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Analysis of a commercial campaign from Nike -"Just Do It"

Research · February 2022

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30803.86567

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Analysis of a commercial campaign from Nike - “Just Do It”.

Introduction

To begin with this paper, I am going to present to you the campaign I picked. I selected the
most famous one in the world - “Just Do It” by Nike. And I picked it not because it was the
easiest thing to find on the Internet, but because this quote has been a great inspiration for me
throughout my whole life, not only from feeling good when it comes to buying their products.

State of the art

Foremost, the theoretical foundation for this study will be Nike’s history from trustful
sources, including modern ones, as well as an official website and a strategic marketing plan
of the company from 2016 to double-check that chosen sites are relevant. Next, I would like
to establish a research question that I will follow throughout my paper: “What impact did the
commercial by Nike “Just Do It” have on public opinion and sales in the 80s, when it was
published?”. As for my hypothesis, I believe that the call for action in the slogan “Just Do It”
increases the company's number of sales a year. Also, we will slightly touch on how
advertisements influence customers these days. I find this topic relevant today. I believe that
the issue of advertisements influencing us so much is a big deal. We are becoming a product
to those companies, once we get to buy at least something in their store. It is important to
understand how such campaigns work, and why they do so, as well as to learn how to
separate them and to train ourselves not to get affected by them.

Methodology

For conducting this research, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to combine
numerical measurements and in-depth exploration for a better understanding of the findings.
During collecting data, previous research, statistics from Annual Reviews for 1983-2021
years were used. The data were analysed through narrative analysis by the words of
ex-employees of the company. Other methods were not taken into account due to a

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lack of sources. Therefore, the paper was based on findings from narratives, supporting main
facts with statistics.

Results

History

Initially, let me introduce you to the company we will research today.

Nike was founded in January 1964 by University of Oregon track athlete Phil Knight and his
coach Bill Bowerman. Its original name was Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS). The company
initially operated as a distributor for Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger, which meet
Knight's automobile. Officially, the name of the brand turned into Nike Inc. just in 1971
(O’Reilly, 2014). Just in one year, 1964, 1300 pairs of Japanese shoes for running were sold
in BRS, with an income of $8,000. Two years later, the company launched its first shop in
California (Pederson, ed., 2001). Afterwards, the company was renamed in 1974 into the
usual name we all know today - Nike. From the 70s to the early 80s, Nike was doing just fine.
It grew steadily, expanded its assortment and earned more and more every year until it
recorded a revenue of 867 million dollars in 1983. By the end of the year, the situation had
changed dramatically. The running boom, on which Nike had a decent rise, peaked and then
declined. In February of the following year, the company reported its first losses: revenue for
the year fell by 29%, sales of sneakers - by 11.5% (Baev, 2019). All in all, Reebok displaced
Nike and became the leader in the U.S. athletic shoe market. The proposed slogan “Just Do
It” was a cause of many arguments between marketing managers and the head director, the
last one did not like it and believed it would bring no success after such a crash from Reebok.
However, he approved it, and the campaign was on and going with these words very soon
after that. The first promotional video with the 80-year-old marathon runner Walt Stack,
which made a huge boom in the history of Nike. After the launch of Just Do It, Nike brand
sales was rejuvenated, increasing 1,000% over the next ten years. And Nike truly stepped into
its role as one of the world’s premiere, iconic and soulful brands (Conlon, 2015). The “Just
Do It” campaign increased Nike shares by 26% in just ten years. The campaign is still on

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track today. Statistics show that Nike’s global revenue amounted to about 44.54 billion U.S.
dollars in 2021 (Tighe, 2021), which seems like the brand is doing pretty well.

Research

Now, let’s move on to the research itself. For today’s paper, I decided to analyse how a
company’s slogan influences public opinion. For this, I used the results of several studies
conducted on Nike, as well as statistics of the corporation.

First, I will mention that Nike is using vertical operations to examine consumer trends and to
implement new technologies (Athletic & Sporting Goods Manufacturing in the US: Market
Research Report, 2015). This helps the organization to develop its marketing strategies and
get more customers around the world.

Nike almost always uses a popular athlete to promote its product. The Advertisement exceeds
the expectations of everyone with these shoes, and they are able to demonstrate on the rise for
consumers (HattMopkins, n.d.). This way, people who see this advertisement, feel like they
will be closer to their idol, or even think that they will become as strong and successful as
those sportsmen are in Nike accessorizes. Moreover, Nike is supporting individual athlete
rights, acts of moral conscience, conviction and protest. Of course, under such conditions,
celebrities feel comfortable enough to accept Nike’s propositions.

The original idea of celebrating the joy of all kinds of sports and fitness activities could be
sympathetically interpreted for everyone, pro sports athletes to fitness amateurs, young and
old, men and women, people in America, people around the world. No one was excluded. I
believe that this aspect played a huge role when getting new customers. Especially nowadays,
people went out of their minds with discrimination and gender inequality. Imagine how it
would be if today the company was targetted only on sportspeople, not recommending their
products to businessmen or usual workers.

Statistics

Finally, moving to the numbers for the statistics, the data above in the section “History” (p. 3)
shows us that the first sale of Nike (at that time - “Blue Ribbon Sports”) was worth 1,300

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pairs of shoes and $8,000 (Pederson, ed., 2001). Moving forward, down below we see a table
from Nike Annual Report in 1983, where statistics show us that the revenue in 1979 was
$149,830 when in 4 years, it turned into $867,212 (Nike Inc., 1983):

(Nike Inc., 1983).

The annual report in 1988 showed revenues levels at $877,357 in 1987, while a year later,
this amount considerably increased to $1,203,440 (Nike Inc., 1988).

(Nike Inc., 1988)

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Next conducted Annual Review, in 1996 shows us data for the period from the year
1988 until the year 1996 (Nike Inc., 1996). According to the numbers, revenues kept
rising, and, in 1996 it was equal to $6,470,625.

(Nike Inc., 1996)

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Finally, the graph down below represents the changes in Nike’s revenue in the United
States from 1988 to 2021:

(Nike Inc., 2021).

Discussion of the results

After seeing the statistics and data based on reliable sources (e.g., Annual Reports), I can
reveal whether the results confirm or reject my hypothesis.

The hypothesis was suggesting “The slogan “Just Do It” increases the company’s number of
sales a year”. According to data, presented in section Results - Statistics, we could see that
percentage of sales was going up throughout the years 1978-1988, as determined by Nike Inc.
(1983; 1988). Later on, we could also observe that the revenue in 1988 was $326,083 higher
than in 1987. Therefore, I could conclude that the results of this study confirm my hypothesis,
as we can see a clear rise in revenues of Nike throughout the years, once the slogan “Just Do
It” was first launched in 1988.

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Conclusions

Ultimately, I believe that the companies with their story like Nike’s give entrepreneurs great
motivation to develop their start-ups and businesses if they want to become successful as
Nike. These research findings give us an idea of how an advertisement - a slogan of a
company can influence public opinion and, consequently, bring the company a big amount of
sales and money. The findings of the study may also be useful for a company in order to
understand the areas of improvement. Firstly, I would recommend Nike to lower prices, that
way they will get even more customers, bringing their company to a new level. And secondly,
I faced a research problem: I found it quite complicated to find all the necessary information I
needed in order to conduct my research in this paper, so it would be great for Nike to be more
open to sharing data publicly.

Bibliography

Baev, B. (2019). History of the Just Do It slogan. It was invented, inspired by the speech of
the criminal before the execution. Siesta blog. Available at:
https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/laprimeranotes/2427516.html (Accessed: 31 January
2022).

Conlon, J. (2015). The Brand Brief Behind Nike’s Just Do It Campaign. Branding Strategy
Insider. Available at: https://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/behind-nikes-campaign/
(Accessed: 31 January 2022).

HattMopkins. (n.d.). Nike 4P’s. Marketing observations. Available at:

http://matthopkinspsumarketing.blogspot.com/2011/12/nike-4-ps.html (Accessed: 31 January
2022).

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Nike, Inc. (2021). NIKE, INC. ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K. Available at:
https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000320187/702c5a98-3399-4049-aa9b-a159dd
44826c.pdf (Accessed: 31 January 2021).

Nike Inc., (1983). 1983 Annual Report. Available at:

https://s1.q4cdn.com/806093406/files/doc_financials/1983/1983%20annual%20report.pdf
(Accessed: 31 January 2022).

Nike Inc., (1988). 1988 Annual Report. Available at:

https://s1.q4cdn.com/806093406/files/doc_financials/1988/Annual_Report_88.pdf
(Accessed: 31 January 2022).

Nike Inc., (1996). 1996 Annual Report. Available at:

https://s1.q4cdn.com/806093406/files/doc_financials/1996/Annual_Report_96.pdf
(Accessed: 31 January 2022).

O'Reilly, L. (2014). “11 Things Hardly Anyone Knows About Nike. Business Insider.
Available at:
https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-nike-facts-about-its-50th-anniversary-2014-11
(Accessed: 31 January 2022).

Pederson, J. P. (Ed.). (2001). International Directory of Company Histories: Volume 36. St.
James Press. (Accessed: 31 January 2022).

Tighe, D. (2021). Nike's revenue worldwide 2005-2021. Statista. Available at:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241683/nikes-sales-worldwide-since-2004/#:~:text=In%20
2021%2C%20Nike's%20global%20revenue,about%2044.54%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars.
(Accessed: 31 January 2022).

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