Align with behaviour / Four years ago, running was Nike’s largest category. The brand dominated the sport and led on innovation – its controversial Vaporfly running shoes were worn by the first athlete to complete a sub-two-hour marathon and a prototype was even banned for giving an unfair advantage. But as the popularity of running (and running clubs) has soared since the pandemic, Nike has failed to take advantage of the trend, losing market share to nimbler newcomers such as Hoka and On Running. Between a decline in sales and an increasingly fragmented market, Nike is reinvesting in running culture to restore its relevance – and its focus is on the ‘everyday running category’, as CEO John Donahoe outlined in an earnings call at the end of 2023. This shift in focus is visible in the latest work – while the Olympics campaign, Winning Isn’t For Everyone heroed the world’s greatest athletes, Winning Isn’t Comfortable represents the regular runners getting up to pound pavements before work, in bad weather, at local park runs, and so on. The films feel authentic and rooted in real insights, depicting everyday experiences that normal people push through out of sheer determination and a love of running.
Emotional resonance / In a category cluttered with technical specs and proprietary features, Nike is appealing to runners’ emotional ties to the sport. As running has become more inclusive (for example, run clubs used to be elite affairs, nowadays they welcome amateurs), Nike is adapting its communications to represent the newer, novice runners who started running during the pandemic, while paying homage to established, lifelong runners – both groups that are being heavily targeted by category disruptors Hoka, On and Unlimit.
By highlighting the daily hurdles (pun intended) people overcome to go running, the campaign films and supporting social and OOH ads speak to people’s love-hate relationships with running, which is likely to resonate with the target audience, whatever their skill level. This campaign plays on Nike’s heritage of campaigns that champion realistic and personal achievements, such as Find your Greatness. The 2012 ad series, which coincided with the London Olympics, showed normal people pursuing their own versions of greatness in various sports, and was one of Nike’s most successful campaigns, driving $506m in revenue growth.
