Search results matching tag 'Nike'

The Great Indian Rope Trick!

628994 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:40:00 GMT

The headlines about the growth of the Indian economy are eye catching, even extraordinary by modern standards. It’s all too easy to be seduced by the romance and promise of India on your first visit.

For 2009/10 gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to top 6.9 percent, India is the third largest economy in the world according to the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) Index of industrial and emerging nations and cumulative direct foreign investment (FDI) is at record levels, soon to break the $100 billion barrier.

It’s predicted that by 2025 the ‘rural deprived’ will drop from 65% of the total rural population in India to 29%. Overall, it’s estimated that nearly 300m people will move out of poverty over this period when the population will increase by 322m. In effect this means that India will have 465m fewer poor by 2025 than if the poverty rate remained at 2005 levels and over a billion less poor people than if the rate had remained stuck at 1985 levels.

The story of India as one of the world’s largest private consumption markets is seductive for many western companies looking to boost sales against a background of weak domestic demand.

CEOs of successful companies are often seduced by the headline numbers but often fail to appreciate that India is land of contradictions.

For example, it’s often assumed that the growing ‘upper middle class’ provides the most profitable customer segment for Western companies looking to do business in India in many categories.

Wrong.

India’s demand structure manifests itself in many counter-intuitive ways – which some commentators call the great India rope trick of numbers! The fact is that lower income groups spend more money cumulatively than other groups for many products, so simply targeting the wealthy will seriously limit your potential.

About 650m people live on less than US $2 a day but account for 33 percent of all consumption and 20 percent of all savings. Income is US $840 billion (PPP) or equivalent to that of South Africa and 90% of Hong Kong’s. They may be poor, but not backward. They are innovative, savvy and embrace technology just like other better-off consumers.

The question is can you add value to their lives and make money out of it as well?

It’s often said that success leaves a trail. But so too does failure.

A good example of not getting it right first time - and perhaps this is even more surprising given its marketing savvy – is Nike’s experience in India.

In 2004, the sports footwear and apparel giant attempted to translate its dominance of the US sportswear market where it enjoyed 40% market share to the Indian market.

It failed.

Nike wasn’t sufficiently aggressive in penetrating the Indian market.

Its marketing budget wasn’t that high, it used standardised promotions using Michael Jordan who wasn’t that well known in India and Nike was relatively slow in introducing the Indian market to the latest designs.

Its competitor Reebok, on the other hand, had a dual market entry strategy: low cost shoes and a brand for women. As a result, sales have doubled since 2004 from US $59m to over US $100m today. Last year the largest Reebok store in the world opened in Hyderabad in Southern India.

Closer to home, UK-based Home Retail Group (HRG), owners of catalogue and mail order business Argos have recently decided not to develop the pilot scheme they had been running.

HRG had entered into a joint venture with Indian retail partners HyperCity and Shoppers’ Stop back in 2005 for six stores outside of Mumbai plus a telephone and internet ordering service.

However, the venture had problems from the start: out of town locations, delays in shipments and stock-outs were just a few of the difficulties.

Most analysts agree that its market entry strategy was flawed: limited stock, very thin catalogue, no differentiation in-store from local competitors, semi-skilled customer service people in stores on low wages with a sales incentive failed to achieve sales targets.

Argos had made the classic mistake. It had over relied on the strength of its brand, just as Nike had done five years earlier - as a reason for pulling in Indian consumers to buy electric kettles at premium prices – it didn’t happen!

Perhaps we need to ask if the pilot scheme actually reflected the true nature of the Argos business model and that perhaps with a re-think they might turn this around. They wouldn’t be the first.

Argos was defeated by stronger local Indian rivals such as Big Bazaar and hadn’t set out to re-establish itself in the Indian market – its market entry strategy was from the totally wrong perspective - ‘inside-out’ rather than from the perspective of its customers - ‘outside-in’. And this resulted in a financial loss of up to £10m.

These examples illustrate an important truth about India.

And that is you have to set out to discover “Your India”. Brands need to reinvent themselves for the Indian mass market if they are to have any chance of generating profitable incremental growth.

And they need to take the long-term view rather than expect to unlock a treasure trove of riches overnight.

We believe that the journey starts with doing your homework and effective executive education that will prepare you for the unexpected.

Guru in a Bottle and IndiaSavvy has developed a pragmatic one day workshop focussed on understanding the Indian consumer and market dynamics by combining IndiaSavvy’s India expertise and Guru in a Bottle’s sales and marketing training expertise in the UK.

Richard Perry, CEO of IndiaSavvy explains: “Our executive education programme often involves building a team ethic for the clients ‘India team’ that will allow them to win support across the company for the India venture”.

In many cases, the Indian venture needs to be integrated into existing company activities.

And unlike many other training initiatives, we make a big effort to get senior management to understand the realities of doing business in India in an open environment that allows all ideas and concerns to be raised and dealt with.

“We have success in getting senior managers working with the same information, sharing learning and knowledge, developing a clear strategy to be promoted to all employees and ensuring that resources are made available within strict project management guidelines,” adds Perry.

IndiaSavvy has people on the ground in India in order to carry out independent due diligence that often forms the basis for a ‘go, no‐go’ decision on the implementation of a proposed project in India. “We work with one of the leading business intelligence and risk management experts in India, as the basis of being savvy about the market” says Perry.

Ultimately, we help companies build a strategy, manage risk exposure and help build the capability of their team based on senior management backing and realism about operations in India.

And it’s no Indian rope trick.

FA apes Nike ad to increase participation

1715701 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:05:00 GMT

Seems this ad may be a tad old but I only saw it over the weekend and think it's worth a look.

The FA is running a viral and TV campaign urging players to get back into the game 'whatever your level'.

It apes Nikes award winning 'Take it to the next level' ad, directed by Guy Ritchie, which tracks the progress of a young player through the Arsenal youth team, first team and finally into the Dutch national team.

Watch the campaign here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qknteb8Klo

Nike learns lesson number one of social media, the hard way

2371004 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:23:00 GMT

Apparently Nike has not been briefed on the Streisand Effect.

To quote the bastion of internet memes that is Wikipedia: "The Streisand effect is an internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized."

The term was coined in 2003, when singer Barbara Streisand sued a photographer who took an aerial photo of her California beach house, and demanded the picture be removed from the website Pictopia.com, citing privacy concerns.

As a result, the subsequent trial raised public knowledge of the damaging photograph, which became somewhat of an internet sensation and spread like wildfire through the various channels of social media, in their infancy at the time.

The bottom line is that much more people saw the photograph than if Streisand wouldn't have made such a fuss in the first place, no doubt due spite - and to the nefarious nature of the act, suppressing freedom in an era of free.

It's common sense, and should be rule number one for brands dealing with social media.

Even the mere idea of trying to hide something should be ultimately abandoned, as the internet will seek it out, and air it for all to see, simply out of principal - even if it's something stupid photograph of some stupid house, among 10,000 others.

Imagine the backlash if a brand had something actually juicy, something actually worth sweeping under the rug.

Bad Nike, bad.

The sportswear brand, known for sponsoring the world's finest athletes, has a real cracker on its hands with LeBron James - the 24 year old basketball phenom, good enough to be the next Michael Jordan, if he could ever get a decent supporting squad.

But ultimately, he's brandable. And dependable, with a long, winning career ahead of him. Pure Nike.

So, when hosting a training camp for young college players earlier this month, LeBron James was 'dunked-on' by a 20-year-old nobody named Jordan Crawford.

A 'posterising' dunk (ie one you would find on a basketball poster), the ultimate humiliation, two-handed, over the head of the hapless victim.

Not something you want caught on video, your star sponsor being jumped over, dunked on, shamed, disgraced, mortified, etc.

Soon after the event took place, without much more than a few hoots and hollers from the hundreds watching in the stands, Nike demanded CBS, who was filming the event, confiscate all the tapes of the dunk - creating instant demand for said video, virtual currency.

Did Nike really think no one in the bleachers would be filming? Surely not. But its plan backfired, badly.

Of course, the video found its way onto YouTube, although admittedly taking longer than usual, about two weeks compared to the requisite two hours or so.

After watching the video (which I plan on posting, kinda the point of this post, no?) the dunk is hardly noticeable, and would have likely escaped besides a stray 'Didja see...?' among the few in attendance.

But no, Nike didn't want the internet to see it, so naturally, the internet sought it out, and make sure everyone else does too. It's Streisand, brands beware.

The biggest sports brand you've probably never heard of

1715701 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:00:00 GMT

This Saturday Ricky Hatton fights the world’s finest boxer Manny Pacquiao.

While Pacquiao will have Nike in his corner, Hatton will wear a brand less well known in the UK but has exploded in the US.

If you like watching people smash each others faces in, heavy metal and generally going around being well 'ard then Affliction is the brand for you.

Set up in 2005, the clothing range had also been prominent in the highly popular Ultimate Fighting Championship, before it was banned due to suspicions that it planned to set up its own rival series. Which is promptly then did.

Affliction Entertainment, of which Donald Trump is a major shareholder, was set up as an independent branch of the company last year and has already hosted its first event.

It is now promoting 'Affliction: Banned’, which will feature some of world’s highest profile fighters.

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Affliction also promotes and manages heavy metal music events in association with blue-chip brands.

In the US, it is currently running a music festival series called Music is a Weapon IV, with - curiously enough - Samsung Mobile.

The L shaped room

2427159 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:41:00 GMT

This week I’ve been mostly helping Sir Martin Sorrell with his imagery for the Recession.

A few years ago, he came up with the “bath-shaped recession” all by himself – he got the idea, in fact, while lying in the bath.

And the image was a worldwide success.

T-shirts were printed in the Far East showing Sir Martin in a bath.

I take a certain pride in knowing that when a Recession hits this country, and even if advertising budgets get cut by 30%, the man we can rely on to get the image right is one of the most powerful men in the ad industry.

So everybody was looking to Sir Martin to see what he’d come up with this time.

Initially, we tried various other rooms to see if they’d work. I suggested a “spare- bedroom-shaped recession”. Because they’re horrible and uncomfortable and they always have a badly designed cupboard jutting angularly into the room and they just feel like whoever designed them didn’t have a f*cking clue what they were doing.

But then I made an instinctive leap, and said “Sir Martin, it’s a toilet”.

“Why ?”, he asked - in that narrow-eyed, perceptive way he has about him.

Several reasons, I said.

1. It’s not somewhere you want to spend an awful lot of time.

2. There’s a sense of somebody in the next cubicle papering over the cracks.

3. Nobody wants to really, deeply look into it. We’d rather just sit down and read the Sun.

I’m afraid Sir Martin pooh-poohed this straightaway. He told me he didn’t like the look of my number 2.

And then he came up with his genius insight of the “L-shaped Recession”.

(And, incidentally, talked about it all rather brilliantly on Radio 4's The Bottom Line.)

But the Recession also led me into thinking about brands and branding.

For instance. Say your Mum switches her weekly shop from one of the Big Four into Lidl or Aldi.

(And why she was doing her weekly shopping in a high street bank in the first place is anybody’s guess.)

But by doing this, she isn’t just loosening her tie with Tesco or Sainsbury’s. She’s potentially loosening her ties with 100s of brands which Lidl and Aldi do their own versions of.

Massive, household names that we've all lived with for years.

Because the trouble with a lot of those brands is that they’ve been content to build relatively loose ties with their customers. And that’s worked very well for them for the last 50 years or so.

(I think this is what Robert Heath is describing when he writes about Low Attention Processing. I.e. Nescafe works on the level of “there’s a bunch of coffees here, I trust Nescafe, I can’t be arsed to stand here all day weighing up the various merits and demerits of instant coffees, Nescafe it is.”)

But in a Recession, you start asking a different question.

To wit, how many brands are you REALLY loyal to ?

And probably the list wouldn’t extend further than 10.

So - what’s the secret of the ones you ARE deeply loyal to ?

Well, that would be a big question to answer, wouldn’t it ?

My view is that it tends to be brands that fight a battle on behalf of the consumer.

Apple vs Microsoft. Or Virgin vs BA. Or Nike vs the forces of obesity.

You get a sense that they’re on our side, against something else.

Which is probably why it’s worth asking this question when you work on a brand:

“What battle should this brand fight on behalf of the consumer ?”

Or:

“How can we put the brand unmistakably on the same side as the consumer ?”

Overall, I’m fascinated by how few genuinely sticky brands we seem to have created.

And the greatest minds in our industry are asking similar questions.

Russell Davies has talked about how “the branding machine has started to run out of steam”.

Mark Earls has written about “learning to live without the brand”.

John Grant has talked about how these days branding is essentially “voluntary” – people will only engage if they want to.

Compare that with the old model – which worked brilliantly for 50 years – and which I think is best summed up by this quote from Paul Feldwick. “Somehow”, he wrote, “ 30 seconds of entertaining nonsense leads to a situation where people pay 35% more for (PG Tips).”

But this approach to brand-building – which I might loosely describe as “create a brand personality, put it across with entertaining nonsense, and they will come” may well be found wanting as we flail around in the large L-shaped room.

Because the thing about an L-shaped room is that, from most positions within it, you have no idea what could be lurking around the corner.

Futurism, QR codes, ethical knickers and iFood – it’s a changing world out there.

322703 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:24:00 GMT

On Feb 20th it’s the 100th anniversary of the launch of Futurism (founded by the Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti) a movement that looked to the future and embraced new ideas, technology and challenged the old ‘museum’ way of thinking. Look forward not back was the gist of it.

Don’t be afraid of the future and accept change. Ok, they did a have a few negative thoughts – war is good. However, their ideals are something we could well all benefit from in the ad industry at the moment. Instead of moaning about recession, living in the past and defending change, lets embrace it. It’s maybe ironic that a new model agency is launching on Feb 20th with a very new way of working. I’m sure Campaign will be covering it in a week’s time – there’s bugger all positive or exciting news about. at the moment

QR CODES TO CHANGE THE FACE OF ADVERTISING So what’s a QR code? If you don’t know (and don’t worry most Brits or sales assistants in phone shops don’t) ask any Japanese kid with a mobile. Simply put, it’s a sort of bar code (a matrix code) that a mobile phone can read. It’s square in appearance and looks like lots of pixels. So what? you may say but in Japan there are everywhere and have become the new love of all marketing directors. QR stands for ‘quick response’, when a phone scans the graphic it can decode it as text or take you direct to a web page. Forget phone numbers or urls, this is modern technology at work.

The downside is there look worse than telephone numbers on ads (art directors will hate them as much as packaging designers hate bar codes). They really will change the face of ads – mutilate may be a better word as they will sit on ads in a very nasty way. But as an additional marketing technique they’ll add to effectiveness.

What is surprising is that something so linear in thinking has been picked up by creatives and played with. Several artists have used them, Sergio Kano has made a series of images up from over 500 of them, each QR code represents a well known brand slogan. The French street artist ‘Space Invader’ has been placing tiles around the world for years, each one based on the space invaders game. Now he’s converted his mosaic style to QR codes. If you spot one of his tiles then scan it into your phone and it’ll give a message like ‘have a nice day’.

KINICKERS TO ETHICS More than pretty knickers have made an impressive commercial to highlight their new range of ethical pants. This is one step on from Pants for Poverty who got several hundred people to parade around St Pancras station in knickers only (one of which was a female creative director of an ad agency – I’ll mention no names to save embarrassment). The ethical knickers campaign uses a sexy catwalk commercial (directed by Verity White, ex BBC) to highlight the unethical aspects of most underwear. The commercial is excellent – take a look. Did you know that the cotton industry spends $2bn on pesticides – and uses more than any other industry? Or that sweat shop workers get less than a penny per kicker? Or that for every kg of cotton produced they use 20,000 litres of water? Makes you think.

iFOOD I recently suggested to one publication to set a brief to see if 3 agencies could turn a piece or marketing around to get people to pay for it. Lets be honest, if you put a price tag on most advertising would anyone (besides the client) pay for it? This opens up a new idea – what if we aimed to create marketing communications that people did pay for? Stuff they really wanted? Like the Gorilla or Sony balls ads. Like that 24 mailer or that NIKE brochure that sold on ebay for a $60. Well it seems some smart chaps at Kraft foods in the States have achieved just that. They are getting Americans to pay to get ads with food planning tools. It’s become a big hit on the iPhone and now other brands are looking to smart phone applications as the next generation of technology driven marketing.

ECO-VALENTINES DAY This Valentines Day you’ll have a dilemma, should you buy nice red rose from Holland or ethical ones? Which is more ethical, low carbon footprint ones or Fairtrade ones? Maybe you should just opt for chocolates. Again, should you pick the organic or Fairtrade? How about a gift instead - well you’ll have lots of ethical dilemma choices there too. The eco-ethical movement have started to hi-jack Valentines Day as an ethical expression of love – if you love someone then you’ll only buy an ethical gift. It’s a fair point but if you are finding it all too much you can always take the left wing green anti-capitalism view – Valentines Day is a capitalist attempt to generate extra consumerism – so buy nothing.

ETHICAL MARKETING & THE NEW CONSUMER If my regular readers are wondering why I’ve been off blog for a while it’s because I’ve been finishing off my book for the publisher’s Wileys. Ethical Marketing & the New Consumer, which can be found on Amazon (you can pre-order at half price). When it launches it’ll be one of the first multi-platform launches of a book with a website and smart phone applications. Watch this space for more updates.

Worst press release of the week...so far

1704826 — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:23:00 GMT

How many excruciating football puns and analogies is it possible to fit into one press release? PR agency Pressrelations has managed an astonishing nine into a release heralding the arrival of a lead account handler at hitherto unknown ‘ad agency' Open Soho.

Headlined ‘NIKE BIG KICKER PUTS HIMSELF IN OPEN SPACE', the exciting email announces the arrival of Graham Anderson, who left Nike as a marketing manager over five years ago having run its press office over a decade ago, and is therefore directly linked to the brand's close association with football.

Written in chatty blokey terms, big kicker Anderson, aged 40, declares that he ‘can't wait for kick off' and that he only knocks about with winners. Even more exciting according to his new boss, Simon Impey, the agency is ready for ‘maximum attack' and Anderson is a ‘goalkeeper turned goal-scorer'.

I don't know who I feel more sorry for - Anderson, Impey, the PR *** who had to write it or me for being forced to read it. I think it's me

Is it the brand, or is it the brief?

1319935 — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:04:00 GMT

At the British Interactive Media Awards (ps got one for Intel woohoo) last night Nike and AKQA did really well – congratulations to them for an outstanding showing. I was asked by another Client at the event how helpful it is to have Nike as a brand to play with. Poke did well with Orange too, another brand that has a certain award friendliness.

Years ago I was watching a focus group through a glass wall, with the moderator showing some work we had made for a car client. (I’ll keep the names quiet to protect the innocent). Then he showed a host of competitor pieces, and everyone lit up. We thought, and post-prodded consumers came round to the idea too, I’m pleased to say, that our work was really good. Different, provocative, even. But it didn’t get a gut reaction.

Chatting to the moderator afterwards, he said, well, it’s the brand, They just see those (dull, bland, ordinary) cars, and when they see the other (cool, sporty, dynamic) cars, they, well, just light up.

I guess it’s all of our concern to create work that sets the long-term values and tonality for brands that give them privileged status with the consumer. Is it so much harder to win awards with more ‘challenged’ brands?

Return of a champion

1715701 — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:39:00 GMT

Amid all the madness of the Manchester City takeover, ‘The Messiah’ resigning from Newcastle FC and England’s footballers finally admitting they are too chicken to play in front of their home fans, some good news…

Today, Lance Armstrong, who recovered from cancer to win the Tour de France seven times, confirmed his return to professional cycling – and staggeringly to the gruelling Tour itself.

In 2005, Armstrong was named (in part due to his work but probably more due to our former editors love of cycling) as Marketing’s 100^th most powerful marketer.

Amstrong had inspired millions of people pay a US dollar for yellow LiveStrong wristband to support his charity, The Lance Armstrong Foundation. The success of the LiveStrong brand spurred other charities to follow suit – most notably MakePovertyHistory. But sadly the fashion passed and people stopped wearing the bands.

Armstong's return has little to do with winning Le Tour - at 37 its unlikely challenge for the Yellow jersey in 2009 - but is great news for the Tour, cycling, his numerous sponsors(including Nike, Oakley and Trek) and most importantly of all the cancer patients and survivors he aims to inspire around the world.

Runners' World

1715701 — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:19:00 GMT

Sunday saw the inaugural Nike+ Human Race event, which pitted runners competing in 25 cities against each other over 10k with the winner determined by average finisher time.

Nike’s decision to host the London event at Wembley gave it an iconic backdrop and the decision to set runners off in the evening was smart as we were blissfully unaware of the concrete jungle (and muggers!?) surrounding the running course. As energy levels dipped, runners were picked up by high energy music blaring out along the 10k route.

But I have some gripes - Wembley mugging drivers for £15 for car parking was as unimpressive as it was unsurprising. Stewards, although in abundance, were largely clueless. And it pissed down – although I think I can forgive Nike that one.

The pre-run concert inside Wembley Stadium, as you would expect, was spectacular and 20,000 warming up together was a sight to behold. But while some got into the spirit of things many just wanted to get on with the run.

Londoners have got used to picking up medals in recent weeks, but this time we had to settle for a respectable 5^th, with an average time of 57 minutes 44 seconds.

I’m calling for a stewards’ enquiry. Taipei won the event with an average time of just over 46 minutes – which put them around 8 minutes faster on average than the nearest rival. Conditions and difficulty of route will of course make a difference… But 8 minutes!? Give me a break. Apparently, there are now ‘some questions around their course marking’… and I hope they are disqualified.

Nike is commercially a very savvy business and rather than send out its race packs – which included race chip, compulsory running t-shirt – participants had to visit its London NikeTown megastore. From looking around at my fellow competitors many took the opportunity to invest in a sparkling new pair of new shoes, shorts etc...

And Nike should be credited with making running fashionable and this was no place for funny fancy-dress costumes – I think I saw a guy in a rhino suit being bundled into the back of a van.

The event itself was an excellent first attempt but will need tweaking for 2009. Music and running is an excellent mix – but whether runners want to listen to a concert for an hour and a half before setting off on a 10k run is something that will need to be given due consideration before next year’s race.