Nike: A Case Study Of Nike's Marketing Strategy

Introduction

Nike is the brand in the case study. It was founded on the 25th of January 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports by athlete and MBA student Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman. The company initially operated as a distributor for a Japanese shoe maker until 1971 when it began manufacturing its own products. (Knight, 2016)

Nike’s headquarters are in Beaverton, Oregon and has 74000 employees worldwide. Nike works with 554 independent contract factories in 42 countries with a total of 1017345 workers to manufacture its products. (Anon., 2018).Nike Inc. owns subsidiaries such as Converse Inc., Hurley International, Starter and Umbro which help execute its market segmenting strategy effectively.

Nike is known for its swoosh logo and ‘Just

This approach involves selecting retail outlets that cater for a specific target market (C. Lamb, 2015). Although Nike is found in most shops, it is not available in all of them. Most of Nike’s products can be found in stores that sell athletic apparel such as Sports Scene, Edgars and Studio 88 (Siso, 2015). As stated in the case study, Nike’s primary target market is athletes. However, their products have not been restricted to sportswear but rather to a variety of high quality products that appeal to a broad demographic (age, gender, income bracket). These products include items such as jumpsuits for toddler, running shoes and fashionable branded sneakers. By doing so, they have earned themselves a large share of the market.

The selective distribution intensity used by Nike makes the brand accessible to a broader range of consumers who are within the athletic and casual wear

The five methods of transport are railroads, road haulage, pipelines, ocean freight and air freight.

Nike transports its items to local distribution centres to supply retail stores using air freight. The use of this mode of transport guarantees low travel time which means consumers have instantaneous access to products.

Nike uses ocean freight to make quarterly deliveries. Ocean freight is less expensive than air freight and it has a larger storage capacity. This enables Nike to cut costs while distributing large quantities of their products.

Inventory control

An inventory control framework is one that creates and maintains an abundant assortment of items to satisfy clients ' requests. (C. Lamb, 2015). Nike uses various networks, suppliers and distribution centres to acquire useful information in order to maintain an adequate supply of inventory that meets customers’ needs.

Nike also uses a computer system that organises production and distribution to track movement of inventory to avoid loss.

Product Changes

Technological