Nike Micro-Blog'S Ambush Marketing Has Achieved Remarkable Results.

"Who dares to spell all dignity, who dares to come to the top of the summit, even if there will be nothing to gain; who dares to go in, who dares to fall, great dare." In August 7th the London Olympic Games 110 meter hurdle race Liu Xiang fell less than 15 minutes, Nike official micro-blog Just Do It released this message. In the next 24 hours, the message was spontaneously transmitted by the netizens nearly 130 thousand times, and received more than 26000 comments.

about Nike For example, Liu Xiang's unexpected retirement is not conducive to its brand communication. However, this ingenious micro-blog message has become a miraculous effect in brand marketing.

In fact, this is not Nike's first micro-blog marketing in London Olympic Games. After the August 6th Ring race, Nike released micro-blog's "no absolute fairness, but absolutely great", and was forwarded 20 thousand times in 25 minutes.

After the men's 1500 meter freestyle, "greatness is to let the world record catch up with you." after the badminton men's singles final, "great on both sides of the court", these "live your great" series. micro-blog It is popular among netizens. People even formed a habit to watch what Nike said when watching a wonderful event.

Nike's success in micro-blog has won many eyeballs, and its "ambush marketing" has achieved remarkable results. The so-called "ambush marketing" means that in major activities (usually large sports events, such as Olympic Games, world cup, etc.), those unofficial sponsors who can not directly use the sports resources can link their brands and events through various unexpected marketing means so as to achieve the purpose of brand communication.

Since they do not pay sponsorship fees and are usually competitors of the official sponsors, the organizing committee has always taken measures to avoid the occurrence of ambush marketing.

Nike's micro-blog marketing results are excellent, but Adidas has paid heavily for sponsorship, but its transmission effect is not necessarily better than Nike's. According to a foreign Internet survey, 37% of the 1034 American consumers interviewed considered Nike to be the sponsor of the Olympic Games, but in fact Nike was not, while the genuine sponsor Adidas was only correctly identified by 24% of the respondents.

Although micro-blog marketing is not expensive, it is not easy to play well. In order to do well in the micro-blog marketing of the Olympic Games, Nike is actively preparing and deploying an executive team of more than 60 people ahead of schedule. The team is composed of Nike digital marketing and brand communication department, and several external companies. Its members include creative people, production staff and media experts.

Because the result of sports competition is unpredictable, the executive team has to work hard for every marketing plan. Despite the meticulous deployment, Liu Xiang's unexpected retirement still brought trouble to the team's work. It is difficult to imagine the response to this unexpected event in a short period of time (5 to 10 minutes), and to ensure the effectiveness of the communication.

"We have made enough preparations for Liu Xiang's two situations of defending or losing, but we never thought Liu Xiang would quit again." Huang Xiangyan, director of communication in Greater China, Nike recalled.

In fact, even if Liu Xiang did not retire, its success or failure of the specific situation is also difficult to imagine. Therefore, the ability to respond on the spot is the key to such micro-blog Marketing -- the marketing team must come up with the most moving plan in the shortest time.

Fortunately, Nike has been working with Liu Xiang since 2002, and has a deep understanding of Liu Xiang. They believe that Liu Xiang's understanding can be expressed in a plain way. Nike set the final plan in a few minutes - the message that was forwarded about 100000 times.

Despite being a pieced together team, Nike asked them to have a deep understanding of the spirit of "living your greatness" when recruiting members, and asked them to be very familiar with and passionate about every event in sports.

During the Olympic Games, team members pay close attention to London events 24 hours a day. Any hot spot, whether winning or losing, will become the source of creativity. Nike has put forward very high demands on team members, finding the most important points in the shortest time, using the most refined words and appropriate pictures to spread the voice that the public most wants to express.

Nike's confidence in social network marketing is so successful that Nike is ready to continue this practice in the post Olympic era.

At the just concluded London Olympics, Nike's biggest competitor, Adidas, the German sporting goods supplier, became one of the biggest sponsors of the London Olympic Games at a cost of 100 million pounds.

This means that Nike's marketing behavior during the London Olympics will be monitored all the time. Once its behavior is determined by the London Organizing Committee, the amount of compensation that Nike needs to pay will be sky high.

According to the regulations, Nike can not use Olympic words and five ring logo directly in advertisements, but this does not mean that Nike will give up the marketing opportunity that only once 4 years ago.

In July 27th, Nike began warming up on the Internet in the world of the unified advertising film "live your greatness". Then, on the day of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the TVC advertisement officially landed in 25 countries' television stations.

Nike has never said that this is an Olympic advertisement, but Nike skillfully chose the location of the commercials in the names of places around the world with the word "London" - and specially gave several close-up shots, such as "London Hotel" and "London Square". At the same time, it formulated a series of social network marketing about "live your greatness".

This design has a strong hint that the audience will naturally associate it with the ongoing London Olympics. However, due to the fact that Nike did not violate the rules, the London Olympic Committee could not interfere.

Nike believes that the global economy is still shrouded in the shadow of the "European debt crisis". At this time, the Olympic sponsorship of Adidas is likely to outweigh the gains. Adidas's "Miss" at the Beijing Olympics has also given Nike a warning that spending heavily on sponsorship of major sporting events may not be the best way of marketing.

Before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Adidas was very optimistic about the prospect of the market. At the expense of gold, it became the main sponsor, and issued the rhetoric that should exceed Nike. In 2008, Adidas will become the first sports brand in China. By 2010, Adidas will become the first sports brand in Asia.

But unexpectedly, the financial crisis suddenly shattered its dreams. In 2008, although Adidas's annual sales volume increased by 9%, gross profit margin reached a record 48.7% in the whole year, it still failed to shake Nike's first place in China's sporting goods market.

Nike, the official sponsor of the Olympic Games, the world cup and the European Cup, seems to have been accustomed to Adidas's hand in hand with its partners, and ambush marketing is its strong point.

In the Beijing Olympic Games, Nike has launched the "golden generation" series. Inspired by the story of three old athletes of Xu Haifeng, Lang Ping and Jianhua Zhu in the 1984 Losangeles Olympic Games, we designed a series of products of the 1984 retro cultural movement.

What makes people more cordial is clothing The style design basically copied the costumes of the Chinese track and field team in 1984, with the bright flag red, imperial gold and sports blue as the main colors. The two words of "bright China" in the chest seem to be the brand of history.

"In the absence of social networking, the creative design of this sword is not enough, but it is not enough for competitors who have strong resources." Nike public relations project partner Huambo Xuan Wei's staff said.

Now, with the help of social networks, such ambush style creative designs have greater imagination. Moreover, Nike, which is away from the official sponsor all the year round, is also more likely to accept new things such as social networking.

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