Segmentation and Positioning of Nike

footwear
Market Segmentation of the Nike company:
Demographic Segmentation:
Demography segmentation they include age, race, family income, and education level, among
others. Besides, it was observed that the majority of the respondents consist of professional from
various fields like engineers, software professionals, working executive etc. who effective form
38% of our database. While 36% were students from various fields. Others constitute designers
and athletes etc. the further study is carried on the buying behavior of the above mentioned
categories of consumer, which shows that our consumer is well educated and is very well
informed about the product.
(http://www.scribd.com/doc/34735893/A-Summer-Training-Report-on-Nike)

Geographic Segmentation:
Nike's geographic market consists of major markets throughout the globe. Until 2009 Nike's
geographical markets consisted of United States, Asia-Pacific, Americas and an area comprising
of Europe, Middle East and Africa. However in March 2009, Nike announced its plan to
reorganize its global business in order to bring goods closer to the markets and in turn
consumers as well as to reduce management overlap. Following this plan Nike then decided to
develop its market share in North America, Western Europe, Eastern/Central Europe, Greater
China, Japan and Emerging Markets.
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Lifestyle:
A third base of segmentation is psychographics. Psychographics are lifestyle and personality
descriptors. There is a relationship between lifestyle and consumer behavior, so people with
similar lifestyles buy similar products. Lifestyle descriptors are often categorized as activities,
interests, and opinions.

The brand is fiercely defended by its owners whom truly believe that Nike is not a fashion brand
but a shoes for sport lifestyle consumer that mean mostly people who active in sport such as
football player or basketball player would purchase it. Meanwhile there was also consumers that
wear Nike just want to build confident or make other feel they wearing a branded shoes but not
ordinary shoes but not for sport purpose. For youth, they think Nike shoes is a fashion lifestyle
and they wear it just to follow fashion trend. For example, since Michael Jordan wear Nike
shoes, consumer will follow him step as a fashion trend. If Nike were identified as a for-guysonly brand, it risked ceding perhaps the best marketing opportunity at hand: exploiting the
growing demand among active women for athletic apparel. Women's athletic apparel is a
category ripe for tapping there are 74 million active women in the United States, who spend an
estimated $17 billion annually on athletic apparel. Active women are a desirable target market
or niche.
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Benefits segmentation:
Benefits sought represent consumer needs and important for positioning. With behavioral
segmentation, companies seek loyalty. When customer develops loyal behaviors towards a
specific company the company becomes more stable and gains an important customer base. In
order to improve a customers loyalty, Nike must focus on behavioral segmentation. In such
competitive market like the one Nike participates in, it is important to gain consumer loyalty. By
providing consumers with quality products and product differentiation consumers can identify,
consumer loyalty can be developed.
(Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2013). Principles of marketing (15th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice Hall.)

Critical for Effective Targeting:

Identifiable:
Nike have been divide the market into separate segments on the basis of series that relevant to
the characteristic such as demographics have age, gender, family life cycle and others. Besides,

they target in different identifiable such as men sports running shoes and women sport running
shoes. Nike target on different type of segment that to fulfill customers need.

Sufficiency:
Nike is a worthwhile target, they target on the needs and they undertake probability survey to
whose finding project to the total market. They will have clearance stock or promotion through
on or sell on shops.

Stability:
Nike marketers prefer to target consumer segment that are relatively stable in demographic
factors are likely growth larger time.

Accessibility:
Nike has been accessibility in any market segmentation through advertisement.

Consumer Environment:
As consumer can see, Nike have been promise to improve their shoes in newspaper in long time.
When 2009, Nike haven been improve in their shoes that's call Newton Running. Its developed
a whole range of shoes that encourages running on your mid foot /forefoot, a technique and
position that helps keep you running more efficiently, injury-free and faster. According to Nike,
cushioning and support are needed in order to avoid injuries but, at the same time, all the
cushioning and support that modern running shoes provide are making our foot's muscles lazy.
Therefore the Free is created as a training shoe, with which to run a limited number of miles
amid your normal running schedule in order to specially train the muscles that are not activated
while running with normal running shoes.

(Essays, UK. (November 2013). Market Segmentation Of The Nike Company Marketing Essay)
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Nike positioning in consumer's minds:

The Positioning statement of Nike is For serious athletes, Nike gives confidence that provides the
perfect shoe for every sport. In todays competitive environment, Nike, one of the global leaders in
sporting goods industry, has established a strong position for enhancing athletic life style. Its the
number one sports manufacturer in the world design by Nolan Bruit berth in the 1970s with Phil knight
founder of Nike Inc. It is the leading sporting goods Company in the United States and hundred and ten
countries. However, it has become the passion for everyone to use its brand products that create
the Nike Just Do It feeling for the competition. The consumers perception of brand influences their
buying decision in sports industry, so Nike always has been able to position to customers expectation
and athletic fantasy that is endorsed by real athletes.
Its Products offer a wide range of choices for the individuals; from sports equipment, athletic
shoes, to clothes. But this paper focuses on Nike athletic shoes- how it has created a distinct impression
in consumers mind and differentiated its products from its competitors. Promotionally, it has
continuously tried to target the worlds youth population through basketball most popular game around
the world. Nike partnered with Michael Jordan to have his name Jordan shoes for basketball and
designed Jordan I, Jordan II and followed by many more. Nike's marketing strategy is accepted to be an
important component of the company's success. Nike is positioned as a premium-brand, selling welldesigned and very expensive products. As same time Nike tries to lure customers with a marketing
strategy centering on a brand image which is attained by distinctive logo and the advertising logo: Just
do it. The external influence promoting the Nike is brand is the sports culture of people here in United
States. Whether it may be the reason of being physically fit or being allured by the sports personalities,
sports have become the essence and passion in the United States. NFL is another event which ties
United States culture. Nike shoe are designed for the professional athletes, the craze of extreme sports
and fantasy towards sports personalities have been growing. Nike partnered with new sensation in the
soccer world Rhonaldino from Brazil and released a soccer shoe based on him called Tiempo Guri FG
which influence worlds soccer fan. The other external influence promoting Nike is social status of
people. The price of Nike shoe is reasonable for the middle class and upper middle class. Teenagers
compete among themselves to become coolest of all and climb the ladder of social status by wearing
Nike sneakers and such type of brand connect the themes that are relevant to them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike, _Inc
http://www.sneakerhead.com/jordan-brand-history.html
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/2006/04/fifa_world_cup_opportunities_f.html
http://www.worldgolf.com/newswire/browse/8894-Nike-Golf-Schools---Junior-Camps-openAdvanced-Player-School

Brand positioning in target market:

The Nikes effective Marketing Mix Program supports the brand positioning in the target market.
The Nike 4Ps elements as shown in the architectural diagram, distinguishes it from its rival
competitors. Its Products is basically designed for sporting events. Its product is considered to be highly
effective and comfortable to the athletes. It has dominated United States sports market. It is recognized
for the quality of its shoes and has gained the reputation all over the world. Due to its higher quality
shoes, its Prices are usually higher than the normal brand. So, the customers perceive it as high-end
product. NBA and NFL has always been its favorite playground to promote the product in the U.S. The
United States culture ties closely to American Football, the mostly watched sporting event in the U.S. It
has dominated in the football market with its most of the NFL events sponsored by Nike. But for its
worldwide customers, it has been successful in teaming up with the Soccer, golf and even in FIFA world
cup. Recently, Nike opens Nike golf schools and junior camps for junior golfers wanting to hone their
golf skills and achieve the next level of their playing careers. (Worldgolf.com April 10th 2007) The
alliance of Nike and Apple brought world sports and music together. Nike + I pod sport kit changed the
way people run and created better running experience. Nike chooses independent distributors. NIKE
sells its products through about 22,000 retail accounts in the U.S and licensees in other countries. The
Brand essence of Nike means a unique way of expressing sport in forms of performance, whereas its
Brand personality is seriousness of athletes and global representations.

Competition:
Nike is number one athletic shoe of the United States and creates goods for a wide range of sports; they
have competition from every sports and sports fashion brand. Initially, Nike had no direct competitors
because there was no single brand which could compete directly with Nike's range of sports until
Rebook came along in the 1980s.Now they have competitors like Adidas, Puma and Rebook. The top
U.S. made Nike is known as high tech sports shoes.

Conclusion:
Nike truly focuses on its athletic products, rather than concentrating on fashionable outfitters. .
It has engaged in the cultural phenomenon in the world with its worlds most watched event like
Basketball and Soccer. Also, its successful in gaining the attention of the United States athletes
with its most watched sporting event-NFL.
http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/news/pressrelease.jhtml?
year=2006&month=05&letter=khttp://homepages.wmich.edu/~b4coope
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~gavin/pub/IntlBusMgmtNike.pdfr/researchpage
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3070/is_200005/ai_n7728392