Sports Marketing: Analyzing Nike's Fuelband

Running head: SPORTS MARKETING
Sports Marketing
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Executive Summary
The report will discuss about the concept of marketing in the sports industry and for this
purpose the report will analyze the Fuelbands launched the company Nike in the year 2012 in
USA. The report will begin by introducing the company Nike and the product which it
launched in the year 2012, namely Fuelbands. The report will also focus on the manner in
which the concerned company took the help of the theme of fitness to design the attributes of
the product under discussion here and also the manner in which fits into the cannon of other
existing product portfolio of the company. Furthermore it will discuss about the size and the
scope of the market which the product can explore and also the global expansion options
which galore it. The report will also try to show the manner in which the Fuelbands are
extension of the Nike+ products offered by the same company. Finally, the report will end
with a discussion of three questions which have been formed by the author on the basis of the
case study under discussion here.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Nike and the Fuelband...............................................................................................................4
Fuelband and the idea of Fitness................................................................................................6
Fuelband and Nike’s existing portfolio......................................................................................8
Size and Scope of Fuelband.......................................................................................................9
Fuelbands and Global Expansion.............................................................................................12
New Product Extension............................................................................................................12
Fuelbands and marketing.........................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
Case study Questions...............................................................................................................14
Question 1............................................................................................................................14
Question 2............................................................................................................................15
Question 3............................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
The concept of marketing forms an integral part of the business world and along with
the concept of innovation is generally considered to be the major factors that influence the
business of any business enterprise (Kobayashi, 2012). The machinery of marketing is mainly
concerned with the management or the regulation as well as the monitoring of the exchange
or the trade relations between the business enterprises and the end users of the products or the
services offered by the concerned business enterprises and its aspects (Kobayashi, 2012).
Moreover, in the present times it is also seen that to further enhance this exchange
relationship between the customers and the business enterprises, the business enterprises take
the help of various kinds of innovative strategies as well as policies (Hartley & Claycomb,
2013). For example, one of the most important strategies that the diverse business enterprises
usually take the help of are the use of the modern techniques of promotion like the use of
social media, electronic media and other media tools (Mahdi et al., 2015). It is significant to
note that since the traditional times the marketing focus of the various diverse business
enterprises has been on the effective use of the concept of promotion so that they are able to
earn a higher percentage of profit (Hartley & Claycomb, 2013).
In the present times the requirements of the present day business world has changed in
a significant manner keeping in view the changing needs of the people of the world and also
the changing landscape of the world be it terms of technology, politics, social structure or
others (Mahdi et al., 2015). In the wake of this particular change the marketing plan which is
being used by the diverse business enterprises needs to incorporate not only the promotional
plans but other important entities of marketing like market research, target market,
positioning, customer base, market strategy, budget, metrics, effective management of the
customers and others (Angioni, Cabiddu & Di Guardo, 2012). The primary idea for

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undertaking such a long list of activities for the process of the marketing of the products or
the services offered by them is to mitigate the high amount of competition that they face in
the ever competitive business environment and at the same time to gain a significant amount
of competitive leverage over their competitors (Angioni, Cabiddu & Di Guardo, 2012). These
concepts are even applicable to the products or the services offered by the sports industry as
well and as a matter of fact it is seen that the sports industry currently integrating the different
marketing concepts of the business world to effectively market the products or the services
offered by them to the customers (De Mooij, 2013). Furthermore, it is also seen that the
various sports companies like Nike, Adidas and others in order to capture a greater customer
base are increasingly offering diverse kinds of smart products or services to the customers.
This report will discuss about the smart product Nike Fuelband and the marketing approach
taken by the company Nike for the marketing of the concerned product.
Nike and the Fuelband
The company Nike established in the year 1964 specializes in the manufacture of
sports garments, apparels and other related accessories (Nike Australia, 2018). Although
headquartered in the nation of the United States of America the company currently has its
business centers in the different parts of the world and was founded by “Bill Bowerman and
Phil Knight” (Nike Australia, 2018). As a matter of fact that the company was initially called
by the name of “Blue Ribbon Sports” and it was only in 1971 that the name of the company
was changed to Nike (Nike Australia, 2018). Furthermore, the company under discussion
here is the largest company in the genre of the companies that manufacture sports gears,
accessories, apparels and other related products and stands at the 205th position among the
different companies of the world in terms of the yearly revenue earned by them (Fobes.com,

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2018). The performance of the company under discussion here over the years in terms of
finance is being represented by the below given figure-
Figure 1: Financial Performance of Nike
Source: Factset, Bloomberg, S&P Cap IQ; Forbes.
Nike is known not only for the quality of the sports products that it offers to the
customers from the diverse parts of the globe but at the same time for the use of innovative
ideas and also the recent technology for the manufacture of their products (Ferguson et al.,
2015). A pertinent example of this is the Fuelband offered by the concerned company to its
customers (Ferguson et al., 2015). This device was launched by the company Nike in 2012
and it came in two color variations, namely, black and ice color (Nike Australia, 2018). The
introduction of this particular product in the arsenal of the wide array of sports related
products offered by the company saw an impressive rise of 18% in the sale of the products
offered by the concerned company (Nike Australia, 2018). However, the launch of this
particular product is generally seen as an initiative on the part of the part of Nike to mitigate
the high level of competition which it was facing from Jawbone UP, Basis Watch, and Fitbit
Flex or for that matter even Fitbit Tracker family (Tucker et al., 2015). This particular