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Topic: Marketing-(Nike, Inc. ) Introduction Nike was the Goddess of victory in Greek mythology. In 1978 an athlete runner Philip Knight and his coach, Bill Bowerman renamed their small sportswear company as Nike. Since then, the business has increased dramatically. At present Nike, Inc. has already become a major public traded sportswear and equipment supplier in the United States. It is the world’s leading supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sport equipment with revenue in excess of IJS$ 24,13 billion in last year 2012. (Nike,lnc. reports fiscal 2013) .
Nike as a most successful company in the world. It must have a well marketing management that can perfectly identify and anticipates customer requirement and satisfy them. There are many marketing elements that must have led Nike to become such a powerful brand. This study will analyse the Nike’s marketing mix and its market orientation, in addition a conclusion for marketing of Nike. Marketing mix According to the concept of marketing mix (Neil Borden 1953), marketing mix was defined as an instrument to analyse product, price, place and promotion in order to establish relationships with customers.
Product is seen as an item that can satisfy what a consumer demand that includes tangible goods and intangible service. Promotion means all of the methods of communication that marketers use to deliver information to different communities about the product. Place represents the location where the tangible and/or intangible products are provided for customers. Price is a sum of money that a customer pays for the product. Product: In order to satlsTy tne consumers aemana, NIKe Tlrst provides a w10e range of products that involves all aspects of different sport areas for their customer.
This eans all the customers could be satisfied by Nike’s products, no matter what the needs of the people. Nike has all the equipment for them. Secondly, According to the company’s mission statement: to bring inspiration an innovation to every athlete in the world, Nike also makes high quality and environmental goods with most new technology, a good example is the basketball shoe, it utilises the Nike Flywire, Nike Zoom, Nike Air technique that loosens or tightens with the natural notion of the foot and provides support, protection and stability.
These techniques can ensure the player has greatest performance in the game. Moreover Nike deem fashion is really crucial factor for any products, therefore Nike hire famous designers to design its product and also providing variety of colors and styles for its customers, that makes more and more people are attracted by Nike’s product and using them every day, even though they were first designed for athletes. Hence, Nike has perfectly satisfied their customers by supplying a variable, high quality, technological, and fashionable product.
Price: Nike uses premium-pricing strategy. The premium pricing strategy is the application of a fixed price based on the quality of the product. This has made Nike o set relatively higher price than its competitors. This strategy focuses on the consumers who think high quality is more important than the cheap price, and also those who like Nike Company more. This means Nike has to spend more money to build a good company reputation and image such as TV advertisement, celebrity endorsement, sponsoring charitable activities. These can be another reasons for the high price products.
In fact this strategy seems to be working very well, as most people who choose to purchase Nike commodities accesses that they are ready for their prices since they feel that Nike is reasonable. Hampy, 2006). Place: Nike sells its products directly and also uses distributors and e-commercial. When selling its products directly, the company has created the idea of Nike towns in different parts of the USA, in order to contact with clients directly and can therefore analyse consumer behaviours. This also can help to measure the level of demand for a particular product. These data play a significant role in their marketing strategy.
Furthermore, a right method of distribution might help the company save many valuable resources, but there are also many drawbacks, for instance, if Nike hires a elivering company to take commodities to customer. The customer may expect that delivery companies can do it as fast as possible, this may cost Nike a great sum of money to acquire such a good delivery. Moreover, in case the deliveries are damaged or delayed accidently, the clients will tend to blame Nike for the damage or delay, instead of the delivery company. This will harm the reputation of Nike. Lastly, Nike has been using a successful e-commercial over last two decades.
The first e- commercial site was launched in April 1999 by providing over 65 styles of sport roducts to the US market for purchasing (Nike, 2013). This helps the promotion of NIKes products all over tne glooe. Promotion: Nike used to sponsor numerous sport celebrities to publicise their product. Such as Kobe Bryant in basketball, Tiger woods in golf, Federer in tennis. This is a really effective approach to improve awareness, and image of the brand. For example, if a celebrity athlete sponsors a specific brand of athletic shoes, the brand will be associated with success.
Besides that, there are also many popular Nike advertisement that spread all over the word, however advertisements do have some isadvantages; they do not target specific customers, and information are received by those who happen to be at a certain location, who are likely not to purchase the product, and this may waste the company’s resources. However, this may be not happened with Nike’s products, as their commodities fit any category of people, as the company mission statement: to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world, If you have a body you are an athlete. (Bill Bowerman, Nike Co-founder).
Additionally, in recent years, because social media is cheap, easy and influential, it provides a crucial promotion platform for Nike. Nike uses Facebook and Twitter to deliver the promotion information to their client, and receives feedback form their customers. This two-way communication can makes Nike select more important and accurate data from customers. All these promotion activities certainly make Nike become the most recognisable brand in the world. Market orientations This theory is to consider the demand and interest of customers, organizations and societies in order to find out which market orientation best suites the company.
There are five parts of orientations. 1 . Production-This concept believes that customers prefer products that are both idely available and inexpensive. The marketer should concentrate on reaching high production efficiency, low costs and mass distribution. This concept normally makes sense in developing countries, where consumers only want get the cheap products. 2. Products-This orientation focus on supplying products that provides the best quality, performance and innovative features. However it might sometimes not really fulfill the customer demand. . Selling-This concept means the company is more interested in selling and promoting, they keep promoting their products to stimulate more buying. 4. Marketing-This orientation concentrate on the company’s customer needs and what they want in order to makes the company better than its competitors. 5. Social Responsible Marketing-This orientation holds that in order to reach organlsatlon’s goal, tne organlsatlon not only prov10es a nlgn quallty products, It also should reinforce social and ethical values fore the benefit of citizens.
I think there is no doubt that Nike as an organization is market- orientated. According to Phil Knight, COE Nike (2009) answered in an interview that for years we considered ourselves as a product-orientated company however, we now understand the most mportant thing is the consumers as they lead the innovation. They believe that the consumers’ needs and wants is their most important marketing tool. This can be certainly proved by it offer variety products which cover nearly all areas in order to fulfill different needs of people.
A good example is the Nike+ iPod. Nike realised there are some customers used to track their runner’s space on their iPod, therefore Nike generates some products that have been installed with a radio device that can connect to their iPod and measuring their running distance automatically, however the price does not change that much. Besides that, all Nike’s products were designed to be fashionable, this can satisfy those who are not an athlete, but only want a beautiful shoe, then the idea of create you own shoe come out.
The customer can design their own shoes on Nike website, the customer can choose and colors and styles they like, and Nike makes it for them. Therefore, no matter who you are, what you want, there always is a Nike product suit you, as you are the most importance for Nike (Phil Knight 2009). This orientation certainly helps Nike earn more marketing, because in the present society, customers have variety of choices. Whether can satisfy the demand of consumers is the most crucial factor to influence the consumer decision-making process. Alet C Erasmus, Elizabeth Boshoff and GG Rousseau2001) Conclusion From the about study, we had understanding the Nike is market orientation company, it deem consumer’s needs and wants are most crucial elements for its marketing strategy. Besides that, we also analyzed Nike’s product, price, promotion, and place base on marketing mix theory. Then we sought out that Nike generates a verity of high quality, fashionable and functional products. And it has built a most ecognizable band and a high company reputation and image through by social media, advertisements and celebrity endorsement.
These factors lead to Nike became such a successful company. In the future, Nike will continue the principle in order to satisfy more and more customer. world count: 1 Reference: 1. Hampy, J. (2006): Reengineering the Nike Corporation: A Manifesto for Business marketing in Nike, Harper 2. Kohli, A. K. & Jaworski, B. J. (1990). Market Orientation: The Construct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications. The Journal of Marketing, 54(2),1-18. 3. Ruekert, Robert W. 1992). Developing a Market Orientation: An Organizational Strategy Perspective.
International Journal of Research in Marketing, 9(3),225-45. 4. Nike,inc. reports fiscal (2013) fourth quarter and full year results. Available at http://nikeinc. com/news/nike-inc-reports-fiscal-2012-fourth- quarter-and-full-year-results. [accessed 11/08/2013] 5. Nike elevates global e commerce strategy (2013). Available at http://nikeinc. com/news/nike-inc-elevates- global-e-commerce-strategy [accessed 11/08/2013] 6. Ruekert, Robert W. (1992). Developing a Market Orientation: An Organizational Strategy Perspective. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 9(3),225-45. . Phil Knight, CEO Nike on product marketing (2009) available at http://www. marketinginprogress. com/ 2009/04/16/phil-knight-nike-ceo-on-product-marketing/[accessed 1 1108/2013] 8. Borden, Neil H. (1964), “The Concept of the Marketing Mix,” Journal of Advertising Research, 4 (2), 2-7. 9. Naylor, J. (2004), ‘Management marketing’ in Management 2ed. prennce Hall, PP 520-554. 10. Erasmus, C, A, Boshoff, E and Rousseau GG (2001), ‘Consumer decision-making models within the discipline of consumer science: a critical approach’ Journal of Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences, Vol 29.