Rebel and innovate: How Nike’s storytelling strategy works

Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, famously once said he hates advertising. Dan Wieden, co-founder of Wieden+Kennedy, Nike’s ad agency since 1982, clarified this further when he said, “Phil Knight didn’t want to sell you something – he wanted to help you be something.”

At the time, Phil was breaking the mould. Today, that’s what good brands do – help their audience be better.

When I joined Nike in 2005, we had a goal – to be the number one technical running shoe brand in Australia (running shoes that runners wore as opposed to sports fashion shoes). The Nike brand DNA is anchored in running shoes. “By runners, for runners” was the way Nike positioned itself in the early days of the company.

Back in 2005 we were tracking a little behind in sales to both Brooks and New Balance. But we were getting our butts handed to us on a plate by ASICS. Nike had 14 per cent market share of technical running shoes. ASICS had 44 per cent.

There’s nothing like a challenge.

To turn the tide, it was clear we had to think differently. Normal was not going to cut the mustard. As always, the truth resides with the consumer – in this case, runners (elite runners especially) were telling us they wanted more from their running experience. There had not been a significant change in the sport for decades. Everything was telling us it was time.

Nike Running’s brand truth was to ignite runners to energise and change the sport forever. That’s what they wanted and that’s what we believed Nike could give them.

At its core, the most powerful emotion that Nike can give its audience is to be a rebel. The brand was born rebellious. The best Nike athletes are born rebels. When Nike innovates and inspires with a spirit of rebellion, people respond.

A 30-point gap in market share demanded a plan like no other. Pretty ads and clever headlines weren’t going to shift the needle. It was time to be rebellious.

One of the best marketers I’ve worked with (an innate rebel himself and a very dear friend), Michael Scott, led the brand planning process. Scottie’s ability to see the bigger picture and sniff out opportunity is spellbinding.

The foundation of our plan was anchored in the insight that experiencing Nike’s running product was the most effective way to change perceptions. We knew when the right Nike shoe was fitted, the running experience matched or exceeded every other brand. The key was to get them on the feet of the people who could influence others, and to do it in a rebellious way.

So that’s exactly what we did.

We identified Australia’s 5,000 most influential people within the running community, then fitted and educated them in the right Nike running shoe. Podiatrists, physios, personal trainers, and staff in running specialty stores.

Every influencer was given access to an exclusive purchase program so they could buy Nike running shoes and gear for themselves and their family at cost.

We did the same in secondary schools across the country – we pitted school against school in a total kilometres run event called the Nike+ Schools Challenge. Every runner was fitted with Nike running shoes at cost.

We created Nike Run Clubs around the county, each one with a shoe amnesty. You can run in whatever brand of shoes you like, but if you throw your ASICS, New Balance or Brooks in the big recycling cage, we’ll fit you in a pair of new Nike running shoes at cost.

Runners responded and the cages overflowed.

All this coincided with Nike releasing amazing product innovations, particularly Nike Free Run, which had captured a subculture of barefoot running devotees and was going mainstream in a hurry. Plus, Nike’s partnership with Apple now meant music, running and social media were blurring.

The planets were beginning to align, and the pendulum started to swing. Brand-tracking research and in-store sales told us we were onto something. We put the foot to the floor.

Retail floor staff remained the biggest untapped influencers. Thousands of 20-ish-year-olds, working in the hundreds of sporting goods retailers around the country (Foot Locker, Rebel Sport and The Athlete’s Foot) hold a lot of power in the advice they dish out. They are smart, sporty people, usually working part-time while studying at university. In short, they love sport, are switched on, and live for a party.

With these insights we launched an experience called Nikeology, a digital information and inspiration platform. In five-minute slots, the retail floor staff could learn about Nike running shoes; if they got the short quiz right, they earnt points to score an invite to the mother of all Nike parties with an A-list of athletes.

In year one, the take up of Nikeology was ho-hum. Even so, we partied with 500 retail floor staff across three locations around the country. The story of the party spread. Footage emerged of Roger Federer in a warehouse playing table tennis against Rebel, Foot Locker and The Athlete’s Foot retail floor staff. Roger took it easy until he looked like losing, then he shed his jacket and blew the roof off the joint. It didn’t hurt that three weeks later he won the Australian Open.

Nikeology was the story retail floor staff were talking about.

In year two, Nikeology went bonkers. Roger came to the party, won table tennis, and then won the Australian Open … again. His winning ways were rubbing off on us. At the same time, we were closing the sales gap. We passed New Balance and Brooks, and the puff of dust on the horizon was ASICS.

The Nike Run Clubs (NRC) were proving to be a powerful consumer experience. They were dominated by women hanging out after work and running the pants off our run leaders. These women told us they liked NRC – they could catch up with girlfriends and run together because they didn’t feel safe running by themselves, especially at night.

Bingo: we’d found another story.

The truth: Women can’t run wherever and whenever they want. They are restricted by fear. They are restricted by the night.

Then came the task of layering the Nike brand emotion on this truth. How could we help young female runners be rebellious?

What if they took a stand against the fear imposed upon them to run at night?

That’s when She Runs the Night was born:

We are the rule-breakers. The renegades. The troublemakers. We’re here to start a revolution. You say it’s not safe to run after dark. We make the rules around here. We’ll run at midnight. We’ll run until the sun comes up. And then we’ll start again.

You draw the line and we’ll cross it. There’s only one thing to be afraid of tonight. Us. Tonight we defy the darkness. Tonight we make a stand. Tonight we race.

This brand story became our compass. It informed all the experiences we created – midnight training runs, event T-shirts, bespoke She Runs running shoes, digital experiences and the She Runs The Night race through Sydney.

I still get goosebumps listening to women recount their experience of the lead-up to the event and the night itself – the incredible lighting on the course, the bands around every corner and the party on the finish line. Our agencies won lots of awards, but it’s the small difference it made in women’s lives that mattered most.

We helped them make a statement, if only just for one night. We backed it up the following year and double the number of women took part.

One event rarely changes a culture. Sadly, the same fear imposed on women is as true today as it was then. It will be the sum of the parts that forges any lasting change. But it’s my belief that helping people and brands make a difference, by creating amazing stories and experiences – will make the world a better place. That’s my truth. It’s why I do what I do.

In 2013, one year after the first She Runs The Night experience and eight years after the journey started, Nike overtook ASICS and claimed the number one position in sales of technical running shoes. An incredible company-wide achievement. And yes, the entire team partied on the finish line.

This is an extract from the new book, Your Amazing Brand Story by brand expert Tim Wood – youramazingbrandstory.com

We will be publishing more insights from the book in the coming weeks.

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