet is 1.5 on average but the 100%
engagement is on weekdays (ETBrandEquity.com. 2018).
Figure 6: Tweeter Followers of Nike
(Source: ETBrandEquity.com. 2018)

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Figure 7: Average Tweets of Nike
(Source: ETBrandEquity.com. 2018)
Figure 8: Rate of Retweet of Nike
(Source: ETBrandEquity.com. 2018)

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The statistical figures also indicates that almost 31% of Nike’s tweets were retweeted by its
followers. Similarly, on Facebook, the total number of users on Facebook is around 31
million. This statistical data indicates that Nike effectively maintains the practice of
interacting with the customers on a regular basis as the part of their overall customer service
improvement and promotion. (Refer to appendix 1, for more detailed information given in the
previous assignment). Nike created a rich digital media content for attracting the visitors
(refer to appendix 2 for digital media content).
Figure 9: Number of users on Facebook of Nike
(Source: ETBrandEquity.com 2018)
Conversely, it is also identified that the brand Puma is lagging behind with respect to
effectiveness of social media. Almost 16000 users have regular response on Puma’s
Facebook profile (Refer to appendix 1, for more detailed information given in the previous
assignment). Likewise, on Twitter, the brand has almost 2 million regular followers and the
average number of tweets made by the brand on Twitter is around 0.1.

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Figure 10: Average of Tweets of Puma on Twitter
(Source: ETBrandEquity.com 2018)
Figure 11: Rae of retweet on Twitter of Puma
(Source: ETBrandEquity.com 2018)

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The statistical figure also indicates that the percentage of retweet on twitter is 3% while 97%
users did not retweet (ETBrandEquity.com 2018). Based on this statistics, it can be
mentioned that with respect to effectiveness of engagement on social media, Puma lags
behind, it needs to enhance its content to create a desired response in digital media channels.
Measuring the ability to use social media effectively
Puma Nike
Is the brand using
social media
effectively?
Table 2: Rating scale of social media activity of Puma and Nike
2.3 Online and offline integration
When it comes to offline and online integration, Puma is identified to be ramping up
its customer-centric marketing campaigns by integrating both their offline and online
channels via a new platforms. The brand is using “Teradata’s Digital Marketing Centre to
back up its European newsletter, the enhancement of automated customer communication as
well as the entire data management and customer contacts through emails and ads on social
media channels (Jakobson, and Zebedo 2014). On the other side, Nike collaborated with
Spottify to integrate online and offline through music. Nike and Spotify teamed up for Nike’s
female 10k running events in London with the objective of driving awareness of music’s
positive effect on running performance as well as maximizing Spotify’s monthly usage
among the users (Wirtz et al. 2013).

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As a part of this integration initiative, Spotify positioned the installation on the ground floor
of Nike’s Town in UK so that the customers can observe the feeling of their Tempo groups
through vibrating podium and on screen animation. Hence, Nike is promoting its brand of
products by enticing consumers into high quality music while running or taking part in fitness
exercise events, where apparel and equipment will be provided by Nike. However, this
initiative can only be treated as promotional initiative; thereby, Nike should pay attention to
offline and online integration.
Conversely, as the purpose of offline and online integration initiative, Puma is using
Mapp’s customer involvement platforms taking help from the integrated Data Management
Platform to offer a personalize and targeted involvement with their users such as use of
corporate website browsing data and behaviour to personalize to show their ads (Tagashira
and Minami 2016). As put forward by Hadija, Barnes and Hair (2012), Puma is using
Wildfire’s Social Marketing Suit to deal with the workflows as well as category social page
for multiple regional brands and sports. For example, during the Olympics in London, the
organization had hosted an integrated offline and online special experience which was is
known as “The yard”. The brand used streaming video, photography as well as blog content
which was sourced from The Yard. Consequent, the organization gained the insight of
diversifying its social content and omit the bottlenecks that damaged its social marketing
execution earlier.
Puma Nike

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Is the brand
able to make a
solid offline
and online
integration?
Table 3: Measuring the level of offline and online integration of the brands
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be mentioned that as the use of technology is rapidly increasing,
it is essential for the businesses or the marketers to adopt digital media strategies to operation.
The discussion presented above clearly indicates that to reach the remote areas or to generate
customer response in the remote areas, the digital media channels should be used as the
pathway. From the comparison of digital media activities, it is gained that Puma is less active
on social media channels compared to Nike while the field of offline and online integration,
Puma is leading ahead with its extending initiatives. The discussion also indicates that digital
media channels are effective for promotion and advertising but acquiring a social media
channel for promoting the products and services is not the only task that organization do. The
organisations have to be customer-centric and must adopt the culture and trends when
promoting the content in the social digital media channels. The brand Nike has once
developed marketing strategy to persuade the customers but Puma’s marketing digital
advertising strategies did not gain desired popularity. Therefore, Puma needs to pay attention
to its digital media channels.

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Appendices
Appendix 1: Facebook Activity of Puma and Nike
Appendix 2: Content for official website

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Appendix 3- Detailed social activity of Nike
Appendix 4: Display advertising of Nike

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Appendix 5: Detailed Website Content of Nike
Appendix 6: Facebook posts with highest engagements

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Appendix 7 -Overview of the twitter page
Appendix 8: Overview of YouTube Channels

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Appendix 9: User Statistics