Marketing Assignment: Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning Of Nike

Question

Task: Marketing Assignment Task:
1. In addition, Segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) is a familiar strategic process in modern marketing. It is one of the most commonly applied marketing models in practice that you are required to demonstrate an understanding of segmentation, defining targets and positioning strategies for the specified brand and explain how the STP process has been applied by the chosen firm.
2. A marketing campaign consists of strategic and operational or tactical, marketing activities. The strategic part is based on research into your competitive environment, target customer buying habits and the characteristics of your products and services within your overall marketing environment; whereas, operational marketing uses tactics to meet the strategic goals of the company. Your task is to demonstrate the elements of operational marketing which are being used by the chosen firm and show your ability to understand the strategic tactics that satisfy the key needs of timing, budget, inventory availability and customer buying habits as those could make an appropriate balance of elements to achieve the firm’s marketing objectives.
3. In addition, you are required to research, develop and present a viable new product for the chosen firm (NPD). You need to study the market of your chosen firm to find out what their market wants, making smart product improvements and developing new products that meet and exceed their customer’s expectations.

Answer

Introduction to the company-Nike
The aim of this marketing assignmentis to delve into the background of Nike, Inc. which is an American multinational organisation, which designs and produces footwear, services, accessories, and equipment worldwide. Nike Inc.'s mission is to pioneer product innovation for athletes worldwide. Countless ideas are tested to improve performance, reduce injury risk, improve perception and feelings, and provide new commodities to athletes.In thisessay an STP analysis of Nike has been thoroughly discussed. The marketing on a strategic and operational level of the company is thoroughly assessed. Product development for the new products are discussed along with the product life cycle. An explanation of the new product: what it is, what it does, what it has to offer in terms of features and advantages, how much it costs, how it will be promoted, and so forth has also been evaluated in the assessment.

STP Analysis of Nike
In a strategic marketing process, marketing decisions are critical components of the whole process. In order to influence the purchase choices of the target customers for these products, marketing decisions are made to group consumers together based on their similar needs, which is referred to as segmenting, targeting, and positioning strategy in marketing parlance. After taking into consideration the many aspects associated with this issue, the question of what particular repercussions develop as a result of discussing this topic must be addressed.

Segmentation
Segmentation of the market aims to establish distinct consumer groups based on particular criteria and characteristics that is provided in advance.

Demographic
(Brohi et al., 2016). With a range of sources such as the official population census, Nike's demographic segmentation is easy to identify and quantify. It is also related with sports attitudes like attending a game or watching a sporting event. Nike's demographic segmentation enables them to target consumers based on their gender, age, and life stage. For long-term growth, Nike seeks consumers aged 11 to 45, with a focus on teens. For example, Nike created an ad in 2014, before the World Cup, featuring renowned football icons playing football with kids to inspire them to follow in their footsteps. Nike also uses gender as a factor to attract their target audience. While Nike's client base is dominated by males, the corporation has recently made considerable expenditures in women. Nike, in instance, has created a number of female sports lines, which will certainly result in increased sales in the future years.

Psychographic
Nike is unique. As a consequence of this distinct “feeling,” people purchase comparable things. Nike's sports-centric approach motivates, inspires, and emotionally connects all athletes.Nike targets customers according on their personality, interests, and activities. Nike targets energetic individuals who like sports, go to the gym often, and are athletes. Nike's mission "to inspire and innovate all the athlete in the world" which inspires all the sportsman around the globe(Panagiotopoulou, 2017).

Behavioural
However, Nike values how its products make people feel. But Nike engages customers by offering them a wide variety of high-quality products. Nike also enables shoppers to share their purchases with friends and family through social media.

Geographic
Geographic segmentation is a valuable tool. Nike splits the market by global, nation, city, and popularity density. For example, in New Delhi Nike advertises cricket equipment, whereas in England and Sydney Nike promotes rugby equipment.There are a lot of ads for football and baseball in the United States, but soccer dominates in Europe(Mirchandani, Bove and Johnson, 1989).

Socioeconomic
Income, education, and employment are all interconnected since better education leads to higher income and prestige. As a result, Nike separates the market into three sections: bottom, medium, and upper.

Benefits segmentation
It is the fundamental component where each buying meets a want or expectation. Nike employs “benefits sought” to categorise the marketplace. The firms goods are aimed at top athletes, professionals, and amateurs.

Targeting
Targeting means the examination and determination of the segments already produced and evaluate which of those segments is most likely to result in the target conversions.For target marketing, the organisation picks segments that will help them achieve their goals efficiently. The company evaluates the size, reach, measurement, and behaviour of their target market. Nike caters to a certain demographic. The company's products are geared for athletes and sports fans, and they're specialised and distinctive. All Nike products are accessible online, enabling buyers to design their own footwear, further separating Nike from its rivals. Nike also uses psychological methods to appeal to its customers by endorsing athletes known for their extraordinary achievements. As a result of this method, objects are linked to success(Yang, 2015).

Positioning
Market positioning means the capacity of influencing customer perception in relation to a product or brand. Nike is the world's leading sportswear manufacturer, specialising in high-end products with innovative features. Also, the swoosh and the "Just Do It" slogan have convinced shoppers that Nike is a daring and successful company. Throughout the years, Nike has shifted its focus from goods to thinking. Nike distinguishes itself from its competition by communicating with athletes via unique and important feelings. The products of this business determine the way of life of certain demographics. According to what it seems to be, Nike's vision or image of its sporting goods is the basis for placement. Marketing research is conducted to build perceptual maps of the product's position in relation to rivals with this in mind.
Keller's Brand equity model is amazing since it shows a brand which stage of the equity model it belongs to and what it can do to go up the equity model stage ladder. At the end of the day, it assists brands in developing brand equity. Nike’s usage of the modelcan be done through multiple phases in the pyramid, and progressing from one step to the next might take years or even decades.

Strategic and Operational Marketing
Strategic Marketing
Strategic marketing refers to the application of marketing disciplines to attain the organisational goals. Many businessesfind it difficult to develop and implement a comprehensive marketing plan that is effective in reaching their target consumers because of the difficulties involved in putting together a competitive marketing approach. Nike's market is crowded. In the shoe industry alone, they have rivals like Adidas, Reebok, and others, but as their clothing line grows, they face a new set of opponents. Brand loyalty sets them apart from competition. When customers buy a Nike product, they expect it to be of high quality and last a long time, so they keep buying it. The market is huge enough to sustain Nike and its competitors. Primary market research is carried out on a constant basis by the organisation in order to ascertain these demographics. The company's digital platforms, sales figures, and consumer surveys are all used as data sources. This information is utilised to determine how Nike can maintain its position as the most favoured athletic clothing brand as customer behaviour and market trends shift over time (Ahmed et al., 2016).

Operational Marketing
It means the ways to attain the goalsformulated by a corporation in terms of the marketing plan. Besides having some of the greatest, if not the best, marketing on earth, Nike is also a massively profitable firm with a global presence. For example, Nike uses the advertising to a different level both in traditional as well as new digital methods. According to Forbes magazine, their brand is the most valuable in the athletic goods industry, and it is the 14th most precious brand in the planet overall. For example, Nike's business strategy is straightforward: invest in building the brand through emotional marketing and athlete endorsements, manufacture items that are of superior quality and incorporate industry-leading technology, and acquire other sports companies in order to grow its share of the market.

New Product Development
Nike Corporation has formed a category product team, which is made up of a diverse group of professionals, to help them create new products. The new concept that could be introduced to the company is plant based leather shoes which can be cruelty-free evaluated by the category product teams to see if it will be accepted by the market. As well as these tasks, they do others such as generating a product definition report that describes the target consumers as well as the features and pricing that are required(Childs and Jin, 2017).Nike Incorporation's research and development section is responsible for the company's new product development efforts. In order to determine whether or not the desired product, the plant based leather shoes, would be within the expected cost projections, the Nike Incorporation's research and development department creates a prototype of the product.

Growth
By building a better relationship with the consumers they build the presence of plant based leather shoes that can attract more customers in the upcoming days.

Maturity
With matured segmentation and targeting of their products Nike has build a global presence all over the world. The new and innovative product too have to deal with new strategies .

Decline
As Nike has never experienced failure, since its inception this new plant based leather shoes will satisfy the customers and the profits will shower (Ulises, 2019).

Conclusion
One can conclusively say that, the market and the firm have been thoroughly examined, and the results indicate that Nike has the capacity to fulfil its objectives, introduce new goods, and increase its market share. As a result, while considering Nike's overall aims and objectives, it might be advised that the company enhance its marketing communication tactics, such as the use of social media, and use good management in order to handle labour difficulties. Finally, while addressing this issue, the business sector should take these factors into consideration. Nike, in my opinion, is the world's leading manufacturer of sports kit, establishing a powerful stronghold in the process. The corporation stands out because it was the first to employ research and development to design sports shoes. Nike pays attention to attracting the best athletes across all sports and gets lucrative deals that produce enormous revenues for the corporation by connecting its products with success and victory, therefore raising consumer demand. Clearly, the firm has effectively adopted the STP method and knows how the expectations of customers impact their buying decisions.... This issue should be researched and examined in more depth in order to help marketing methods become more successful and innovative.

References
Brohi, H., Prithiani, J., Abbas, Z., Bhutto, A. and Chawla, S., 2016. Strategic Marketing Plan of Nike. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299889166_Strategic_Marketing_Plan_of_Nike [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022].

Brohi, H., Prithiani, J., Abbas, Z., Bhutto, A.H. and Chawla, S.K., 2016. Strategic Marketing Plan of Nike.SSRN Electronic Journal. Marketing assignment [online] Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm abstract_id=2760631 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022].

Childs, M. and Jin, B., 2017. Nike: An Innovation Journey. Product Innovation in the Global Fashion Industry, [online] pp.79–111. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F978-1-137-52349-5_4 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022]. Mirchandani, M.G., Bove, L.J. and Johnson, G.M., 1989. Enhanced Preliminary Assessment.Task Order 2.Nike Battery Kansas City 30, Pleasant Hill, Missouri. [online] apps.dtic.mil. Available at: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA218985 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022]. Panagiotopoulou, V., 2017.(PDF) SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING STRATEGY OF NIKE & BUYING DECISION ANALYSIS. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338370597_SEGMENTATION_TARGETING_ AND_POSITIONING_STRATEGY _OF_NIKE_BUYING_DECISION_ANALYSIS [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022]. Ulises, F., 2019.New Product Development: Nike - 2600 Words | Report Example. [online] Free Essays. Available at: https://ivypanda.com/essays/new-product-development-nike/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022].

Yang, T., 2015.Localization of New Balance brand marketing strategy for Chinese markets. [online] www.theseus.fi. Available at: https://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/97708 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2022].