Swot Analysis : Nike 's Shoes

NIKE Inc. has been the worldwide leader of athletic shoe sales for many years now. The company’s successful brand image combined competition and enablement for the competitive, athletic user. Nike has to modify their brand to a focus of excitement and freedom and not just competitiveness. By collecting and studying an assortment of material we could be able to understand where NIKE is currently placed in the athletic shoe industry compared to their competition, and how they will be able to adjust their brand focus so it can be more effective in the future. These adjustments can help NIKE reach the more casual group of urban runners and ultimately increase the sales forecasts, while still controlling a percentage of the market for athletic shoes.

Nike is the leading and yet renowned supplier of athletic apparel and shoes. The company controls close to 33% of the global athletic shoe market (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker,2009).Nike was founded by Bill Power and Phil Knight in 1962 as a Blue Ribbon Support and then was later on renamed to Nike in the year 1968 (Patrow,2003).The company supplies very high quality product in close to 100 countries with major markets being located in the U.S,U,K, Asia Pacific as well as in the Americas. The company has managed to attain its lead and legendary position via the application of innovative and yet attractive product design which is backed by quality production as well as well crafted marketing strategies.

Everyday, billions of people look down at their feet and squeeze them into a pair of shoes. For probably most of those people in America, when they look down at their feet, they see a shoe with a swoosh on it. This swoosh belongs to no other than one of the most popular sneaker companies, Nike. I decided to look further into this popular shoe company's success. It turns out Nike isn't even one of the oldest shoe companies, but it is less than 60 years old. Nike had to figure out how to become better than just an ordinary sneaker company.

1. Evidence from case: The company has room for expansion by building more stores, increasing sales, expanding current stores, customer and employee satisfaction. According to Yoga In America, “36.7 million people in U.S practice yoga, 72% women” (Page C-101)

On October 17, 2017 Nike released their newest commercial “Nike: Want It All”. This commercial contains a similar to the meaning of their original trademark, Just Do It, by using the words “Want It All” to summarize the motivation and mentality is takes to make it against all odds. In this commercial viewers are introduced to a young boy named Dante. Very quickly Dante’s dreams of being a professional basketball player are revealed to the viewers. Over the course of “Nike: Want It All” viewers are taken through Dante’s journey to the top, or in other words, the goal; the NBA. Viewers witness Dante work through the trial and tribulations it takes to go from playing ball with friends in the local neighborhood, to high school, to college at Duke, then to ultimately having a spot on the NBA team, the Cleveland Cavilers. Therefore, the content of this paper will focus on how the Elaboration Likelihood Model’s uses strategies like message elaboration, the central route and the need for cognition to evoke a persuasive appeal within the commercial “NIKE: Want It All”.

Nike is one of the most well-known companies in the world that offers different products like clothing, equipment, footwear and accessories. Internationally, Nike not only has the lead in athletic products such as running shoes, sandals, casual shoes and basketball shoes among others, but also it is ahead of its competitors with their line of athletic clothing like pants, shirts and shorts for everyday wear. Apart from this, Nike is also tries its best to make clothing with special fabric that contributes to the welfare of the athlete when using it, the highly specialized technology put in these clothes have helped Nike to be the number one sponsor of important sports around the world.

Since its creation, Nike has proven itself as a popular brand and it has created niches by selling products such as footwear, apparels and various types of sports equipment. This paper will attempt to trace the product development of Nike shoes from its origins in conception and design to the manufacturing and production process located in contract factories in developing countries to advertising and marketing of Nike as a cultural commodity and finally, the retailing of the footwear around the world.

Currently, Nike stand as a leading figure in producing high quality sports and fitness equipment and apparels. Bearing just a simple start of selling Japanese imported shoes from a station wagon has transformed

Brands use different strategies to create competitive advantages to beat with their rivals. Some companies use “Overall Cost Leadership” to increase profit by reducing costs and increase market share by lowering price. Some companies use “Focus Strategies” to select a group of market and tailor its strategy to serve that group. The others use “Product Differentiation” as a strategy to obtain a premium price by making unique products. Nike, with its differentiation strategy, the company is continuing to separate its self from the competitors by using its superior technology and innovation. This paper mainly discusses on the company’s product differentiation and analysis how the company using this strategy to build its brand image and become a market leader in sportswear industry. A brief discuss about Nike competitive advantage which related to its broad differentiation aspect and the company product life cycle are also presented on this paper.

Nike supports recycling efforts with its Reuse-A-Shoe program. Started in 1993, it collects old shoes, processes them into sports surfaces, basketball courts, playgrounds and running tracks, and donates them to needy communities (Ferrell, et al,. 1998).

The competence of the Under Armour, Nike, and The Adidas Group are energetic and can be maintained continuously. All of three companies focus on the development, marketing and distribution of branded performance apparel, footwear, and accessories for men, women and youth. In one hand, they both have a large powerful brand image and benign reputation, in the other hand,

Nike has seldom manufactured products own premises, except their air bladders. The shoes are manufactured through outsourcing and alliances with other companies. A successful company like Nike formed its organization on the customer values that have the MOST impact on the consumers mind – Design/R&D, Marketing and Distribution. Even though manufacturing is a vital function to perform, Nike realized that there were other ways to go about this function and thereby save both cost and maintain its focus on the critical customer value areas.

Reebok International Ltd. is a distributor of sports, fitness, and lifestyle products, and its main products are athlete shoes. Reebok footwear and apparel have been an international brand since 1984. In 2003, its worldwide sales were about $3.5 billion.　It is a number two brand in the athletic shoe market in U.S., however, the industry in growth rate is decreasing (Zerio 2005). In this paper, I would like to present the best way for Reebok to market their products in such industry situation.

Nike began as Phil Knight’s semester-long project to develop a small business, which included a marketing plan. This project was part of Phil Knight’s MBA course at Stanford University in the early 1960s. Phil Knight had been a runner at the University of Oregon in the late 1950s. His idea for his project was to develop high quality running shoes. He thought that high quality/low cost products could be produced in Japan and then shipped to the United States to be sold at a profit. His professor thought that Knight’s idea was interesting, but not much more than a project.

The report is about Nike, regarding the case study. The report elaborates on the aspects including buyer behaviour, brand image, consumer decision making, and marketing research techniques applicable to Nike. 3.0 Introduction Nike is the worlds number one sports shoe company. In the US Nike dominates 35% (source: see appendices) of the sports shoe market and its products are sold in more than 140