How Nike gamed the Games.
Introducing Nike, proud sponsor of the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and all major sporting events of the world.
Just kidding.
With few exceptions like the 2000 Sydney Games, Nike was hardly a sponsor in any of those events.
But Nike took the spotlight in all of them.
How to sponsor the Olympics without sponsoring the Olympics.
An online survey of US consumers was conducted days before the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Here’s what they found:
37% of respondents identified Nike as a sponsor (which it wasn’t)
24% of respondents identified Adidas as the sponsor (which it was).
You see, Nike didn’t play by the rules.
Which is rare in marketing.
How did they pull it off?
Go big or go home.
The 1996 Atlanta Olympics was sponsored by Reebok (sportswear partner).
What Nike did was construct their outlet outside the athletes’ village in Atlanta.
Big signage. Big swoosh. Big top-of-mind recall.
Bank on the player, not the game.
Visible signages weren’t the only tricks in Nike’s playbook.
Two other things happened at the Men’s 200m sprint event in ‘96.
US sprint sensation Michael Johnson sprinted to 200m immortality.
And Nike struck gold.
While the race was over in a blinding 19.32 seconds, millions of eyeballs caught sight of his golden Nike shoes.
By backing athletes, Nike snuck into the stadiums without breaking a sweat.
Write the Future rewrote sports marketing.
The web opened new doors for ambush marketing.
The 2010 World Cup was officially sponsored by Adidas.
In this case, fortune favoured the fast.
Nike released its Write the Future web film, a high octane, 3-minute epic featuring the biggest soccer stars directed by the stellar Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
It scored 15 million views in 2 weeks (quite a feat for early days of the viral video).
Nike came to be associated the the World Cup, and perhaps, the beautiful game itself.
Nike Write the Future commercial during the 2010 FIFA World Cup
They didn’t lie back, but they did think of England.
Nike employed the same tactic for the 2012 London Games.
On opening day, Nike released its Find Your Greatness campaign, a tribute to everyday athletes chasing their own greatness outside of London.
Ambush marketing made Nike the face of sports.
Nike plays by its own rules.
Will somebody give them a medal already.
* This is the abridged version.
Nike eventually played fair with the IOC. But that is another story.
Nike Find Your Greatness commercial