Nike's Customer Loyalty: Strategies, Emotional Branding & Impact

This essay examines Nike's customer loyalty strategies, highlighting its successful brand image built through performance and quality. The author reflects on personal brand preference, noting Nike's historical focus on athletes' needs and the brand's effective emotional branding. Nike's marketing strategy revolves around storytelling, using relatable narratives of overcoming adversity. The essay also touches on Nike's controversial ad campaigns, such as the one featuring Colin Kaepernick, and its commitment to women empowerment. While price can be a barrier for some customers, Nike's superior product quality and consistent product availability have cultivated a large and loyal customer base. This analysis showcases how Nike's marketing and branding strategies have solidified its position as a leading athletic gear brand.

Running head: NIKE CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Nike Customer Loyalty
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1NIKE CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Nike is a worldwide brand that creates sportswear products such as sport shoes,
athletic gear and garments. It is now known to be the largest athletic footwear and apparel
brand in the world. They have been very successful in building their brand image in regards
to their performance and success rate. Whenever I think about buying new shoes for working
out or for running, Nike is always the first brand that comes to mind. However, sometimes
for apparel I do opt for other brands, as they are cheaper options.
Nike had started to build on their brand from as early as 1980s, and they have always
paid attention to the needs of the athletes, and are able to share their passion for running by
providing them the best gear possible. Customer loyalty occurs when a certain individual
chooses to use a particular brand or product over other brands and products (Putbrese, 2016).
Individuals develop a customer loyalty for a certain brand of product after they have been
consistently purchasing it over an extended period of time.
I have seen my parents wear Nike shoes since I was a baby, and they have made it a
point to always look for the same shoe once the one they have is worn out or damaged.
America had a culture shift towards fitness during 1970s and 1980s, and Nike advertised their
products in a way that made their customers feel that even they were athletes and they
deserved nothing but the best gear. Most customers of Nike are no different from my parents,
they have been buying the same product from the same brand for many years and Nike’s
unshifting product quality has produced nothing but happy and loyal customers. However,
there are many customers who have complained about the high price on their product but
they could not deny the superior product quality that Nike always maintains.
Nike’s marketing strategy has been one that is looked up to by a lot of its competitor
brands which is, to sell a story more than selling a product (Brohi et al., 2016). When Nike
decides to sell a story, they use what is known as emotional branding, that induces a sense of

2NIKE CUSTOMER LOYALTY
being able to relate to the story that is being portrayed (Devi, 2015). Even though Nike’s
advertisements have gained a lot of success, they all mostly follow a similar story line, which
is of an individual who works hard is able to overcome adversity and eventually emerges
victorious against their biggest setback. Nike has also made it a point to address the recent
events when they release their ads, as their newest ad featuring Colin Kaepernick caused a lot
of controversy because he is known to be protesting policy brutality on African Americans,
and Nike showed their support with this (Chadwick & Zipp, 2018). Another ad was for
women empowerment that featured many famous women athletes and how their problems
seem very relatable to many women.
Nike has remained near and dear to the hearts of billions of people throughout Nike’s
life as a brand, and it continues to uphold its superior status as an athletic gear brand with
various new launches and ensuring the old products are still available for the dedicated older
followers. Usually the only reason for a customer to not opt for Nike for a specific product
always comes down to its price and the relatedly lower price its competitors are offering.

3NIKE CUSTOMER LOYALTY
References:
Brohi, H., Prithiani, J., Abbas, Z., Bhutto, A., & Chawla, S. (2016). Strategic Marketing Plan
of Nike.
Chadwick, S., & Zipp, S. (2018). Nike, Colin Kaepernick and the pitfalls of ‘woke’corporate
branding.
Devi, S. (2015). Emotional Branding: Connecting Customer Via Heart.
Putbrese, L. (2016). Consumers’ Brand Loyalty: Nike. International Journal of Market
Research.