Adam Kolb Nike: The Fashion Brand

The leading sports brand in the world is Nike. Do to their advertising and

marketing campaigns, advanced footwear technology, and iconic “swoosh” logo, they have comfortably landed themselves at the top of the sports market, and they aren’t going anywhere. To increase brand popularity and put an even bigger gap between them and their competition, Nike has surrounded its footwear and apparel with the world’s best athletes through expensive endorsement deals. Two athletes most notably associated with representing the “swoosh” are basketball legend, Michael Jordan and golf legend, Tiger Woods. Nike’s goal is to achieve $36 billion in annual revenues by 2017. In order to do this they need to expand their women’s business which in 2014 only amounted to 18% of Nike’s revenues (Forbes, 2014). A new use for sports wear has recently emerged that shows lots of promise for the leading sports brand in achieving these goals. While most male athletes are idolizing their Nike endorsement idols and buying the products the professionals wear to play with in sports events, women are now starting to wear athletic apparel not just for sports but also as fashionable apparel. Nike, without meaning to, has become not just a sports retailer but also a fashion brand. In order to remain on top of their competition in the athletic department as well as expand their women’s department revenues to reach their annual goals for the future, Nike needs to alter their focus from strictly athletic representations, towards more fashionable styles, endorsements and collaborations to meet the needs of this new fashion market.

Nike CEO Mark Parker has stated, “Our motivation isn’t to make products that resonate with the fashion consumer…while the aesthetic is important, we are not a designer for fashion per se” (Leitch, 2014). Nike’s owners have expressed that Nike is strictly a sports brand and not a fashion brand. The advanced innovative technology and product performance has been and always will be the main focus for the leading sports brand. Nike wants their customers to feel the best and perform the best while using their products for sports. Fear of losing their masculine brand image and weakening their dominant endorsement deals have caused Nike to hesitate jumping into the fashion world of athletic apparel. The image that Nike has made around the world as the best athletic brand that sells apparel and equipment of the highest and most advanced quality will not be hurt due to advanced creative styles. Consumers use Nike for its quality, which would not be altered but only enhanced with style. Adidas, Nike’s main competitor, has made advances by targeting the teenage female market, who have recently grown fond of wearing active wear for fashion, through product segmentation strategies that focus on the brand’s style and fashion divisions (Hendriksz, 2014). Nike has realized this but needs to put more focus into the younger female consumer that buy athletic apparel to show off a sporty, active, fashionable look off the field. Nike is known for specializing products to meet specific sports needs for best performance. To capture a larger female market, Nike needs to take this a step further and create specific fashionable athletic wear with style and leisure as the leading focus and promote this through the “swoosh” off the court for their women’s department as well as on the court. As studied through Heidegger, Nike needs to capture this specific world of leisure fashion expressing the state of mind and location that Nike products can be worn as fashionable active wear. Heidegger’s idea of Daseincan can be used by Nike

as they now must promote their athletic wear as “a way of being that can change the field of possibilities in which it acts,” showing it as athletic equipment on the court but then as fashionable style on the streets (Heidegger, World of Fashion). Nike already creates specific worlds of sports apparel and is able to create another specific world in which their products can be worn for style, which will inevitably capture this growing female market for active fashion. Three areas in which Nike can continue to capture the world of female active wear both for fashion and sports are to focus on creating stylish yoga pants, sports bras and leggings with bright colors and cool textures. Yoga has become very popular in USA for females. Better yet, females often also wear yoga pants as fashion apparel and leisure clothing (Forbes, 2014). Leggings, many females consider to be the new “denim.” They are seen on young women during many different occasions lots having nothing to do with sports (Friedman, 2014). Nike is known for its advanced technology in creating ultra light yet the most durable shoes and cleats and has taken it a step further with its “Nike ID” brand feature that allows people to design their own Nike shoes online with the same technological advancements. If Nike takes it even further allowing customers not only to design their own shoes but also to design athletic tops and bottoms to match the shoes as full outfits, the brand will capture more of the female consumer interested in athletic fashion. As seen through McLuhan’s works, Technology is “an extension of self” that enhances our individual voice and helps us communicate across time and space making everything more personable (McLuhan). Nike ID could potentially enable consumers to make outfits and styles to fit their personal styles enhancing their views of authenticity and ownership (Heidegger, Worlds of fashion). This feature of Nike will really allow consumers to become the designer and connect with the styles of athletic wear they are able to create while still having the same advanced technology and performance Nike products are known for. On the men’s side of athletic fashion, Nike’s high tech lightweight fleece resembles a very smooth and stylish look while being lighter and warmer than other fleece. The jackets, sweatshirts and sweatpants that Nike make for men now have a clean and modern finish to them and can be worn casually any time of day (Tudela, 2013). Nike needs to take the time to focus as much on apparel style as it does on its shoes. Through fieldwork, it has been decided that Nike runners, the advanced mesh like foam absorbing featherweight running shoes, are worn just as much if not more for leisure and plain comfort than for athletic events. These shoes come in all kinds of fun colors that can easily be matched with yoga pants, leggings, shorts, sports bras etc. Nike has made great technological apparel advances that have already captured an audience but they can’t stop now since competition is on the rise with clever styles and designs from Under Armor and Adidas. By focusing more on fashionable active wear, more fashion designers around the world will gain interest in collaborating with Nike enhancing the brand’s appearance and awareness worldwide as a stylish brand combined with athletic performance. In fact, some already have. Nike recently teamed up with Brazilian designer Pedro Lourenco to create a collection of woven jackets, mesh tanks and paneled tights for women. What really intrigues designers to want to work with Nike is the brand’s enhanced product performance (Molvar, 2014). With help from fashion designer collaborations combined with the advanced technological products of Nike, the brand’s fashionable active-wear will most likely blow competition away boosting the brand’s sales for women. Women’s

apparel is only a third of the value of Nike’s menswear so there is lots of room to collaborate with designers and grow the women’s department. Other designers like Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy and Jun Takahashi of Undercover, have since collaborated with Nike with more on the way (Friedman, 2014). Now, Nike needs to cut back on some of its male endorsement spending and use that money to endorse more female athletes that can be seen advertising Nike’s enhanced styles of leggings, bras, yoga pants and running shoes for the female consumer market. To also capture the female market that are not athletic but buy Nike products for their looks and styles, Nike can advertise its products on television through iconic figures who are not athletes displaying Nike’s versatile apparel in more fashionable scenes such as a runway show. Nike can also participate in more runway shows to help promote its new lines of active wear and gain more designer collaborations. Last year, Nike promoted a runway show in New York dressing top models like Karlie Kloss and Joan Smalls as well as brand ambassadors like tennis star Li Na and track star Allyson Felix, in their new apparel lines which really impressed designers in attendance (Friedman, 2014). The brand can also have their popular male endorsement athletes advertised wearing fashionable Nike active wear outside of their sporting events to promote fashionable active wear for their followers. By promoting new fashionable active wear on its endorsed celebrities that the athletic market follows, Nike will enhance its sales and brand exposure not only as a sports brand but also as a fashionable active wear brand. This exposure relates to Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” in which Nike uses society’s popular and concentrated celebrities that the public follows and indirectly relates to through mediated images and sporting events in order to promote Nike’s new products (Debord, The Society of the Spectacle). Active-wear has become an influential part of fashion in the last couple of years. Young adults and teenagers have started to wear athletic apparel just as much for style and leisure as for sporting events. This has been seen especially in women and their display of yoga pants, leggings, Nike runners, sports bras and caps worn as fashionable leisure outfits as well as athletic gear. Athletic brands therefore have had to adjust and invent new styles of athletic wear to meet this new fashionable market. Nike, the biggest sports retailer in the world, has become as much of a fashion brand in the last few years as it is a sports brand. Although the brand will always put sports and product performance innovation first, recent attention to enhanced athletic styles and collaborations with designers around the world have had a successful impact on Nike’s increased sales in their women’s department.

Promoting Nike apparel not just to play in but to wear following or before a sporting event as a fashionable outfit will need to be a continued focus for the brand. Mass advertising and expensive athletic celebrity endorsements will always be part of Nike’s business plan to maintain its unbeatable brand exposure over competition as long as they can afford to do it. This aspect of the brand relates well to the Zeitgeist map by using the media, celebrities of sports, and technology to promote brand exposure and awareness about new innovative products throughout the world. New designer collaborations and fashionable athletic styles worn on and off the playing field have come to be a new and improved part of Nike’s image that has increased its women’s sales and kept Nike on top of the athletic empire. Nike will need to keep focusing on enhanced “green” designs to pitch to consumers and could also add accessories to go along with

athletic outfits for heightened affect. Their worldwide support and popularity will continue to grow as long as Nike keeps its products versatile and of the best most advanced quality while adding a new feature, fashionable style.

Advanced technological lightweight breathable Nike Fleece. (Tudela, 2014)

Nike’s Latest Fashion Play: a Capsule Collection with Pedro Lourenço (Molvar, 2014) Woven Jacket, black “cool” line.

Nike’s Latest Fashion Play: a Capsule Collection with Pedro Lourenço (Molvar, 2014) Mesh tank top with paneled tights and form fitting sports bra that comes in over 20 different sizes for yoga and leisure.

Google images. Nike runners/ Nike ID. Mesh shock absorbing runners.

Works Cited

Debord, Guy. “The Society of the Spectacle.” Friedman, Vanessa. "Nike Stakes Its Fashion Claim." The New York Times (2014) Heidegger, Martin. “The World of Fashion.” Hendriksz, Vivian. "Clash of the Fashion Titans: Adidas vs. Nike." Fashion United. N.p., 4 Sept. 2014. Leitch, Luke. "Nike CEO: "We Are Not a Designer for Fashion per Se"" - Telegraph.CO.UK, 26 Mar. 2014. Lourenço." TMagazine 23 Oct. 2014: The New York Times [ProQuest] McLuhan, Marshall. “In A Global Village Without A Map.” Molvar, Kari. "Nike’s Latest Fashion Play: A Capsule Collection with Pedro Team, Trefis. "How Nike Can Grow Its Women's Business." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 26 Aug. 2014. Tudela, Alex. "Nike's Newest Collection Looks Runway Ready." TMagazine 21 Aug. 2013: The New York Times [ProQuest].