Nike has tagged your toes!

CANNES: What business is Nike in? Well ultimately, we're a footwear and apparel marketer and we would like to see sales here go up, according to Stefan Olander, global director (digital & content) for Nike who addressed a seminar at Cannes Lions 2007 on Thursday on how Nike is once again onto a marketing game changer. So if the world's most celebrated shoe marketer found that the proportion of its core consumers, runners, running with music have more than tripled in the past three years alone from 25% to 75 % of them , clearly there was an opportunity to be tapped. Nike could cross-sell its sneakers with the iPod, which is integral part of its 'Tune Your Run' marketing programme in nikeplus.com . But that's not all. Nike found that runners like to keep a log of their performance-how much they ran, how fast et al. Some even had small groups where they would benchmark their performance. Nike came out with its Nike+ shoes, which has a sensor inserted under the shoe liner. This sensor communicates all the running information-distance, time, speed et al with the iPod strapped to the athlete's limb. The info on the iPod can be downloaded to the nikeplus.com site and individuals or groups across geographies, can maintain an online log. Real people can challenge each other, resolutions can be made, suggestions on running tracks in new cities can be accessed et al. In the last two years, ever since we launched the programme, the community of runners on nikeplus.com has logged over 30 million Kilometers, adds the easy going Swede. Nike can now know when the runner may need a shoe replacement (subtle reminders, more in the sense of an info then a sales spiel are send), what music they're hearing (guess what, shoe marketer Nike has sold over 200,000 songs on the iTunes stores for Nike+). The real fun for us is the forum and the community Nike+ has created. On just how many runners does Nike have on this programme, Olander is not forthcoming for competitive reasons. The idea, according to Olander, is how Nike can make something that already exists, people running with music, even better. We' have always been about brand connect. Phil Knight (Nike's legendary founder) keeps telling all of us to never forget the athlete, our core market. Nike+ is yet another example of using technology to connect with your consumers, make them come to you on their terms. Can it get ay better?

Nike has tagged your toes!

Nike cross-sells its sneakers with the iPod - an integral part of 'Tune Your Run' strategy.

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