Nike Brand Equity

Case 6 Nike Celess Valk MKTG 4082 10/29/12 To answer question one it’s important to not that Nike has created a very powerful image in the minds of consumers in America. Nike wanted consumers to see it as an innovative brand that produces top of the line performance gear that was associated with very powerful and important athletes (mostly males). Their profile users are represented as famous athletes such as Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. The athletes reflected the brand personalities such as competitive, winners, strong, and better than the rest.

This also is a way for Nike to obtain credibility and quality. With the Air Jordan line, Nike sold over $100 million shoes in the first year (129). Nike’s sources of brand equity hit all the way to the top of the CBBE pyramid for American consumers. Within the first two years alone Nike had 50% of the market share for athletic shoes. Salience is huge with the Nike logo. About 97% of Americans were able to recognize the Nike logo in 2000 (139). Imagery and performance were the main points that Nike stressed with its brand when it advertised itself.

Nike stresses its performance as a main key point. Nike has been able to fulfill individual needs or judgments such as self-respect and self-confidence (which you obtain when wearing shoes that the athletes wear). It fulfills needs that are more difficult to articulate such as the social needs for power and belonging. Resonance is obtained through the athletic communities Nike has built such as the relationships that were built with the athletes on Nike’s behalf as well as the consumer’s behalf with the Air Jordan line.

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It doesn’t surprise me that Europeans had a lack of respect for the Nike brand as stated in question two. To start off, Europe didn’t have the same view on certain sports as well as the fact that their athlete idols were different. Second, athletic shoe specialty stores didn’t even exist there. Third, their culture is different than the American culture so naturally there are going to be some ways in which Nike is unappealing to their cultural values. Nike was seen as an aggressive, arrogant, and intimidating brand due to its strong advertising and the message of power and performance.

This advertising technique and these values worked in America, but not so well in Europe. Europeans were more traditional and less competitive. Some TV channels even refused to air the Nike vs. Evil advertisements. To change these views Nike decided to create an image in the consumers minds to be seen as culturally, personally, and geographically relevant to the consumers while keeping their logo and brand name constant. Nike gained 90% control of the brand distribution in Europe to make sure that happened (133).

Nike became more involved as a sponsor of sports leagues such as soccer and emphasizes its “apparel” in general. In 1997, Nike decided to also adjust its global branding strategy to tune down violent advertising techniques and resonated with regional interests. They used the two best-known athletes to create a sense of awareness and attachment to the brand globally. They even toned down the use of the swoosh logo and created product lines that were more community building and less aggressive to consumers.

In Asia, more specifically, Nike used ads with athletes that were local to their culture and stayed away from the aggressive advertising they once used that gave them irreverence in Europe. They learned their lesson and knew they needed to start out with a soft advertising approach and increase their brand awareness. To answer Question three, I will emphasize a few main points. Nike is known for innovative products globally with their shoe lines, Shox or AirJordan, but their image tarnished slightly from the working situations they found in Asia.

The imagery and feelings surrounding Nike now for Americans may be weaker due to this. As Americans, we believe strongly in freedom, equality, and the privilege to have those. Nike basically took advantage of that and treated their employees in Asia with very little freedom and treated them unfairly. Even though the sweatshops scandal weakened the image of Nike in the minds of Americans, Nike is still are seen as a powerful brand that emphasizes performance, power, and gives its consumers a vision to be the best. The sweatshops weakened their image in the minds of Americans.

As I stated before, aggressive advertisements work for Americans because we are a society that is so strongly attached to our sports, individualism, performance, and are competitive in general. However, as we saw in question 2 that approach doesn’t work well globally. In order to appeal to the world, Nike needed to make some local adjustments as well as global changes for its brand. Europe’s brand equity sources stem mainly from its attachments to the soccer community and apparel line. In 1999 the company’s soccer orders from Europe grew over 100% from the previous year (140).

Nike has strong performance, salience, and even resonance in this respect. Although competition, Reebok, may have better imagery, Nike has worked hard to improve theirs in European minds and must be doing something right with numbers that impressive. In Asia, Nike has strong brand equity from its image, performance, and judgments. They didn’t create such strong advertising techniques since they learned their lesson in Europe. This gave Asians a chance to see Nike in a positive light from the start, which makes their brand equity source from judgments and feelings better off the bat as compared to Europe’s brand equity sources.

Asian sales led the stock price to more than $70/share for the first time ever. Even after the collapsed economy they were ordering Nike goods and Nike kept with them. From this one could infer they are loyal customers, which reaches the higher levels of the CBBE pyramid (feelings and resonance). References: Keller, Kevin Lane. "Nike: Building a Global Brand. " Best Practice Cases in Branding: Lessons from the World's Strongest Brands. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education/Prentice Hall, 2003. 125-47. Print.

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