In June this year, Nike successively pushed the update plan of its Nike, SNKRS and Nike Run Club to domestic users.
A series of push reminders make people sigh, it turns out that Nike, a global sports giant, has built an APP empire, covering sports training to consumer shopping.
In China, in addition to being able to download the above-mentioned apps, Nike also provides free training NTC mini programs and Nike Adapt for use with Nike sneakers.
Nike, the world's most storytelling sports brand, has quietly transformed into the best sports brand to develop apps and provide digital services, with more than 300 million members worldwide.
The embrace of digitalization has allowed the company to soar in market value over the past 10 years, once crossing $250 billion.
What happened during this time?
1
There is a harsh truth about the sports industry in the last 10 years:
Including domestic and foreign brands such as Adidas, there is almost no resistance to Nike's overwhelming growth, and in the face of Nike's strength, only a few brands such as Lululenmon can be excluded.
Today, Nike's market value is about 2 Adidas, 2 Lululenmon and 2 Anta sum, so many people exclaim that the world's sports brands, only Nike and others.
Nike left other sports brands so far behind, which was unimaginable 10 years ago.
In 2012, Adidas became the official sports clothing partner of the Olympic Games, and the iconic clover logo of Adidas can be seen everywhere near the London Olympic venues.
Adidas offers 41 different shoe styles for athletes in 25 events to help athletes. The First Financial Daily wrote an article at the time, the headline was: London Olympics: The second Adi wants to turn over.
In the same year, Adidas sales reached a record high of 14.5 billion euros ($19.14 billion). At that time, Adidas soared by 15% in China, opened a store model, and formulated a strategy called "the road to 2015", planning to penetrate into more than 1,400 cities across the country in 2015 and open 500 new stores every year.
2012 is the most difficult year for Chinese local sports brands, but it is also the year that dares to fight.
Therefore, the previous optimistic forecast of product sales during the Beijing Olympic Period, huge inventory pressure, and a sharp decline in performance and stock prices have made Li Ning and Anta bear the pain and begin to transform, from brand wholesalers to brand retailers.
Anta unified retail standards in the country, founder Ding Shizhong led executives to do retail promotion, at the Kunming annual meeting at the end of 2011, set a business goal of "impacting tens of billions"; Li Ning began the reform of the group, and the arrival of the new chairman Jin Zhenjun made a bold move to recycle Li Ning's stores and open a direct operation mode.
As for Lululemon, catching up with the yoga craze, sales are still growing at 30 percent a year, and founder Chip Wilson is still thinking about the development path of the post-IPO company and how to spend the $1 billion of idle deposits in the bank.
While all sports brands are burying their heads in the sand, they may have forgotten to look up at Nike. In this year, Nike completed the first round of digital layout.
In February 2012, Nike launched the Fuelband sports function bracelet in an attempt to establish its own sports consumption ecosystem. During the same period, Nike also launched two new apps, Nike+Basketball and Nike+Training, and since the launch of Nike+Running in 2006, Nike has extended Nike+'s tentacles to other categories of sports for the first time.
Then, in June 2012, Nike ported its most popular Nike+Running on iOS to Android. This year, the number of smartphone users in China reached 252 million, of which 55.4% used Android phones.
Nike has tightened the gap between products, marketing campaigns and apps.
Nike's several heavyweight products have launched Nike+ versions, including LeBron X and Kobe BRY EIGHT basketball shoes. As the spokesperson of Nike+, LeBron, with the championship and MVP title, started a trip to China and wore Nike+ version of basketball shoes in China, allowing fans to feel the power of digitalization.
Before the 2012 Guangzhou and Shanghai Marathons, as long as consumers used the Nike+Running APP to accumulate 10 kilometers of running mileage, they could get a T-shirt from Nike.
Mining data and forming social circles with sports apps to promote consumer purchase behavior, Nike uses apps to connect consumers together. Nike's annual sales were $24.1 billion that year.
An industrial change is about to begin.
2
The concept of digital revolution was proposed very early, and since the millennium, with the development of Internet technology and the popularity of smart phones, it has gradually become a trend to transform traditional workflows, sales and customer maintenance through software. In 2010, P&G wrote in its annual report to shareholders that it wanted to become the world's first company to fully digitize.
Ding Shizhong, the founder of ANTA, later summarized anta's brand retail transformation experience in 2012, believing that the first point of ANTA's success is digitalization, through the ERP system and SAP software, to achieve the information unification of the store, the efficiency of invoicing and inventory.
Nike's key changes occurred in 2017.
In 2017, Nike launched its Consumer Direct Offense (CDO) strategy, which deepens peer-to-peer connections by accelerating innovation and reducing distances with consumers in key cities. Nike CEO Mark Parker at the time said that through CDO, we will be more active in the digital market, targeting key markets and delivering products faster.
CDO is a huge upgrade plan, on the basis of the previous Nike DTC strategy, involving the simplification of Nike's internal structure, the business layout of the global 4 major markets, and the adjustment of business partners. Nike also proposes a goal of "Triple Double": double innovation, double speed, double direct contact with consumers.
In a simple disassembly, this revolution Nike puts consumers at the center of the business, and these apps that exist on consumer smartphones become Nike's contact points for connecting consumers.
At the end of 2014, Microsoft's newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella proposed a "mobile first, cloud first" strategy. In nike's CDO reform in 2017, the concept of "mobile first" was also proposed, the first of which was SNKRS, an APP that young people love and hate.
At NBA All-Star Weekend in New York in 2015, Nike launched the SNKRS beta for the first time. Nike opened an SNKRS pop-up store in 348 Bowery, New York, where consumers must make a reservation in advance to shop.
Such an online store that collects limited edition sneaker purchases and sneaker stories, sales reached $70 million within a year after launch, although it was insignificant for Nike's overall revenue, but SNKRS allowed Nike's ability to tell stories, and the sneaker story that shoe fans are talking about now has been told since then.
More importantly, the limited sale of SNKRS has attracted a large number of loyal Nike fans, getting up early every day to log in to check out SNKRS has become a part of daily life, and "GOT ME" after winning a limited number of sneakers has begun to become a material worth bragging about on social media.
Nike uses an APP to lock members' thumbs firmly on the snap-up button. Even if it is about to experience 1 second of gain and loss.
In fact, since the DCC transformation began in 2017, Nike has made many attempts to strengthen consumer connectivity on SNKRS. After acquiring Virgin Mega, a 12-person startup, Nike SNKRS set up s23NYC Studio, and using digital technology, SNKRS launched a location-based Dash lottery campaign, where consumers in specific locations have the opportunity to buy limited-edition shoes.
During the Nike Shoe Circle Resonance Event in Beijing last year, Nike opened the beijing Langyuan limited lottery activity, and consumers located in Beijing Langyuan can have the opportunity to purchase Nike Dunk Low ICE through the lottery. For a time, the entrance to the resonant activity of the Langyuan shoe circle was crowded with consumers waiting to be drawn by SNKRS.
In addition, the lottery method based on AR cameras, hidden pictures and other technologies has emerged in an endless stream of SNKRS, making shoe grabbing more interesting, more urgent, and more topical.
Mark Parker, then CEO of Nike in 2019, told investors at the earnings conference that SNKRS has more new members than Nike's other digital channels, and monthly active users are doubling, and sales are also doubling.
3
Just 7 months before the launch of Nike's DTC strategy, Apple officially launched the Apple Watch Nike+, launching Nike's exclusive sports strap and dial, while deeply integrating the Nike + Run Club app.
Apple CHIEF Operating Officer Jeff Williams said we can't wait to bring the Apple Watch Nike+ to runners around the world. Since then, each generation of Apple Watch has launched an exclusive version of Nike, becoming the best partner for runners.
At the same time, NRC also exists independently of iOS and Android systems. As a running app, NRC has the advantage of providing tutorials and programs for runners at different stages, from the first run to the marathon regular.
Nike provides users with all kinds of instructional audio, even marathon legends like Kipchoge. In the Chinese market, Chinese voice coach not only have Nike Dark Horse pacers, talk show actor Liang Bo, etc. share their running experience, after running, there will be encouragement from Liu Xiang.
NRC has more than 8 million users in China and has run a total of 600 million kilometers.
The secret of the NRC's success, first of all, is that everyone is treated as an athlete on this, which makes people have a sense of ceremony every time they open the NRC; The second is companionship, whether it is running tutorials or voice encouragement, so that running is no longer lonely; Finally, there is social networking, runners from all over the world gather together through the NRC, and Nike's irregular offline activities, training and gatherings make users stickier.
Of course, NRC also has one of the biggest benefits, completely ad-free, which is enough to beat many running apps.
SNKRS, NRC these APP has become the best connection point for Nike to establish a consumer circle, step by step to cultivate consumer habits, when consumers deeply identify with the trend and sports culture transmitted by Nike, the purchase of products has become a matter of course.
Nike has taken over the channel of facing consumers with app. In 2011, about 84 percent of Nike's sales came from channel partners, and its own sales were only 16 percent. In fiscal 2021 (ending May 31, 2021), Nike's direct sales rose to 39%.
In digital competition, innovation has become an overwhelming competitive factor.
In November 2019, the new Nike APP was launched on the iOS and Android app stores in China, and the Chinese market finally ushered in the world's most acclaimed Nike one-stop member center. It is still one of the best brand membership apps in the Chinese market.
As a member center, the Nike APP aims to sell goods, but not only.
In addition to including all of Nike's product lines, the APP is also a hub to connect consumers, and the stars' China trip, offline shoe fan activities, and nearby community sports opportunities include the needs of members for sports, and these activities are also free to participate.
In October last year, Nike's Nike APP officially launched the Nike Fit function, a new feature that solves the problem of not knowing what size to buy for online shoes, just like "private shoe size measurement experts" to recommend the most suitable size for consumers. The purchase time is shorter, the size is more appropriate, and there are fewer returns.
The connection between Nike App and offline stores makes consumers feel the "power of digitalization". Nike China's Nike Live, Nike Unite, Nike Rise, Nike House of Innovation four types of stores, are connected with the Nike APP.
If you are near the Nike Rise Beijing Sanlitun store, open the APP to directly see the in-store goods and introductions, directly place an order, and pick up the goods at the store. At the same time, the information of offline activities held by the store on a regular basis will also be displayed on the APP.
While most brands are still building their own mobile sales channels, Nike has "won hearts and minds" in various ways on the APP.
In the face of a series of changes, the fastest response is domestic brands.
Domestic brands are more willing to lay out on social channels such as WeChat to form their own "private domain traffic pool". In 2018, Li Ning began to try to build a brand position around public accounts and mini programs, and also integrated membership services and limited sales.
Feng Ye, vice president of Li Ning Group and general manager of the e-commerce business unit, said that European and American consumers are accustomed to spending on APP or official websites, while domestic users need to rely more on traffic acquisition on large platforms.
Subsequently, ANTA is also laying out its own WeChat Mini Program retail channels, the real force is the establishment of the private domain operation team in 2021, through cooperation with Tencent Smart Retail, ANTA WeChat Mini Program provides consumers with product purchase services, the convenience of sharing within the WeChat ecosystem, but also allows ANTA to create an average daily GMV of tens of millions of levels on the WeChat private domain.
Adidas launched the Adidas APP at the end of 2019, which also integrates the membership system and limited-edition sales to support various payment methods in China and become an important channel for Adidas to reach Chinese consumers.
A year later, in October 2020, Adidas also re-launched CNIFRMED in China, providing users with exclusive limited products and creative content, and many people grabbed the first pair of YEEZY on it.
Investment and innovation in digitalization have left several sports companies with a long history.
Nike's app empire is just the tip of its digital landscape.
Nike, which entered the Strategic Phase of Consumer Direct Acceleration (CDA), is no longer satisfied with what it has achieved so far, and the vision of the One Nike Marketplace, which is being promoted globally, also has a more ambitious goal.
The epidemic has also caused rapid changes in consumption habits, and now that the Alpha generation is 12 years old, they will grow up in a highly digital world in the next few years, and they have a new understanding of sports and sports brands.
Nike CEO John Donajo, who comes from eBay, said in an interview with WWD in May: "We will continue to innovate and combine sports with digitalization." We're also trying to accelerate, create more personalized, engaging experiences, and build closer and more direct connections with consumers.
What kind of experience will Nike bring to "athletes" around the world in the next 50 years?