Why Is Nike The Biggest Training Shoe Company In The World

Athletic shoes have become a basic part just about everyone's wardrobes. This is due to both the increasing numbers of people exercising and the trend towards casual apparel. One of the most popular brands in the world is Nike. Competition is strong at all levels within the industry, especially among the leaders. However, Nike has successfully differentiated from these competitors. This essay will concentrate on what makes Nike shoes standing out from the rest.

Starting from making running shoes, Nike had branched out rapidly into an assortment of other sports as well as leisure markets. The firm appealed to the market on the basis of quality, technical innovation, and high performance, all of which attracted the serious athletes. This acceptance by the experts was the lever to open up the mass markets. The product diffused into the channels starting with the high performance specialists and spreading into the mass outlets on the basis of this expert endorsement. This strategy has played an important part in ensuring Nike's leading position. Because, by associating star athletes and motivational slogans like, "Just Do It", with marketing campaigns that emphasize fitness, competition, and sportsmanship, consumers identify their purchases with the prospect of achieving greatness.

'Advertisement campaigns are central to trainer companies' marketing strategies' (Sturges, 2006, p.33). Most of Nike's customers buy their products because of the image that Nike gives, and this image is consistent globally. Nike name and the trademark Swoosh are considered to represent one of the most recognizable brands in the world. They have appeared everywhere from players' shirts, pants, and hats to stadium banners and walls. Nike runs advertisements in the most popular forms of media: television, newspaper, magazines and radio. Advertising is used to promote the sale of products. But what differs Nike from its

rivals is that the company is highly motivated about selling sports and a "Nike way-of-life" rather than just product advertising.

"If you get the right team you crush people" - says Nelson Ferris, Director of Corporate Education Department (Video, 2006, B200). Nike has created a corporate culture rich with employee loyalty and team spirit. The company chooses to call its headquarters a "campus" instead of an office. Everything is organised in the way to ensure employees' best performance. They are given a great deal of freedom. They can work as much or as little as they need to get their jobs done. A casual dress cod appears to be strictly in force. And wearing non Nike trainers is an offence. It stops being a job and starts to become a way of living. Such a motivation within the company adds a large part to business success, because a company will only be as successful as its people.

Nike deals in a very consumer orientated market. This means that the demand for the Nike's goods heavily depends on the popularity of the various fitness activities. The team-mentality that captured the spirit of athletics in the late 1980's and early 1990's has been replaced by a sense of individualism. Younger consumers especially, look to extreme sports to find a sense of individual style. Nike realised it and responded to this movement in a number of ways. While retaining the company's long-standing tradition of placing performance through new-product development as a top priority, a never-before seen element of fashion receives a second-place priority built into its products and image. An element of individualism is most obvious in Nike Web site. NIKEiD enables online consumers to select the colour and design their own shoe. The program represents the first time a company has offered mass customisation of footwear. It is undeniably a progressive idea which involves every customer with internet access to design their own shoe that will be so original that no one else in the

world would have the same shoe. Innovations are what keep this company running ahead of its competitors, such as Reebok and Adidas, securing its position as the leader in the market.

The most important areas of product development like research and design align with the Nike objective to "innovate and inspire". The company has completed countless hours of tests on how the human body moves. It is continuously making new discoveries that improve the products and its performance ability. Technology is a top