3 Branding Lessons from Nike

TL;DR:

Nike is the subject of endless discussion when it comes to building a brand that people love. Here are 3 things that you can bring into your own brand to turn more of your customers into brand ambassadors.

One of the mistakes a lot of small businesses make in their marketing is that when they read that they need to communicate their story they talk about themselves. Customers don’t care about that story (although some may after they become familiar with the brand), they care about their own story.

Nike does a good job painting a picture and inviting you into your own story. After watching a Nike ad you’re likely inspired to go out and start running or be athletic in some way.

Nike is an aspirational brand for athletic people. People that play sports and are into fitness.

Nike’s tagline is: just do it. This tagline signals to consumers what kind of person buys Nike. They don’t overthink things, they just get to work. They’re not afraid of getting their hands dirty and working hard. If you’re someone like that, this tagline will speak to you and you’ll feel positive emotions towards nike.

They also invite you into this story of athletic greatness by partnering with some of the world’s most visible athletes in a wide variety of sports from basketball to soccer to tennis and everything in between. When you see all these professional athletes wearing Nike gear, you start to feel like if you want to be serious about your sport and really reach the heights of the greats, you need to be doing it in Nike. This isn’t usually a conversation people are having with themselves consciously, this all happens subconsciously.

When building your brand, understand who your target audience is and what their goals are. Your brand should be a guiding light on the path to reaching that goal. Your story isn’t about your brand reaching a goal, its about your customers reaching their goals. For nike, their audience is athletes, and they want to help athletes get to the highest levels of performance.

A lot of brands are afraid to get cancelled and try not to take a side in anything. This used to work. People didn’t care about what a brand’s stance on politics was. When Michael Jordan was asked why he didn’t publicly support Harvey Gantt in his bid for a Senate seat in 1990, he made the comment, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”

But times are changing. For younger consumers with an abundance of choice, the brands they choose represent who they are. So when a brand takes a stance that doesn’t align with their worldview, they will stop buying from that brand.

Taking a stand, communicating your values, and then standing by it alienates some customers who may not align with the same values, but it turns your true loyal fans into raving fans.

The best example of Nike doing this is the Dream Crazy advertising campaign with Colin Kaepernick. This ad really alienated a lot of people that may have been buying Nike products, if you read the press the week this ad was released it was almost all negative. You would’ve thought Nike made a terrible move by alienating a certain segment of its customers.

To be clear, you values aren’t just a tagline. You have to stand by your values and demonstrate it with actions. You have to stand up for the values even when it may mean a short term financial loss. For small businesses this can seem absolutely bonkers to do, but it works. I mean, Ferrari literally sues its own customers…

After Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple and then brought back a few years later when they were struggling, one of the moves Jobs made was to focus again on branding. How did he do that? He gave the example of Nike.

He said (in essence), take a look at Nike, their product is shoes but they don’t talk about shoes in any of their advertising. Nike honors great athletes and they honor great athletics.

Jobs went on to explain Apple’s advertising strategy, “What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done - although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases. But Apple is about something more than that. Apple at the core, its core value is that we believe people with passion can change the world for the better.”

Wow, that’s so inspiring. In one line, Jobs is able to give respect and reverence for people that are passionate.

When you’re building your brand, really hone in on who it is that you’re serving and figure out how you can make them feel special. How can you make them feel important. You want to make them feel like this brand exists just for them.