The below work is based on marketing principles and practice in order to identify the role of marketing strategies and programs in achieving organisational objectives. The chosen company is Nike and answers of marketing elements have been given on basis of company’s case study. Nike, Inc. is the multinational corporation of America that deals in the design, development, production and sales of apparel, footwear, accessories and equipments. The company was founded by Bill Bowerman and Phill and Knight on 25th January in the year 1964. The company is highly renowned for its sponsorships of many high profile athletes and sports teams across the world with their highly recognized Swoosh logo and “just do it” tagline. The below discussion has revealed some of the significant marketing aspects of company with the help of several marketing principles.
A brand is a name, logo, design or a slogan that is associated with a product or a service in order to create a unique name and image for a product in the minds of customers. In this regard, Nike’s mission statement defines the main motto of its brand and it is “Bring inspiration to every athlete”. The brand logo of company is swoosh and is one of the most easily recognised brand logos across the globe. The success of company lies in its capability to understand the mechanism behind how innovation can be utilised to reinforce brand identity (Maurya and Mishra, 2012). It promotes its brand on social media too as each sub brand of Nike has its own facebook page. For instance, if a person wants to have more information regarding the latest basketball shoes or game can look up for Nike basketball facebook page (Pride, 2017).
An effective product strategy is contemplated as the main foundation of the product life cycle as it is the road map of a product. The main product strategy of Nike is to have majority of sportsmen customers as sports shoes are the most renowned products from Nike. Also, the company’s strategy is to become known for its innovative and superb quality products (Kapferer, 2004). Initially, the company got huge success due to its technical superiority of its running and basketball shoes. The company perceives that the product is its most effective marketing tool and they always stay ahead of its competitors through product innovation. The NPD of Nike includes 7 steps namely; idea generation, idea screening, feature specification, development, testing, launch and evaluation. The company is known to be the major giant in the sports and fitness sector products that range from shoes, sports equipments, accessories and apparels (Sanusi, et al., 2017). The product development process of the company begins with understanding the needs of customers and lastly, the company makes sure that the product meets the needs of customers before its market launch.
The promotional strategy of a company can be regarded as the choice of the target market in order to attract huge traffic towards the product of a company. The promotional strategy of Nike includes celebrities in order to represent the ideal customer as its advertisements present highly popular personalities and famous athletes (Chowdhury, 2013). For example, some of the celebrities who have endorsed Nike’s products may include Cristiano Ronaldo, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Maria Sharapova, Roger Federer and many more. The company’s personal selling efforts happen in its physical stores as the store personnel are properly trained to deal with customers and assist them to know about company’s products to make an instant purchase. Apart from this, the sales promotions of company are basically in the form of coupons and special offers which are given to target customers. Nike is hardly known for its public relations in marketing communications as it uses its marketing communications to promote its products and services to frame new customers as well as to retain existing customers (Deng, 2009).
The organisational culture of a company is the amalgamation of habits, customs, traditions, values as well as behavioural expectations among the employees. Nike is known for its powerful organisational culture as it is known for its effective policies and strategies to promote a corporate culture that reinforce competence and business resilience. Basically, its organisational culture is formulated on creativity and innovation to impart services to customers as per the preferences (Mahdi, Abbas and Mazar, 2015). Some of the important characteristics of company’s organisational culture may include talent, diversity and inclusivity. The company is known for its good and caring nature as it takes care of the needs of its employees and makes sure that the products of company are environmentally sustainable. Also, it encourages its employees to manufacture the best quality of goods to provide real value to its customers so that they can be retained with the services of company for longer time (Nisen, 2013).
An effective marketing streaky means that how a company can offer its products and services to satisfy the needs and requirements of its target market while ethical marketing is the key element that makes sure that the needs are genuine and products are doing the justice with those needs (Aaker and McLoughlin, 2007). The company dominates the sales in the athletic footwear industry with 33% global market share and the company has ensured its growth by running successful marketing campaigns. For example, the company made several efforts on major sporting events such as World Cup, the next generation of celebrity endorsers like Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong and many female players of WNBA (Women’s Professional Basketball). Besides this, the company took the lead in e- commerce by being the first one to provide its services on the website as it launched its website in April, 1999 in US and now, its objective is to open an online shop for the Japanese market as well to serve Japanese customers.
It is perceived that ethical behaviour and CSR can bring lots of advantages to a company while an unethical behaviour can even ruin its reputation. The company was in limelight due its severe unethical practices like the company did not adapt to clean air standards as well as employees were compelled to work overtime and they were punished if they refused to do so. This ruined company’s image in the minds of its customers which even impacted its marketing strategy as the customers thought that how the company can make its customers happy when it is exploiting its employees. To resolve this issue, the company stopped these practices and made a delighted work environment to please its employees so that they can serve the customers in the best possible manner (Epstein, Buhovac and Yuthas, 2012).
Now, the company has adopted its new approach to new trends and technologies without making any kind of compromise in the core of their identity or brand voice. To attain this, the company embraces new technologies such as it makes use of social media platform for its effective marketing activities. The company uses social media platform like Instagram and Facebook to raise its voice and market its products among the customers in masses. basically, the company deals in shoes, apparels and other equipments but beyond this, Nike markets a way of life by its sports culture and a “just do it” attitude. The main objective of company is to become a good producer of athletic gear and this is the main reason that it invests in huge range of less famous sports. Although, this provides less lucrative marketing strategy to company but it makes it as a good and caring company. the company’s brand logo “swoosh” is the key marketing aspect of company but the sales of company has backslashed as the swoosh is becoming too common to be cool. To revive its sales and goodwill in the market, Nike is getting back to the basics and laying emphasis on innovation, development of new product lines, creation of sub brands and deemphasizing the swoosh to reinvent its marketing strategy and attain its major objectives (Hooley, et al., 2001).
Marketing concepts and principles which are used in Nike’s daily organisational operations can be understood in a better manner with the help of below information:
Product: The product is the physical commodity or a service provided by company. Nike uses this product concept to offer a wide range of shoe, apparel and equipment products. It introduces new lines of products in a timely manner to satisfy the needs and wants of its customers. Apart from sports apparels, the company has started launching fashion apparels to grab the eyes of maximum number of individuals (Kotler and Keller, 2009).
Price: The price is given to company by the customers to get the product and the company uses its price design to be competitive to the other fashion shoe retailer. Also, it uses the approach of premium pricing for those customers who are highly influenced by company’s products and are ready to pay any premium price to get Nike’s products (Rangan, 2006).
Place: Place is use to distribute the product where it can be accessible to its target buyers. Nike makes use of its physical stores as well as e- commerce platforms to make its products accessible to its buyers. This is the first company that initiated e- commerce platform in US and took the first mover advantage and now, it uses this platform to attract huge traffic of customers (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2007).
Promotion: Promotion helps to boost brand recognition and sales and Nike uses celebrity brand endorsement to promote its products. Also, the company makes use of social media platform to market its products among the masses (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2007). One can see the Instagram account of company to get its daily updates. Besides this, the company uses the technique of sales promotion and personal selling to ensure the effective promotion of its products and services.
People: People consist of both target market and other individuals directly related to the business. Nike basically targets individuals who are associated to any sports to boost its sales. On the contrary to this, the company also considers its employees in this aspect as employees are the main asset of a company and it has suffered a lot in the past due to bad image as a result of unethical practices. Now, it considers its employees in every aspect to satisfy and encourage them to perform in a better manner (Parthasarthy, 2008).
Processes: The processes include a system that is employed to deliver a value service to its customers. In this regard, the company uses the processes which may reduce the energy used for transportation in order to reduce the impact of resulting climate change. This helps company to main an effective and positive CSR image as this ensures that the company is environmentally sustainable (Michman Mazze and Greco, 2003).
Physical evidence: It is a kind of evidence that ensures that the service is delivered and liked by customers. Nike does this by showing demonstrations of its new products before they are actually out (Carbasho, 2010).
STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning) is an important strategic approach in modern marketing and the below information has included the use of STP by Nike.
Segmentation: Segmentation is the process of understanding that why people buy a specific product or a service and which of these people can be best satisfied by the company. The segmentation can be demographic, psychographic, behavioural and many more. Nike uses geographic segmentation to please the customers of USA, UK, India and Malaysia while it uses its demographic segmentation to please its customers who are associated with any kind of sport (Carbasho, 2010).
Targeting: Targeting involves the kind of customers that the company target to get huge traffic and the company mainly targets sports customers. This is the main reason that the company uses celebrity endorsements for its effective marketing strategy as it chooses renowned sports persons to advertise its products and services among the people in masses (Carbasho, 2010).
Positioning: Positioning is the way a product is defined by customers on the basis of its important attributes. Nike uses this positioning strategy to become a renowned sports brand across the world to serve the people who are techno savvy or associated with sports. (Carbasho, 2010)
Marketing research is done by Nike to know the preferences and needs of its customers so that they can be fulfilled with an ease. The company makes use of market research before it actually launch its product in the market as it launches a trailer of its product on social media to know the reviews and opinions of different individuals regarding the product. This helps company to add some more features in the product or do some modifications as per the choices of its customers (Kotler and Keller, 2009).
Apart from this, the company makes use of marketing research to identify qualified suppliers to ensure the best quality of products. Constant marketing approach is a crucial key to assess the market and grab the maximum market share. Currently, Nike is planning to start its five structures within apparel division to lay emphasis on the following regions:
In this way, the company would be capable enough to recognize the genuine needs and wants of customers.
Marketing is a cross-functional business aspect that depends much on, and creating links with other business functions in an organisation to be successful. Marketing function is related to the different functional areas of an organisation, such as finance, human resources, manufacturing and so on. With respect to the cross functional relationship of marketing with finance, it is considerable that every marketing plan has a financial aspect. Cost and profit for the product or product lines are expressed in monetary values and budgets are required for executing strategies (Miu, et al., 2012). Moreover, a lot of marketing decisions are considered as investment and whenever a new product is introduced, financial instruments are utilised for evaluating the investment. However, the cross functional relationship between marketing and finance is not limited to the use of financial input in marketing planning, rather marketing approach is also used for making financial decisions. (refer appendix 1). For example, when Nike faced issues in developing to global markets and the finances declined in other international markets. The company applied its marketing philosophy to its soccer business; listen to athletes and give them what they want. Also, finance department is Nike maintains a relationship with the marketing department by coming up with correct budget and sales figures that help the company to grow.
Moreover, the connection between marketing and production is also dual one. This is because on one hand, production abilities identify the type and number of products which can be marketed, while on the other hand, a more precise forecast of sales for each product and product line is required for effective production operations (refer appendix 2) (Wind, 2005). With reference to Nike also, it is also notable that the company understands that marketing is not just about promotional hype and promises, rather it is concerned with delivering value to customers. The company effectively manages the functional relationship of marketing with other departments. For example, the initial success of the company is the outcome of its technical superiority of the running and basketball shoes that were targeted to athletes irritated with lack of innovation in athletic equipment. This innovative product development was possible because of effective marketing research and understanding of client’s needs.
Additionally, the R&D efforts of an organisation also needs to closely linked to the marketing efforts. The connection between these two functions of the organisation spin around the new product development attempts. The different stages of new product development stages, ranging from idea generation to the final product creation stage, demands close connection between marketing and R&D (Wind, 2005) (refer appendix 3). The basics of Nike clearly explains the relationship with marketing department and R&D department of the company. The basics of Nike are to focus on innovation by creating product lines that satisfy the existing and unseen needs of customers.
Another functional area in Nike, which is related to the marketing department is personnel department, which is related to recruiting, training and management of suitable marketing personnel. Even though assisted in this function by marketing management, the key duty for the marketing personnel process is, in many organisations, in the hands of the personnel department (refer appendix 4). Marketing department needs to work together with the personnel department for generating job descriptions, assessing candidates and creating training programs as well as incentive systems (Deshpandé and Farley, 1998). It is notable that the effective and successful marketing strategies of Nike are the result of its skilled and talented employees. Nike with the help of its personnel a sports culture, a way of life and the Just Do it attitude. With the help of skilled personnel, the company promotes itself as a good and caring company and not just as a sport organisation.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that marketing strategies play a significant role in the attainment of organisational objectives with an ease. Also, the organisational structure of company has been discussed in the above mentioned section and how it helps company to attain its marketing strategies. In context to this, several kinds of different marketing concepts have been discussed in regard to company’s operations to reveal that how these principles are used in Nike’s daily organisational operations. In nutshell, the relationships of the marketing functions to other functional areas in Nike have been explicated with the help of different instances.
References
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