Market segmentation is one of the key components when designing any product. Companies thrive on creating markets through segmentation and then focus on serving that segments. Sporting brands have been serving their markets since their inception in early 1900s. There have been steady growth in the range of products that a sporting brand has to offer in any specific sport.
Since its arrival into the game of football, Nike has been providing product after product to satisfy its audience . With a list of product lines in the football cleats market which in includes the T90, Tempo, Mercurial Vapor, CRT360, Majestic and now Hypervenom . Added to this the company has also designed products based on sports personalities like Nike R10 which was exclusively launched in Ronaldiniho’s era and was based around the two time fifa world player of the year . Another example of this is the latest CR7 series which is based on Cristiano Ronaldo. Nike has a history of associating products with sports personalities. Nike focuses on footwear more than any other of its products. The footwear is the most revenue generating line for Nike with revenue of 16,208 Million USD (Nike annual report 2014). And the game of
football is its third most revenue generating line with revenue of 2,270 Million USD (Nike Annual Report 2014). Nike has been one of the top sports brand and most of the credit goes to its marketing. The way Nike has marketed itself all these years is the main reason why its now a dominant force when it comes to the sports industry. Along with football, the sports giant has been a contributor to many other sports including Tennis , Baseball , Basketball and cricket .
Most of the company’s success is based on the way it presents its products . This presentation is sometimes either by electronic media advertising only or by different event based advertising. One of the examples of this is the “write the future“ campaign from Nike during world cup 2010 in South Africa. It was a perfect mix of social media; TV and event based advertising and contributed a great deal when it comes to brand equity. Another reason why the company has enjoyed great success is by its innovative production and also the timing at which it launches its products. A good example of this is Nike football. Nike used to launch one or two products per year some years ago. But as the demand and the consumer number increased, so did the speed of new production. Today , Nike introduces three to four products per year which adds to its product lines . For example last year saw Nike introduce two products in its Nike mercurial vapor CR7 line. And that’s just in CR7. In 2014 Nike introduced a new product and named it Hypervenom. Hypervenom was introduced as a substitute it an older Nike sub-brand T90. Both the products are primarily made for strikers and for players who prefer a shoe that provides good accuracy. The product was introduced to meet the needs of a modern day footballer. Over the years, the game of football has changed a lot and so did the players and their equipment. The name of the product “Hypervenom” along with its print and electronic advertising was all based on focusing strikers. For the launch, Nike chose Neymar. A young Brazilian attack minded player with a promising future. Neymar performed superbly during the 2014 FIFA world cup in Brazil and soon became a brand name that Nike was looking forward to. The brand NJR is starting to grow these days and along with Nike’s latest product line, Hypervenom.
This blend of product innovation and trend setting has set the football shoe market alive with product life cycles becoming shorter since 2014. Today brands like Adidas and Puma also introduce more than one shoe model per season along with color variants after every 3 months during the season. The ever changing world introduces human kind to new ways of thinking. And as a result new product lines are being introduced which helps footballers and the football shoe industry.