It is final day! Many people are here already waiting for our professor. We are studying together to insure a good grade! It has been so much fun designing and working on the Nike Blog. I wish you guys will use the information I have posted to your advantage. It's going to stay on the Internet for a loooonnnngg time.
JUST DO IT!

posted from BlackBerry Curve.

Ch. 8- Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Market Segmentation, by definition, "is the process of dividing a market into meaningful, relatively similar, and identifiable segments or groups" it is definitely crucial for a business to target these groups because it helps decision makers accurately define marketing objectives and to better distribute the available resources.

Here I have severely severed and broken down the four basic criteria to have a useful and successful segmentation:
1. Substantiality : the segment must have enough potential buyers so there is more potential to have profits
2. Identifiability and Measurability : there needs to be enough data about the section that includes basics like how many or age ranges.
3. Accessibility : The target markets must be easy and available to contact
4. Responsiveness : one must know what their targets respond to. If you are trying to offer different price ranges to people who have one price level set, that would be irrelevant because they will not respond to different prices.



Segmentation Variables is when characteristics of individuals, groups, or organizations are used to divide a total market into segments. 

• Geography : by region of a country or the world, market size, market density, or climate.
• Demographics: with age, gender, income, ethnic, family life cycle

• Psychographic: personality, motives, lifestyles, geodemographics

• Benefits: the process of grouping customers into market segments according to the benefits they seek from the product
• Usage-Rate: divides a market by the amount of product bought or consumed.

Ch. 11 - Developing and Managing Products CONTINUED:new product development

I wanted to include this in my blog too because I think it was very interesting to read and it could be useful to aspiring business owners.
There are 7 steps in the New-Product Development Process.

1. New Product Strategy: links the new-product development process with the objectives of the marketing department, the business unit, and the corporation.
2. Idea Generation: This can come from a lot of sources, not only management, includes (customers, employees, distributers, competitors, vendors, research and development, and consultants)
3. Idea Screening: this eliminates ideas that are inconsistent with the organization's new product strategy or are obviously inappropriate for some other reason.
4. Business Analysis: where preliminary figures for demand, cost, sales, and profitability are calculated.
5. Development: the stage in the product development process in which a prototype is developed and a marketing strategy is outlined. This can last a loooooooong time and/or be expensive.
6. Test Marketing: the limited introduction of a product and a marketing program to determine the reactions of potential customers in a market situation. This is a difficult task because you have to pick a location or people that best demonstrated the businesses target market. And it could be a huge problem if somehow the media get a hold of the concepts which can lead to competition reacting quickly.

Justin Timberlake. Thank You.

7. Commercialization: the decision to market a product. Many tasks are involve with this. like ordering production materials, training sales force, and advertising to potential customers.

Lets Give MKTG 3 a Round of Applause! For all of this great Information!
Click here to buy 336 Pages of Greatness

NO WAY.... NIKE WILL BE.......

THE OFFICIAL OUTFITTER FOR THE NFL!

once Reebok's contract expires Nike will supply all the profession teams with their slick and modern jerseys. I love how they are revolutionizing the jerseys into a "era" I can not wait to be sitting on the couch on a Sunday afternoon and seeing the cool mix matching of colors they use. Touchdown for Nike!

Link:another bloggers perspective

My Favorite Football Team. Look how cool the design on the shoulders look!

Nike, as the market share leader, will continue their successes with the jerseys and their brand will be further cemented into our heads! JUST DO IT!

Ch. 11 - Developing and Managing Products

New Products can be categorized in 6 different ways. It is not always just a brand new innovation that no one has seen before.
New-To-The-World Products
It is the products that create an entirely NEW market.

Apple's iPad revolutionized the technology sector by fusing their iPhone tech with their MacBook tech. This is something the world has never seen before. Unfortunately, my marketing teacher, Professor Evans will not be getting one of these for Christmas..... :( haha jk.

New Product Lines

A new product that a firm has not offered before and it enters a market that is in its maturity stage. 

So for example, when Nike Cologne was introduced in 1991. It was a new product they have never offered before and it was just widening their product mix.

The other four are: Additions to Existing Product Lines, Improvements or Revisions of Existing Products, Repositioned Products, and Lower-Priced Products.

According to a management consulting firm, Booz, Allen, & Hamilton, they concluded that "the companies most likely to succeed in developing and introducing new products are those that take the following actions:

• Make the long-term commitment needed to support innovation and new-product development.
• Use a company-specific approach, driven by corporate objectives and strategies, with a well-defined new-product strategy at its core
• Capitalize on experience to achieve and maintain competitive advantage
• Establish an environment- a management style, organizational structure, and degree of top management support- conducive to achieving company specific new-product and corporate objectives.

I wanted to share this you guys because recently I've been getting a lot of hits from people who are googling "succeed with marketing" or "managing advertising" So I'm sure this can help a lot people get some more insight on how to continue the development of their companies.

Ch. 21 - Customer Relationship Management

According to the MKTG 3 textbook, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a "company-wide business strategy designed to optimize profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction by focusing on highly defined and precise customer groups." which means that a company uses its marketing techniques to solely focus on specific groups instead of just planning a marketing strategy that targets a large mass without any certain direction.  I love the example that is used in the textbook. It helps demonstrate what CRM is.

Rifle Approach targets communicating with each INDIVIDUAL customer

Shotgun Approach  scatters messages to whole SPECTRUM of people with mass media

Basically it starts with a single customer. You gather information through many means and any information is helpful. This is vital because 80 percent of a company's revenue is generated by 20 percent of its customer. So every single contact or customer is important to the business. Knowing what they think and getting some kind of information about target markets, it is easier to put out a product that they will like.

Companies now a days have FACEBOOK, which has over half a BILLION users. There is so much information on there that could reveal a lot of things to businesses. 

Ch. 16 - Integrated Marketing Communications

Promotion Promotion Promotion! (no I didn't get a promotion...)

Promotional Strategy is an integral part of the marketing strategy for reaching the target market!

There are 4 keys to the promotional mix(strategy). Advertising, Public Relations, Sales Promotion, and Personal Selling. Hmmm... does Nike do this effectively....? Dumb question, I Know.. OF COURSE!

Advertising.

Advertising is most commonly used through "transistional media (mktg 3)" such as TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, direct mail, billboards. These modes are used because they are using advertising as a way to communicate with large amounts of people, to keep their brand fresh in their minds. Lets See how Nike effectively uses Advertisements. 

TV.

This TV advertisement is from Australia during the Sydney Olympics. By using athletes from different sports, it interests different people depending on what sport they follow or know. Talk about communicating to a large number of people!

BILLBOARD

This is in Tokyo... I'm preeeeeety sure a large amount of people are going to see it... dontcha think?

Public Relations.
Public Relations is used to create a positive public image to your desired target market. Since Nike has such a wide target as a whole, they use Public Relations effectively to promote the whole Nike brand, not just certain items or product lines.

To gain even more of a positive image, Nike holds "Nike Sparq Training Camps" at select areas around the nation where they have professional coaches and they have drills for people to do. At the end athletes get their SPARQ Rating. It is a measure of athleticness... and its FREE as long as you can get there. Also, with your rating, you can compare with other athletes around the nation. I NEEEEED to go to one of these! I consider myself a pretty athletic guy. In high school I played soccer track and cross country. I would have done Basketball or Football if I could.

Sales Promotion.
 This stimulates consumer purchasing and dealer effectiveness. I usually don't hear much about Nike sales promotions. However, I do love when Nike has contests on nike.com where you can win free Nike gear. A couple years ago, I won a free deck of Lebron James playing cards because of a Search and Win Game where you had a list of things to find in an animated Lebron James house. I googled nike sales promotions and I discovered various websites offering Nike coupons that can be very useful especially during this time of the year.
LINK: http://www.dealtaker.com/Nike-coupon-code-a2153-c.html

Personal Selling.
This is usually when there are sales people trying to sell you a good or service. The only time I know when Nike sales people help the usually customer is when we  ask for assistance in their retail store and then the employee tells us everything about the product. I assume that Nike has salespeople who market their brand on a larger scale, for example , the University of Oregon.

Example why it is IMPORTANT to TRADEMARK

BREAKING NEWS FROM IMPERIAL VALLEY NEWS...
(this is really good timing for my last blog post about trademarks and branding! muah ha ha)


The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized "16,171 pieces of counterfeit merchandise, 3 DVD burners, and a 2006 Nissan Titan truck worth a total of $256,171. Additionally, 4,572 pieces of counterfeit merchandise worth $59,000 were abandoned during the operation and turned over to on-site trademark representatives."


Counterfeit trademarks included Ray Ban, Polo, and NIKE! This was at a Flee Market in New Orleans. I'm assuming that more flee markets around the nation will start to be investigated because fakes cost businesses like Nike "billions of dollars" 
LINK : http://imperialvalleynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8898&Itemid=2


I Googled "fake nike" and these funny pictures popped up.

Los Angeles Lakers Meet Barack Obama!

President Obama and Kobe Bryant

This is AWESOME! My favorite team, my favorite player (Kobe) meeting the president once again at a Boys and Girls Club event. This is why soooooooo many either ENVY the Lakers or LOVE the Lakers. I'm a proud Laker Fan!
Check out the rest of the photo gallery of the Lakers appearance with the President at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington. 
http://www.nba.com/lakers/photogallery/1011lakersmeetobama.html_1.html

"O" reveals her Favorite Things.

Billionaire and talk host queen, Oprah Winfrey, revealed on her show on November 19th, that Nike is on of her most favorite things!

Sarah Wasserman from schaeffersresearch.com revealed to us that since then, the shares of Nike have risen considerably. For example, "Free Run+ shoes were featured as one of Oprah's Favorite Things. NKE has been hot on the charts lately, too, surging to a fresh all-time high of $90.52 today. This technical feat continues a recent trend for NKE, as the shares have been rallying to record highs since October."

yeah thats right Oprah. WOOT WOOT! Put Your Hands Up in the AIR!

link: OPRAH PUMPS UP NIKE STOCK

Ch. 4 - The Marketing Environment

The Marketing Environment is broke up into many many different categories. The goal of marketers is to identify future market opportunities and threats by gathering environmental data.
One way to group the target market, is by demographic factors.
Tweens (ages from 8-14) 29 million consumers

Generation Y (born between 1979 - 1994) 60 million consumers

High School Musical Cast

Generation X (born between 1965 - 1978) 40 million consumers

Tia and Tamera mowry (sister, sister)

KOBE!

Baby Boomers (born between 1946 - 1964) 77 million consumers

George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton = Baby Boomer

Marketers also have to consider the rising number of ethnic markets. According to the MKTG3 text, "in 2008, Hispanics wielded more that $1 Trillion in spending power; African Americans' spending topped $921 billion; and Asian Americans' spending power soared to $526 billion. Currently Hispanics account for about 14 percent of the US population and it is speculated to increase to 25% percent in 2050. So with that knowledge, marketers know that there is a big load of money that is to be made by targeting the hispanics. For example, the increasing number of Latin American TV stations shown throughout the United States.

Ch. 18 - Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

According to MKTG3, Sales Promotion is "marketing communication activities, other than advertising, personal selling, and public relation, in which a short-term incentive motivates consumers or members of the distribution channel to purchase a good or service immediately, either by lowering the price or by adding value."

There are different methods on using promotion: coupons&rebates, premiums, frequent buyer programs, contests&sweepstakes, sampling, Point-of-Purchase Promotion, Online Sales Promotion.
Nike uses each of these methods in a unique manner in which creates a huge amount of revenue.

Coupons & Rebates
Although Nike does not highly publicize this method, it is readily available to online buyers. I just did a simple GOOGLE search "nike coupons and rebates" and I came up with websites exclusively made to have coupon codes where you can get discounts or free shipping. This is definitely useful tool that Nike has put via the web.

Couponmeup.com NIKE COUPONS!
Fabuloussavings.com NIKE COUPONS!

Premiums
As an avid runner, I have totally been exposed to Nike's Premium Promotion strategy. I have probably bought about a dozen Nike running shoes and I have received many Nike shoe bags for free to go along with my purchase. I always loved the running shoes and always loved putting them away in my free Nike bag and taking it to school or the gym. Also as an ex-cross country runner, Nike sponsored many events that I was a part of. For Example, Mt. Sac Invitational in Walnut, California (Mt. Sac Invitational Website) is the largest invite in the nation where hundreds of schools from all over come to compete. Nike gave the winners and high place finishers bags, trophies, and even free shoes. NIKE uses plus premium for sure!!

The National Cross Country Race is also sponsored by Nike since 2004 

Frequent Buyer Programs

Blogs and websites build a community around its brand or company. Nike has many Facebook pages(many made by impostors) The real "NIKE" page has over 2 million fans and they constantly update the page informing the fans of promotions, advertisements, events in sports.

NIKE ON FACEBOOK

Contests & Sweepstakes

Nike is very involved with contests and sweepstakes. I have researched many contests Nike holds ranging from designing shirts, shoes, and balls. They also hold athletic activities where winners receive free Nike gear. Something that really impressed me is how Nike pushes their 175 retail locations to help their respective community. They give out grants to the stores according on how hard they push to positively change the community. It's awesome to have your own stores, COMPETING for money by helping the community out.

NIKE CONTEST WILL AWARD LOCAL SPORTS SHOPS GRANTS

Nike held a Basketball Tournament this year partnering up with Kobe Bryant and Aston Martin. The winners were awarded an Aston Martin version of Kobe's Nikes.

South Park Spoofs NIKE Lebron Advertisement

Mysterion Rises
Tags: SOUTH
PARKEric Cartman,Mysterion,more...

compared to Nikes' original.

Advertising In Asia! Just Do It!

Advertising in Asia!!!

Marketing Midterm

HEY HEY HEY Y'ALL! 
Your main man, Scott Amador Figueroa, got a 92 on his Marketing Midterm!
I just took what Nike taught me... and I... 

 Thanks for the Support Guys and I promise to keep the A's Coming!

Ch. 17 - Advertising and Public Relations

My Favorite All Time Basketball Player advertised with NIKE.



Advertising helps marketers increase or maintain brand awareness and market share. Big name brands use advertising now-a-days to keep their market share and to maintain their popularity. Nike definitely qualifies as a big name brand who, in the past, has been known to be a "free spending" company when it comes to advertising. Recently, however, they announced that they will cut their advertising budget "heavily" according to Ben Klayman from Reuters.com. Nevertheless, Nike spends so much on this aspect of marketing that people have no worry that Nike will remain at top of the market share in America. In 2009 they had used a advertising budget that was 4 times greater than number two in the competitive market, Adidas.


These cuts of advertising will benefit Nike very nicely because of a new target they plan on to pursue. Online advertising costs way less and you are guaranteed more people will see it. Nike will soon be all over the web and they will save SOOOOO much money.


Besides regular modes of advertising, Nike truly believes in sponsorship to get the big name brand publicity around the world. They sponsor athletes from around the world in every major sport. Basketball, Football, Soccer, Baseball, Cricket, Hockey, Track and Field, Golf, Polo, Swimming, the list goes on and on. Last year, they used about 260 Million dollars on sponsorships! I believe this is why Nike is the best in their market.


They even stick by athletes who are in controversies, including these two world known men.



Lebron was criticized heavily for leaving his hometown Cavaliers and this is his response to the world



You know what happened to Tiger, but Nike used this as an opportunity to help their superstar withstand the negative community.

Ch. 15 - Retailing

Retailing in the United States is a very important part of the economy. In fact, according to the MKTG 3 textbook, "retailers ring up over $4 trillion in sales annually, about 40 percent of the gross domestic product." That tells me that that the each marketer of the respective company has a huge responsibility to do whatever it takes to get us to buy, buy, and buy some more.


This evening I visited one of my favorite stores, Niketown, located at 57th and 5th avenue. I was pleasantly surprised that they allowed me to take photos, probably because tourists are a big part of their target market.  Retailing depends wholly on the customer and if the retailer comes to know the customer, then it is likely that the company will thrive! As I entered Nike, I was looking to find the retailing mix, which is "a combination of the six P's (product, place, promotion, price, presentation, and personnel) to sell goods to the ultimate consumer.


First of all, the PLACE is fabulous because.... come on! 5th AVENUE! That is a perfect location to experience growth and profitability. This is where a majority of tourists come to shop and where people with moderate to high incomes come to spend their money. It's busy all the time and there's 5 floors of product. ENOUGH SAID!

Secondly, PROMOTION at this store is always phenomenal, because of their intriguing ads which induces consumers to the world renowned company of Nike. A very interesting promotional strategy that is used at this place is their Runner's Club. They have three meetings a week and large groups of people get together and run! There are professional coaches there to instruct the group on where to go, how to stretch, and any advice if needed. You can leave your bag at the store carefree because someone is in charge of watching over it. After the run, they set up post-run snacks like bagels or drinks like Gatorade or Jamba Juice. Occasionally, the store allows runners to try out new products to see what they think of them. One important thing about this club...it's FREE!If you look up this Nike on Yelp.com (click here ) people are raving about how great this service is and have given it 4.5 stars!!!


For the PRODUCT and PRICE, people that come here usually know what to expect from Nike. Nike is the leader of sporting goods and at this Nike they have the whole collection of concentrations. They have soccer, football, basketball, tennis, running, golf, hockey, baseball, casual. This is the mecca of Nike's. Customers know and are willing to pay the extra money to get Nike quality. Although it may seem expensive to me, I understand why and I am not complaining when I spend 100 dollars for running shoes. I know they will last and I will be happy with my purchase.

The PRESENTATION is very Nike, for lack of better words. When you walk in you experience the wow factor and you literately smell "Nike." My first time at this store, I loved that there was 5 floors of organized merchandise. They had a lot of variety and colors. You are bound to find something you liked. Each floor is categorized between men and women and by sport. It was very easy to go directly up to your desired department. There was a lot of lighting, highlighting their special merchandise for example, the Jordan label for basketball. Leave it to Nike to Just do It, and have a wonderful environment.


Nike's PERSONNEL are very relaxed and outgoing. At first glance they appear to be knowledgeable about sports and they even seem like athletes themselves. They go along with the "Nike" theme nicely. When I came in the past to buy some running shoes, they were very cordial and let me know what I should look for in a pair of running shoes. I appreciated their help and how quick they got my size for the shoes. 

The rest of the photos of my NIKETOWN trip will be posted on the blog! 

Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

To understand consumer behavior we first must know what it means. According to the MKTG3 text, consumer behavior describes how consumers make purchase decisions and how they use and dispose of the purchased goods or services. The consumers are the people that make your business profitable and thus knowing how to appeal to your certain target market is crucial.

Generally, there are three broad consumer buying decisions categories. They include routine response behavior, limited decision making, and extensive decision making. Nike, as a company, falls into the routine response behavior because of its popularity and satisfaction worldwide. Consumers tend to not put forth much time or involvement in order to buy Nike products. They know what they are buying(the best sports products in the world) from past experiences and low risk (socially, financially, and psychologically).

Nike Football biggest rival: Under Armour

Nike Football consumers, however, fall into the limited decision making category. Although, Nike is preferred by most football athletes, there is serious competition with Under Armour. So consumers take some more time researching the different products and take cost into more consideration.




There are also other factors that influence consumer buying decisions: cultural, social, individual, and psychological.

• Cultural factors are the biggest influence in decision making. Nike understands that culture is dynamic because of it global popularity. They understand culture divides into many subcultures and social classes therefore strategizing how to target each respective group. The downside with Nike is that are a lot of people that culturally find Nike socially irresponsible for its manufacturing process internationally, thus having consumers buy from other competitors. 
• Socially, Nike does well because of its popularity in the world and how it is viewed as fashionable and cool, so people love wearing Nike proudly. Here is the link for Nike's direct fashion for NYC 
• NIKE NYC FASHION

men advertising



women advertising

• Individually, males and females, of all ages, accept what Nike has to offer because its vast array of products for all. Nowadays, people tend to view Nike as sporty and active which is a lifestyle most people around the world strive for. To become healthy and slim.

• Psychologically, Nike is regarded as the best sportswear company in the world, thus having consumers stimuli activated to engage buying Nike product. Consumers perception recognizes that Nike is an acceptable brand to purchase. Most Nike consumers have selective retention because of their constant Nike purchases while knowing that the product was made unethically in other countries. Consumers usually do not CARE!

Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

Global Business has been steadily increasing over the years. In fact over the past two decades, world trade has climbed from $200 Billion a year to over 7 Trillion. This is all because  of changing political structures allowing businesses to have less legal restrictions and that leads to more global trading. Examples would be the North America Free Trade Agreement and the European Union.

Nike is very into its global marketing and selling globally. Internationally, you can find the swoosh symbol anywhere. This is because of their incredible job marketing to different people and environments. A lot of people tend to do a joint venture with Nike because of how recognizable the brand. So that cuts out all of the hard work for Nike because they generally don't have to alter the product or the promotion for the global marketplace. They mainly receive most of their global sales from their futbol (soccer) department because of the popularity of the sport. They sponsor almost every impact player of every country to draw the nations interest in their product. Nike's sales of soccer is current about 1 billion a year, 25 percent of the market. Now that is getting the job done!

Ch. 3 - Ethics & Social Responsibility

Throughout the world, we often hear about how many companies from the United States outsource their products or service because of cheaper wages and higher profit. Now in the business sense that is phenomenal, but we must be realists and realize that we are actually doing more harm than good by incorporating these very cheap wages.

Country of Origin of Clothing I wore Today.

My H&M Jeans were made in Bangladesh

My  TopMan Shirt was made in Mauritius

 My Nike Shoes were made in Vietnam

Ch. 2 - Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage

From Left: Steve Breaston (ARI) Calvin Johnson (DET) Chris Johnson (TEN) DeSean Jackson (PHI) Troy Polamalu (PIT)

 Nike has about their strategic marketing planning with marketing plan. It is a guidebook that relates to marketing objectives to stay focuses in the constant changing world.  The basic elements of a Marketing Plan are:


1. Business Mission Statement
2. Objectives
3. SWOT Analysis
4. Market Strategy
    a. Target Market Strategy
    b. Marketing Mix
        i. product
        ii. distribution
        iii. promotion
        iv. price
5. Implementation Control


A good business mission statement is specific to what its goods/services are but must also target the markets they are trying to serve. Marketing Myopia often occurs when a mission statement defines a business in terms of goods and services rather than in terms of the benefits customers seek.
Objectives are vital because they are point out what and when the companies are set to accomplish. Nike has short term objectives where they state what they want to be done in the current fiscal year. They have Long term objectives as well in five year spans. Objectives are also important to lower level employees because it gives them a deadline, something to strive for.
SWOT stands for (S)trength and (W)eaknesses internally and (O)pportunities and (T)hreats externally. Nike targets what strengths and weaknesses internally such as Communication, Leadership, Market Share, Employee Capabilities. They want to keep growing as a team to keep their success rate up!

NFL Season Kickoff!

Anticipation has gone through the roof for the 2010 NFL season and we can now all relax on our couches and watch our favorites players and teams compete in the most popular game in America.

Along with following Nike Football, I will be updating you with information and news from around the league. I am very excited for a jammed pack year for the best year of football yet. Peace Out!

Ch. 1 - Overview of Marketing (Brief company history and mission statement)

Before there was the worldwide recognizable swoosh logo for Nike, there was a company called Blue Ribbon Sports, which was founded by Philip Knight and Bill Bowerman. They created this store to provide athletes with better equipment and shoes. In 1971 they introduced the Greek Goddess of Victory, Nike. It took them 8 years to officially go public and the success began to boom.


Their goal is to carry on their legacy of innovative thinking, whether to develop products that help athletes of every level of ability reach their potential, or to create business opportunities that set Nike apart from the competition and provide value for their shareholders.