Comprehensive Brand Analysis Report: Nike's Marketing Strategies

This report provides a detailed brand analysis of Nike, examining its marketing strategies and brand resonance. The analysis begins with an introduction to Nike's position as a leader in the sports shoe industry, emphasizing factors beyond production that contribute to its success. The report then delves into the six building blocks of the brand resonance model – salience, performance, imagery, judgments, feelings, and resonance – evaluating Nike's performance in each area. Furthermore, the report analyzes Nike based on ten brand elements including identity, image, positioning, value, experience, differentiation, communication, gap, extension, and personality. The report assesses these elements against six criteria: memorability, meaningfulness, likability, transferability, adaptability, and protectability. The conclusion summarizes Nike's high brand awareness, successful positioning, and strong resonance with customers, highlighting areas of strength and weakness. The report also includes references to support the analysis.

Running head: BRAND ANALYSIS
BRAND ANALYSIS
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Introduction
Nike is a company that has pioneered in the production of sport shoes. However, it is
not production which has made the company a worldwide name in the industry. Several other
factors, such as quality, customer relations and strategic positioning has also helped Nike in
the venture to become one of the best companies in the industry. The purpose of this essay is
to analyse the brand on the basis of the six building blocks of brand resonance model, and
also on the basis of brand elements. The discussion in this report will include an analysis of
Nike on the basis of the brand resonance model, the brand elements, and assessing those
elements against the six criteria for choosing brand elements.
Analysing on brand resonance model
The brand resonance model has six building blocks for a brand, which determine how
much a brand resonates with the customers. These six blocks are salience, performance,
imagery, judgements, feelings and resonance.
Salience refers to how prominently customers are informed about the product of a
brand, under various purchasing situations. Nike has always focused on marketing itself as a
brand that sells class. Nike products are in fact highly synonymous with class, comfort and
luxury, considering the quality and price with which the brand sells its products in the
market. It is easy for a consumer to remember these words while purchasing a Nike product,
since their marketing efforts have been unique and prominent over the years.
Performance refers to how well a brand satisfies the needs of a customer. It is no
mystery that Nike offers the best quality products, produced with the best quality materials, to
ensure comfort to its customers. Nike has a high customer satisfaction rate in the market,
which is higher than most of its competitors, like Adidas and Puma.

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Imagery refers to how a customer can associate his or her views feelings with the
products of a brand, based on his or her social needs. Here, social needs is the keyword for
assessing the criteria. Nike, as mentioned earlier, sells class alongside its products. It is a
luxury brand which not only provides quality, but also status to its customers. This is because
the brand offers the best to stay competitive in the market and maintain its brand image.
Hence, a customer’s social needs is best served by the brand’s deliverables, with class, status,
as well as comfort and quality.
Judgements refer to what a customer decides to do regarding purchasing the product,
based on the imagery and performance of the brand’s products. Since both of the blocks
secure a high grade for Nike, it automatically is indicative of the fact that if a customer has
the affordability, he or she will surely be deciding for purchasing the product, to suit his or
her needs, and for the social status which the products of the brand provide.
Feelings refers to how a customer is emotionally attached to the products of a brand,
or how he or she feels about it (Keller 2001). This should be an easy one to answer,
considering the analysis done so far in this context. However, a recent event, when Nike
featured Kaepernick (who once disrespected the American anthem as a protest) in one of its
ads, it divided the country’s feelings towards the brand in two halves; one which supported
Nike and the other one which did not support the act (Kress et al. 2019). However, it is
important to note that the phenomenon was short lived, but some people still hold a negative
feeling towards the brand because of the ad campaign. However, if solely products of the
brand are to be considered, customers do hold positive feelings about the brand because of
the quality and class it maintains in the market.
Resonance refers to the psychological connections which a customer has created with
the brand. Nike has one of the highest bases for customer loyalty. Most customers who opt

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for Nike, come back to Nike, thereby indicating a high resonance with customers (Putbrese
2016).
Analysing on Brand elements
The 10 brand elements are as follows:
1. Identity
2. Image
3. Positioning
4. Value
5. Experience
6. Differentiation
7. Communication
8. Gap
9. Extension
10. Personality
Nike has a separate and prominent identity for itself, with a unique and prominently
different logo, and a slogan which is highly popular in the market- “just do it”.
As mentioned earlier, the image of the brand has gone down a little, after the recent
controversy. However, apart from that, the company has a positive brand image amongst its
customer base.
Nike has a strong positioning. The positioning is that of success and class.
The brand value of Nike is a whooping 28 billion dollars (Business Insider 2019). Apart
from that, the company has been able to create intangible value to its products as well.

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The customer experience which the brand provides is an impeccable one. This is because
it has the highest customer satisfaction rates and retention rates (Li et al. 2019), which
support the claim for the same.
Differentiation is something which the brand has been able to do quite well. Nike has
successfully implemented innovation in a lot of instances, to give its products unique feels.
For example, it was one of the firsts in the industry to industry featherweight shoes with
ventilation. These characteristics being unique, give the brand a valuable uniqueness in the
market.
Communication of the brand mainly takes place through television and print ads, which
have high reach.
Nike always promises what it delivers, and hence, the brand gap of Nike is nearly
negligible.
Brand extension is possibly the only thing which Nike does not excel in, since it has
never gone out of its ways to deliver something new.
Brand personality is also high for the brand, since it markets itself as a leading
gamechanger in the industry.

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Assessing elements on the 6 criteria
Element memorabil
ity
meani
nfulne
ss
Likabilit
y
transfer
ability
adaptab
ility
protecta
bility
identity high high high high high high
Image high high high high high high
Positionin
g
high high high high high high
personalit
y
high high high high high high
Value high high high high high high
Experien
ce
high high high high high high
uniquene
ss
high high high high high high

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Communication high high high high high
Gap high high high high high
Extension Low Low Low Low Low
From the above chart, it is evident, that the memorability of the brand is high as a
result of the high brand image, positioning and experience which Nike provides.
The value, communication and gap which the brand fills, ensures that it has high
meaningfulness in the market as well.
The high brand personality, image and positioning ensures that the brand is high on
the likability factor in the minds of the customers.
The value and experience which the brand provides, also ensures high level of
transferability of the brand.
The brand has also filled gaps according to the market needs, and has provided
uniqueness accordingly, which indicates the high adaptability of the brand.
Last but not the least, the high image, positioning and identity of the brand ensures a
high level of protectability.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Nike has a high brand awareness
in the market, it has a strategy of positioning that is synonymous with class and status. It

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resonates highly with the customers, despite recent controversies. The brand has excelled in
all fields of brand elements, apart from brand extension.
References
Putbrese, L., 2016. Consumers’ Brand Loyalty: Nike. International Journal of Market
Research.
Kress, T., Lake, R., Cox-Vineyard, M. and Buechner, K., 2019. Critical Kaleidoscopic
Pedagogy: Kaepernick, Nike, and Critical Media Literacy in the Post-truth Era.
Business Insider. (2019). America's 15 most valuable fashion brands are worth nearly $70
billion combined - but one company dominates. [online] Available at:
https://www.businessinsider.in/Americas-15-most-valuable-fashion-brands-are-worth-nearly-

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70-billion-combined-but-one-company-dominates/articleshow/64900652.cms [Accessed 9
Apr. 2019].
Keller, K.L., 2001. Building customer-based brand equity: A blueprint for creating strong
brands (pp. 3-27). Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.
Li, R., Li, Y., Liu, H. and Huang, Q., 2019, January. Cross-Channel Integration and
Customer Retention in Omnichannel Retailing: The Role of Retailer Image and Alternative
Attractiveness. In Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences.