Five of the Best Athletic Wear Marketing Campaigns To Date
- Nike’s “Just Do It”
- Adidas’ Collaborations
- Nike’s Michael Jordan Campaign
- Fitbit’s Customer Competition Campaign
- North Face’s “Never Stop Exploring” Campaign
Athletic wear and advertising campaigns go together as well as any other business sector and marketing effort combined. What are some of the best examples of this often perfect partnership? Here are five of the most brilliant marketing campaigns by athletic wear companies to date.
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1. Nike’s “Just Do It”
Perhaps the most widely recognized and arguably most successful marketing campaign by any athletic wear company was Nike’s “Just Do It”. Used as a powerful driving slogan and statement throughout its wardrobe lines and advertising efforts, this three-word phrase became a seemingly permanent element to pop culture across the globe. This, partnered with the company’s signature check-mark logo, has become part of some of the most widely visually recognized business symbology ever, despite geographic, cultural, and linguistic barriers.
2. Adidas’ Collaborations
Adidas’ Collaborations campaign has been another incredibly successful marketing strategy. In this campaign, the company sought to connect the inner stories and personalities of many popular athletes to its own products and culture. While the power of celebrity association is common in this realm and elsewhere, Adidas’ unique take on it provided a connection to the more personal, suave, attractive, and behind-the-scenes persona of the popular athlete. This allowed, very effectively, for branching out into perfume and cologne products, various keepsakes and jewelry, and various other money-making areas.
3. Nike’s Michael Jordan Campaign
Per the National Basketball Association and otherwise widespread public opinion, Michael Jordan is considered to be the very best basketball player to ever play the game. As such, beginning in the mid-1980s and at the height of Jordan’s ball-playing greatness, Nike began a marketing campaign in association with the player. Headlining this campaign were Air Jordans, a new and upscale model of the company’s shoe lineup. To this day, this is still a coveted and highly recognized campaign and actual athletic shoe.
4. Fitbit’s Customer Competition Campaign
Competition is an incredibly powerful element to the human psyche. In fact, research published by the National Institutes of Health has proven time and time again that this motivator alone can drive human action and decisions quite effectively when other factors fail. As such, Fitbit used this proven psychological driver to help drive sales and interest with its customer competition campaign. Here, an entire wildly popular upside to buying their product, a fitness-tracking watch, was crafted through the creation of a competitive platform on which all customers could then post performance information and compete and socialize with others in a variety of ways.
5. North Face’s “Never Stop Exploring” Campaign
North Face, a company specializing in athletic and performance outdoor apparel, wanted to find a way to engage as many people as possible in their products and culture. In seeking to satisfy this goal, the “Never Stop Exploring” campaign was created and launched. This very successful campaign essentially targeted anyone and everyone through a variety of contests, social media drives, advertising strategies, and more. At the core of the successful concept was the idea that this company’s products were specifically for the true adventurer and outdoorsman, referred to by the campaign as “Those Who Never Stop”.
Marketing is an incredibly important aspect for many businesses today. This is especially understood by many athletic wear and other sports-related companies. The five above-mentioned marketing campaigns are among some of the most effective seen to date by these particular types of businesses.
