Marketing Communications Mix

A company's marketing communications mix consists of its advertising, sales promotions, personal selling, public relations, and direct marketing. This can and should be different for different companies and should be something that distinctly identifies one company from another. With all these aspects coming together, the goal is to communicate customer value and build customer relationships to strengthen the company (Armstrong and Kotler).

Advertising:

Nike as a whole, does a great job at advertising in my opinion. The swoosh symbol is found on everyone of their products and is recognized worldwide, especially their running shoes. Every Nike running shoe has the swoosh sign front and center and there is usually no questioning of whether it is a Nike shoe or not. And of course, who does not recognize the famous saying, "Just do it." Not only does Nike do a great job with advertising with just its logo and simple saying, they also utilize famous athletes to wear and use their products. Advertising can be broad and general at times, but if Nike sponsors an athlete in a particular sport, people watching that sport will see the products the athlete is displaying. This can allow Nike to advertise some of their products that are more geared to a certain sport to the consumers that are particularly interested in that sport (http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nike/en_US/). I am aware that Nike is not the only brand that utilizes this form of advertising, but they have certainly mastered it with athletes such as golf star, Tiger Woods.

Personal selling:

Nike utilizes a personal selling method in every one of their retail stores. The sales associates in these stores have direct contact and interaction with the buyers of Nike products. Because they are the individuals that directly communicate with the consumers who are interested in Nike products, they must be able to aid in the process of a successful sale. They are knowledgable of the brand and should be trained in asking customers the 'right' questions in order to figure out what they are looking for. To ensure optimal performance from the sales teams, Nike will often send Nike representatives to retail stores that sell their sneakers to give little presentations to keep the sales associates up-to-date on the products and the technology behind them. I know this from a first hand experience because of my job at a sneaker retail store. We recently had a Nike representative give us a mini training session on the Nike running shoes and then we discussed what the customers in our store looked for most of the time and then gave feedback on the Nike running shoes as well as some competitor brands.

Personal selling allows sales associates to create a relationship with the customer, though it may be brief. From the time a customer walks in a store until they leave, it is the sales associate's job to try to establish a relationship with that customer and figure out what he or she is looking to purchase. The sales force acts as a bridge between the customers and the company. The company looks for feedback from the sales associates about their customers, and the customers look to the sales associates to relay relevant and useful information about the product (Armstrong and Kotler).

In my opinion, Nike does a good job at their personal selling because they are the only company I have seen so far that has had represenatives travel to retail store locations to hold training sessions on their products. Also, often times Nike places a small insert in the running shoe boxes that gives some information on the particular product as well.

Sales promotions:

As far as sales promotions for Nike, they utilize marking down their prices and putting them on sale. Regularly, the Nike Shox are priced no lower than $100.00. Another tactic they use is to have their regular prices end in zero and then when they mark them down for a sale, the price will change to something like, $89.99. This is definitely a type of consumer promotion. I would also catagorize this method as a cent-off deal because the consumer is buying a product that has reduced the price right on the actual product such as having a sales tag on the actual sneaker (Armstrong and Kotler). Regular consumers of Nike Shox are aware of how expensive they usually are so when they see one on sale, I think they are more likely to make an impulsive purchase just because of the reduced price, whether they really need the sneaker or not.

Public relations:

PR can be used for many purposes and one of the purposes that Nike has used PR for has been to enhance and maintain a responsible corporate image. Nike has been accused in the past decade of paying low wages and running sweat shops in their Asian factories to produce their products (http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2002-10-13-oplede_x.htm). They took this accusation very seriously and have made it their duty to ensure that these conditions would not happen. They have a written code of ethics called Inside the Lines and this is what all their employees must read, sign, and abide by to ensure ethics are followed at all times. The also have a Nike Code of Conduct in which the contractors who manufacture their products must abide by to ensure the rights of their employees are respected and that they are given a safe and healthy working environment (http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/cr_governance.html). Now the world can see that Nike is monitoring its business outside of the country and trying its best to not be accused of unethical working conditions ever again.

Direct Marketing:

Nike as an entire company has recently launched a new way of direct marketing in the past four years or so. They introduced a print catalog specifically geared to females that would be sent to them directly through their mail. Female athletes expressed interest in this catalog and actually brought it to Nike's attention and Nike took it from there. This catalog focuses on athletic footwear and clothing/apparel for running, yoga, and fitness training. Now women who are loyal to the Nike product can have direct and personal access to the products they want through their very own catalog delivered right to their home (http://multichannelmerchant.com/news/marketing_nike_competing_mail/). For some, this offeres great convenience. It appears that the catalog is going over very well and I would imagine so because with a paper catalog, you can take it with you and shop at you leizure. I think nike will continue to get a good response from this particular example of direct marketing.