Nike - The brand's journey.

Branding 

Nike - How did they do it?

History 

Nike was founded in January 1964 and was originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), it was created by a track athlete from the University of Oregon, Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowman. The company initially operated as an organisation that distributed for a Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger - which is now ASICS. Within the first year of business RBS sold 1300 units for the Japanese running shoe, making a gross profit of $8,000. However by 1965 ‘RBS’ has recruited some full time employment and sales reached a more respected $20,000 by the end of that year. To prevent the employee’s from having to sell from the boots of their cars, they opened their first retail store in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1966. Nearer 1971 the relationship between RBS and Tiger was coming to an end but BRS bounced back by releasing its own line of footwear, which had the ‘swoosh’ which was newly designed by Carolyn Davidson and re-branded by changing the name to ‘Nike’. In 1976 the company hired John Brown and Partners as their first advertising agency which were based in Seattle. The following year Nike created its first ad called ‘there is no finish line’ This was the first ad which showed what the company was about and gave the consumers an idea of the brand image. By 1980, Nike had attained 50% market share in the US. The founder of Nike’s advertising agency Dan Weiden cam up with the simple yet very effective slogan ; ‘just do it’ in 1988. During the 1980’s Nike continued to expand and release different products to satisfy athletes of many different sports and regions. But it was during this decade they got some very valued celebrity endorsement on boar - Michael Jordan, who helped make record breaking sales and sponsored the likes of Tiger Woods in 1996. Nike kept launching new editions of their landmark training shoes. They developed Nike Shox in 2000 which was very well recieved worldwide. Today Nike is a vast empire which encorporates various sports like tennis, baseball, soccer, cricket and athletics. Phil Knight’s innovative business mind and Bill Bowman’s drive to find better solutions has resulted in Nike being one of the most profitable and well recognised brands on the planet. in 2012, their annual revenue was more than $24 billion dollars. Nike today has over 44,000 employee’s and is a brand valued at around $10billion dollars. 

Target Audience 

Back in the day Nike or RBS as it was once known as, was all about providing for athletes and sports people. The brand image is still similar and the brand continues to provide sport wear for their active target audience. These days Nike have noticed an increase in demand with female consumers. Nike have been increasing production in sports bra’s and sport tights which are very popular in the active female. Nike says that the woman’s line has the potential to add $2billion to sales by 2017. Another market segment that Nike target are children. Sport is a very common hobby with kids at school. Nike provide sports wear for kids to support through many sporting leagues, clubs and federations. And because Nike have managed to get all the big stars and children's idols in Nike wear this influences their desire to want nike clothes when playing sports to look like their role models! When Nike released the ‘LunarTempo’s’ in 2014, these were very popular with runners, which are another huge target audience for Nike. 

Future Plans 

In 2018 Nike have plans to expand their head quarters, near Beaverton, Oregon as they brand is constantly expanding they’ll need room for more employee’s etc.