Analysis of Nike Inc.'s Marketing and Management Strategies Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Nike, Inc., examining its marketing and management strategies. It begins with an executive summary, outlining the company's key aspects, including its subsidiary brands, market segments, target customers, and mission, with a focus on environmental considerations. The report delves into Nike's attempts at growth, communication strategies, and potential marketing leadership decisions. It further explores the advantages of leadership within the context of value-driven relationships, decision models, and perceptual maps. The case study investigates Nike's customers and how the company adjusts its mission to reflect environmental demands. Key topics include Nike's attempt to grow based on the environmental dimension, incorporation of environmental dimensions, and communication strategies. The report concludes with proposed solutions and strategies to improve the company's performance through marketing leadership and includes a detailed discussion of leadership advantages, decision models, and perceptual maps. The document also references various academic sources to support its findings.

Running head: MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive summary
The primary tenet of the report is to give a brief description of the company Nike, Inc. and its
subsidiary brands. The report discusses about the market segments of the brand, targeted
customers, its mission to reflect the demands of environmental dimension, attempt of growth,
and communication strategies. The report further illustrates an analysis to demonstrate the
advantages of leadership in context of value driven relationship, decision models and positioning
maps. In conclusion, solutions or strategies have been suggested to solve the issues and improve
the conditions with regard to the company, through marketing leadership.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Case study........................................................................................................................................4
The customers of Nike, tomorrow...............................................................................................4
Adjustment of Nike’s mission to reflect the demands of environmental dimension...................4
Nike’s attempt to grow based on the environmental dimension..................................................4
Incorporation of an environmental dimension.............................................................................5
Communication of Nike’s strategy to the consumers and retailers.............................................5
Decisions suggested, which would facilitate Nike, to achieve marketing leadership:................6
Decision.......................................................................................................................................6
Rationale......................................................................................................................................6
Decision.......................................................................................................................................6
Rationale......................................................................................................................................6
Analysis to demonstrate the advantages of leadership................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
Appendices....................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
One of the leading apparel and sports Footwear Company in the world is NIKE, Inc. or
NKE. The company was originally founded as Blue Ribbon Sports, having its headquarters
around Beaverton, Oregon. Nike has been the largest supplier of sports goods, athletic shoes,
apparel, worldwide ("About Nike - The official corporate website for NIKE, Inc. and its affiliate
brands.", 2017) .
Nike has been marketing its products under the brand of its own as well as Nike brand,
Nike Golf, Air Jordan and others. The subsidiaries also included Umbro, Converse and Hurley
Brands. The brand is recognized by the logo of Swoosh and trademarks of the tagline “Just Do
It”.
(Source: Meyvis, Goldsmith and Dhar 2012)
In the year 2014, the valuation of the brand was at $19000000000; as a result, it was
considered the valuable most brands in sports business. The offices of Nike are located in more
than 40 countries outside the United States, including China, Philippines, Thailand and others.

4MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
Case study
The customers of Nike, tomorrow
In the context of growth in future, the young and upcoming athletes are an important part
of the sales strategies, like, in the categories of basketball, soccer, et cetera. Hence, the customers
of Nike tomorrow, shall be formed by the young and upcoming athletes, who shall be the target
of Nike in the future market.
Adjustment of Nike’s mission to reflect the demands of environmental dimension
As a result of the marketing research of Nike, its product and pricing, there has been an
inclination towards being more fashion savvy by the company. The focus of the company has
been on the higher end market, at the same time increasing the market share of the mid and low
ranges of price to expand the product spectrum.
Weakness- there has been a failure by Nike to anticipate the issues with regard to factory
conditions and labor at locations of production. As a result, there had been publicity that was not
in a positive direction, which further resulted in declination of sales as the consumers and the
society wants more companies which are “socially responsible”.
Nike’s attempt to grow based on the environmental dimension
Innovation has been the foundation of the brand. Over the years, there has been a drive
for designing and producing better products has resulted into a more ambitious schema to secure
sustainability which is long term into the business. The wider vision is need for new methods to
management, tools, machineries, partnership, management, and metrics for supporting adoption
and integration (Caniato et al. 2012).

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Various management innovations of Nike for sustainable growth initiated internally, in
the context of Corporate Responsibility. As the focus stretched externally there has been a
reinvention of supplier, business relationships and industry. Persuasion of an agenda of strictly
disruptive innovation and efforts for systematic change are looked forward to.
Incorporation of an environmental dimension
The formation of the Nike Environmental Action Team or NEAT was in the year 1993.
The primary mission being to develop solutions and answers as to whether production of Nike,
as a whole poses a threat to the environment and aimed at integration of solutions to the business
practices of the company ("Just Fix It: How Nike Learned to Embrace Sustainability", 2017).
The physical surroundings and nature was taken into account. The application though, was not
fully fledged. There have been a number of activities relating to sustainability like elimination of
polyvinyl chloride from the products as it was hazardous in manufacturing and disposal.
The growth strategy of the company has been targeting a low content of the usage of
carbon. The Fly knit technology skillfully arranges each stitch of the shoe uppers to bring utmost
performance and it has been better than the traditional cut and sew method as it produces less
waste by more than 50%.
There has been an inclination of the company to move towards the aim of producing zero
waste by recycling items such as plastics to make new products (Porteous and Rammohan 2013).
Communication of Nike’s strategy to the consumers and retailers
The Direct–to-Customer strategy can be proved advantageous many a times. Making the
use of internet, social media, mobile, apps, digital channels, e-mails, e-commerce there has been
a direct communication with the customers, which has helped to drive the growth in future. As a

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result of e-commerce, the customer support has been more direct, differentiating from the
traditional brand experience. All approaches have a positive as well as a negative side (Close
2012).
Decisions suggested, which would facilitate Nike, to achieve marketing leadership:
Decision: Firstly, the company should find out, with the help of a market research, about the
weaknesses of the Competitor Brands. Identification and making use of the Unique Selling Point
by the company is of immense use.
Rationale: The company can use the “weaknesses” of the competitor brands as an advantage.
The products which are not produced by the competitor brand in the market, or being produced
at an inferior rate or quality, can be used as a point of attention by the company to achieve
marketing leadership.
Decision: Secondly, the territorial expansion of the competitor brands should be taken into
consideration.
Rationale: Developing and marketing in the areas where there are no competitor brands or they
are less in number, would help the company to achieve marketing leadership.
Decision: Thirdly, there should be communication between the producers and the consumers, by
different means like social media, company websites, et cetera, and the views of the consumers
should be given importance.
Rationale: When the view of the consumer is being communicated to the company, and it is paid
heed to. There is high probability that the company will be appreciated by the public, which in
turn will help the company to achieve marketing leadership.

7MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
The Direct–to-Customer strategy can be proved advantageous many a times. Making the
use of internet, social media, mobile, apps, digital channels, e-mails, e-commerce there has been
a direct communication with the customers, which has helped to drive the growth in future. As a
result of e-commerce, the customer support has been more direct, differentiating from the
traditional brand experience.
Analysis to demonstrate the advantages of leadership
Leadership in business is an important factor, in order to generate profitability and
productivity in an effective as well as an efficient manner. Leadership is important for not only
building the power and strength of the organization but also helps in the management of
resources and relationships (Aaker and Joachimsthaler 2012).
A perceptual map is one of the strongest visual representations to support a brand
positioning strategy. Position of the brand is a set of perception, ideas or impression of the
consumers in relation to other competing brands (Wang 2015). This helps in identification of
market opportunities and competitive advantage, assessment of strength and weaknesses in
comparison with the competitive brands; it shows the shift of the ideal points ("Nike Mission
Statement | Nike Help", 2017)..
Value driven leadership is the leader’s conscious commitment at every level, to proceed
with their values, aiming at the creation of a corporate culture and making the best use of ethical
practice, financial performance, environmental impact and social contribution. Value driven
companies stand out and lead in the market, creating value for all stakeholders, like employees,
customers, and shareholders.

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The Decision Model makes the best use of models of business process by elimination of
complexity, separating all the declarative (what) elements from the procedural (how) elements
(Jakhar 2015). The graphic notation of the Decision Model helps in understanding and
illustrating provisional knowledge by revealing inferential relationships (Mahdi et al. 2015).
Conclusion
There can be different approaches to deal with the problems of sustainability, poor work
conditions, low wage rate of the workers, high cost products in comparison to competitive
brands, negative media attention. The main goal has been gaining the leading role in athletic and
sports market by increasing the market share for targeted consumers.
The leadership strategy in pricing offers or caters to the need of the customers and it is
valued hence, there is high pricing of the products to serve the niche market.
Leadership in outsourcing strategy: Nike has been a believer of outsourcing of
manufacturing of products. This can be contended because the company has agreements with
various countries like Brazil, China, Japan and others.

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References
Aaker, D.A. and Joachimsthaler, E., 2012. Brand leadership. Simon and Schuster.
About Nike - The official corporate website for NIKE, Inc. and its affiliate brands..
(2017). About.nike.com. Retrieved 7 October 2017, from https://about.nike.com/
Caniato, F., Caridi, M., Crippa, L. and Moretto, A., 2012. Environmental sustainability in
fashion supply chains: An exploratory case based research. International journal of production
economics, 135(2), pp.659-670.
Close, A.G. ed., 2012. Online consumer behavior: theory and research in social media,
advertising and e-tail. Routledge.
Jakhar, S.K., 2015. Performance evaluation and a flow allocation decision model for a
sustainable supply chain of an apparel industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 87, pp.391-413.
Just Fix It: How Nike Learned to Embrace Sustainability. (2017). The Business of Fashion.
Retrieved 7 October 2017, from https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/people/just-fix-it-
hannah-jones-nike
Leavy, B., 2012. Updating a classic formula for strategic success: focus, alignment, repeatability
and leadership. Strategy & Leadership, 41(1), pp.18-28.
Mahdi, A., Abbas, M., Mazar, T.I. and George, S.A., 2015. A comparative analysis of strategies
and business models of Nike, Inc. and Adidas Group with special reference to competitive
advantage in the context of a dynamic and competitive environment. International Journal of
Business Management and Economic Research, 6(3), pp.167-177.

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Meyvis, T., Goldsmith, K. and Dhar, R., 2012. The importance of the context in brand extension:
how pictures and comparisons shift consumers' focus from fit to quality. Journal of Marketing
Research, 49(2), pp.206-217.
Nike Mission Statement | Nike Help. (2017). Help-en-us.nike.com. Retrieved 13 October 2017,
from https://help-en-us.nike.com/app/answer/a_id/113
Porteous, A. and Rammohan, S., 2013, November. Integration, Incentives and Innovation Nike’s
Strategy to Improve Social and Environmental Conditions in its Global Supply Chain. Stanford
University Global Management Supply Chain Forum.
Wang, C.H., 2015. A market-oriented approach to accomplish product positioning and product
recommendation for smart phones and wearable devices. International Journal of Production
Research, 53(8), pp.2542-2553.

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Appendices
NIKE MISSION STATEMENT
Nike’s mission statement is "To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world."
Positioning Map:
Figure 1
A perceptual map is one of the strongest visual representations to support a brand
positioning strategy. Position of the brand is a set of perception, ideas or impression of the
consumers in relation to other competing brands.
Value driven leadership is the leader’s conscious commitment at every level, to proceed
with their values, aiming at the creation of a corporate culture and making the best use of ethical
practice, financial performance, environmental impact and social contribution.

12MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
Figure 2: Value leadership framework
The Decision Model makes the best use of models of business process by elimination of
complexity, separating all the declarative (what) elements from the procedural (how) elements
(Jakhar 2015). The graphic notation of the Decision Model helps in understanding and
illustrating provisional knowledge by revealing inferential relationships.

13MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
Figure 3:
Decision model
To bring
inspiration and
innovation to
every athlete*
in the world
Information is
gathered
An assessment of
strengths and
risks are done, as
well as a working
strategy is
developed.
The powers and
policies are
considered
The contingencies
and options are
identified. action
is taken and
reviewd.