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Amazon, Levi’s, Nike, Sephora and TikTok Among Category Leaders in Loyalty and Brand Engagement Index

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By LISA LOCKWOOD

These are among the brands known as “loyalty juggernauts.”

Levi Strauss, Nike, T.J. Maxx, Walmart, Dollar Tree, TikTok, Costco, Sephora, Zappos and Amazon led in their respective categories in an index measuring loyalty and customer engagement.

According to the 27th annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, those are some of the brands that are “‘loyalty juggernauts” — brands of such overwhelming economic force that their ability to meet expectations makes them far more powerful than universal awareness alone,” said Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, the New York-based brand engagement and customer loyalty research consultancy. The index examined customers’ relationships with 1,200 brands in 114 categories. Some 95,607 consumers, ages 16 to 65, were surveyed.

For example, Levi’s won in the apparel category (91 percent); Nike won in athletic shoes (89 percent); T.J. Maxx was in the top position in department stores (79 percent); Walmart won in discount (82 percent); Zappos won in online shoes (90 percent); Costco won in price clubs (89 percent), and Amazon came in first place online (96 percent). The percentages indicate their ability to meet expectations consumers hold for the ideal (100 percent) in their category.

“This loyalty paradigm has changed dramatically since the ‘Cola Wars’ of the ’70s,” said Passikoff. “Today, loyalty — and consumer choice — don’t come down to one-or-the-other option. Today’s loyalty bottom line comes down to consumers’ deepest expectations, and how they feel which brand measures up best. Customer behavior and brand loyalty are now almost entirely governed by emotional values related to expectations and expectations grow constantly.”

Passikoff noted a few economic facts that substantiate the cost-and-effort effectiveness of brand loyalty strategies. For example, it costs 16 times more to recruit a new customer than keep an existing one. A 5 percent increase in loyalty lifts lifetime profits per customer by as much as 78 percent, and a 5 percent loyalty increase is equal to a 12 to 21 percent across-the-board cost-reduction program.

He noted that being a loyalty juggernaut moves brands beyond primacy of product, distribution, ad budgets, even pricing. Being a loyalty juggernaut essentially commands category leadership. “The ability to meeting those very high consumer expectations better than the competition acts like the ‘super glue’ of loyalty,” he said. “Brands create a virtually unbreakable bond with customers.”

Feature Image Credit: SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

By LISA LOCKWOOD

Sourced from WWD

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What on Earth is Nike doing with its wild new branding?

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By Joseph Foley

People just don’t get it

‘Just Do it’ is one of the best-known brand taglines around. It’s been serving Nike since 1988, and it’s just as recognisable as its swoosh logo, one of the most famous textless logos. Many would say it didn’t need any other intervention, which has left people perplexed as to why Nike appears to have jumped on a recent typography trend.

People have been commenting on social media to ask why the brand placed a couple of apparently random gothic Blackadder-style letters on a post featuring Spanish tennis star and current men’s singles number one Carlos Alcaraz. But it’s not the one advert. Nike has been changing up the ‘D’ in several recent adverts.

Adaptive logos are having a bit of a moment right now. It’s something that MTV logo did so well back in the 1980s, and the LA28 Olympic Games logo has resurrected the concept with a design that can take on infinite interventions, including, controversially, from the games’ sponsors.

Nike appears to be taking up this idea and running with it, not on its logo, but with the ‘D’ in its ‘Just Do it’ tagline. But people are confused (and not just because of the incorrect punctuation). “What’s with the random Blackletter E and D? Totally unnecessary and adds nothing,” Studio Koto CEO and founder James Greenfield commented on Twitter about the recent advert featuring Alcaraz. Some people even wondered if the design was a real Nike advert or an amateur proposal.

The choice of an ‘old-fashioned’ font in this particular piece is presumably intended to draw attention to the world ‘era’, the idea that Alcaraz is marking the start of a new period in tennis following the dominance of the likes of Federer for two decades. Some have even suggested that the E and D are references to Federer’s F logo and Djokovic’s D logo respectively, although the link seems tenuous.

A more likely theory is that Nike is trying to tap into Gen Z’s penchant for using messy mixes of typography and special font generators for social media: 80’s/90’s exuberance taken further. Nike’s ‘What the Football’ advert created for the FIFA Women’s World Cup (see below) features several versions of the ‘D’ in its close, and graphics for the campaign feature a clash of clean sans serif overlaid with colourful dripping graffiti and inflated fonts.

Image 1 of 3
Nike Just Do it with changing D typography
Nike’s Women’s World Cup campaign features changing typography in the Just Do it tagline (Image credit: Nike)

“Perfectly aligned with online typographic trends ATM. A mish-mash of styles for absolutely no reason whatsoever,” one person commented on Twitter. The Alcaraz application feels confusing and poorly executed but the broader use of mixed fonts to reject the minimalist trend of recent years doesn’t feel entirely out of place for a brand that’s long been as much about streetwear and youth culture as it has sport. If you’re looking to mix up typography in your own work, see our pick of the best free fonts and the best font pairings.

Feature Image credit: Nike

By Joseph Foley

Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news and features, updates buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment for creatives, from monitors to accessories and office supplies. A writer and translator, he also works as a project manager at London and Buenos Aires-based design and branding agency Hermana Creatives, where he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing photography, video content, graphic design and collaterals for the hospitality sector. He enjoys photography, particularly nature photography, wellness and he dances Argentine tango.

Sourced from CREATIVEBLOQ

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In News

What on Earth is Nike doing with its wild new branding?

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By Joseph Foley

People just don’t get it

‘Just Do it’ is one of the best-known brand taglines around. It’s been serving Nike since 1988, and it’s just as recognisable as its swoosh logo, one of the most famous textless logos. Many would say it didn’t need any other intervention, which has left people perplexed as to why Nike appears to have jumped on a recent typography trend.

People have been commenting on social media to ask why the brand placed a couple of apparently random gothic Blackadder-style letters on a post featuring Spanish tennis star and current men’s singles number one Carlos Alcaraz. But it’s not the one advert. Nike has been changing up the ‘D’ in several recent adverts.

Adaptive logos are having a bit of a moment right now. It’s something that MTV logo did so well back in the 1980s, and the LA28 Olympic Games logo has resurrected the concept with a design that can take on infinite interventions, including, controversially, from the games’ sponsors.

Nike appears to be taking up this idea and running with it, not on its logo, but with the ‘D’ in its ‘Just Do it’ tagline. But people are confused (and not just because of the incorrect punctuation). “What’s with the random Blackletter E and D? Totally unnecessary and adds nothing,” Studio Koto CEO and founder James Greenfield commented on Twitter about the recent advert featuring Alcaraz. Some people even wondered if the design was a real Nike advert or an amateur proposal.

Feature Image credit: Nike

By Joseph Foley

Sourced from CreativeBLOQ

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How Nike made taking a stand on social issues part of its marketing

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By Jeff Beer

From Colin Kaepernick to the U.S. women’s national soccer team, racism to equal pay, it’s all become a part of Nike’s brand message.

On September 3, 2018, a single tweet drew a line in the sand. A close-up shot of Colin Kaepernick’s face, with the words, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

Timed to mark the start of the 2018/2019 NFL season and celebrating the 30th anniversary of the tagline “Just Do It,” the post and its accompanying video commercial lit up the cultural discourse like no ad in recent memory. Here was arguably the most popular sports apparel company on the planet siding with one of the most divisive athletes in the world. The message was clear: the swoosh would be on the side of anti-racism.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder last year, the company flipped its tagline to read, “For once, don’t do it,” addressing ongoing protests and systemic racism in America. Those white letters over a dark or black background embodied a message consistent with past Nike efforts around social issues, like 2017’s “Equality” spot or 2019’s “Never Stop Winning” in support of the U.S. women’s national soccer team and gender equality.

“It doesn’t matter how many people hate your brand as long as enough people love it,” Knight told Fast Company in 2018. “And as long as you have that attitude, you can’t be afraid of offending people. You can’t try and go down the middle of the road. You have to take a stand on something, which is ultimately I think why the Kaepernick ad worked.”

Knight’s outlook on the Kaepernick ad has become the brand’s playbook as it continues to look at a young, diverse audience as its core customer, and then act accordingly. Just as the 2020 European Championship soccer tournament was kicking off in June 2021, Nike released a spot call “The Land of New Football,” that featured a laundry list of inclusive characters – gay, straight, black, white, and everyone in between. It illustrated that the joy of sport should be for absolutely everyone, no exceptions.

In this interview for The Work in Progress video series, Fast Company spoke with Nike’s vice-president of diversity and inclusion Jarvis Sam, and the company’s vice-president of marketing Melanie Auguste, about how taking a stand on social issues has become crucial to the company’s award-winning marketing.

WATCH: How Nike stays ahead of the curve with its socially conscious marketing

Feature Image Credit: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images

By Jeff Beer

Jeff Beer is a staff editor at Fast Company, covering advertising, marketing, and brand creativity. More

Sourced from Fast Company

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‘Who actually loves authentic content?’ Brands need to understand their value exchange

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By Ryan Reddick

A few years ago I was working on the Coffee vs Gangs content series. After a successful launch, which saw Kenco help young Hondurans out of gangs by training them as coffee farmers, l found myself in an all agency meeting. After some initial self-congratulatory backslapping, discussion of the ‘raw authenticity’ led to a new addition to the group confidently chiming in.

‘I loved the first series and was wondering if it might be possible to see some of the kids from the gangs drinking Kenco’.

Awkward pause.

We’ll come back to that.

Fast-forward a few years to The Drum Content Awards, of which I recently had the pleasure of sitting on the judging panel. To kick off the day all the judges took part in an ice breaker, where we were asked to share our thoughts on ‘authenticity’ in content.

A question like this is catnip for content professionals. And the 25 of us, all released from our respective agencies formed a warm cosy echo chamber. One which made us feel reassured that we are all saying the same things to our clients and none of us are doing it wrong.

I listened. But I contributed nothing. Because the only thought I had ringing around my head was ‘isn’t all this just bollocks?’ Which wouldn’t have gone down well at all.

That’s not to say that my fellow judges didn’t engage in an intelligent and considered discussion. But this wasn’t about them. It was about the concept of ‘authenticity’ itself.

Before I go on, I dare any current creative or content specialist to review their proposals, treatments and pitches delivered in the last three months and not cringe at overuse bordering on abuse of the word.

The truth is, it’s become a dog whistle we blow on in front of our colleagues and clients to try and sell ideas without thinking about it. But when you actually think about it, it means very little on the outside world.

When was the last time anyone saw a piece of content and said ‘I love it because of its authenticity’?

Never.

Because no one ever says that.

Alongside ‘disruptive’, ‘authentic’ has become a nonsense husk of a word that means nothing and everything to us in our comfy communications and marketing circles.

That’s not to say that Kaepernick or Patagonia Black Friday didn’t come from a truly brilliant place. In the same way that featuring a bunch of troubled kids from gangs drinking Kenco obviously comes from a hideous one. But let’s not over inflate the sentiment behind this too much. Or to bastardise the words of Scroobius Pip –

Nike. Just a brand

Patagonia. Just a brand

Kenco. Just a brand

When a consumer engages with any form of content made by a brand or business an unspoken contract is entered into. ‘I know you are trying to sell me something or make me like you so I eventually buy something. But I’m willing to let you do that in exchange for getting something back’.

And this is far more authentic than authenticity. Because authenticity may be dead, but the authentic value exchange is very much alive.

I am willing to engage with your marketing, communication or advertising in exchange for you entertaining me. Making me laugh. Teaching me something new. Helping me with utility that enables me to do my job better.

Authentic value exchange. Much better. Not hiding behind the fact that something is authentic just for the sake of it when we all know what’s going on. Consumers are not stupid.

And that’s what was great about judging The Drum Content Awards. To see so many examples of exceptional work that creates a compelling value exchange between brand and consumer.

Examples that used comedy in exchange for brand trust around online security (Santander), that answered fuel economy questions in exchange for consideration of an electric alternative (Nissan Leaf) and that showed future parents what having children really looks like to build market share of their baby wipe brand (WaterWipes).

And by the way, in case you were interested.

We never featured any gang member drinking Kenco.

Now that’s authentic.

Feature Image Credit: ‘Who actually loves authentic content?’ Brands need to understand their value exchange

By Ryan Reddick

Ryan Reddick, creative director, Edelman is a judge for The Drum Content Awards 2019. A full list of the finalists can be found here. The awards ceremony will take place in London on October 30 at The Marriot Grosvenor Square Hotel, tickets can be purchased now.

Sourced from The Drum

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Amazon, Apple and Nike Just Got Some Truly Amazing Good News. (Millennials Especially Will Be Very Happy)

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By Bill Murphy Jr.

Good news all around.

Imagine you run a company, and I say I have some good news. Which would you be happier to hear?

  • Learning that customers think you have a valuable brand.
  • Learning that Millennial customers particuarly love your brand.

If you’re Amazon, Apple or Nike, it’s actually a trick question. Because recently, all three brands got some fantastic news on both fronts. Here’s the background.

Earlier this year, WPP research agency Kanta revealed the latest update to its annual “BrandZ Global Top 100” list of the world’s brands, ranked by monetary value.

I find this fascinating — the idea you could break out the brand value, and assign it a value as if it were any other asset. This year, Amazon got the best news, as the agency thinks has a brand worth $315.5 billion.

That was enough for it to leapfrog over Apple and Google, whose brands were valued at $309.5 billion and $309 billion respectively.

But now, these companies have some encouraging news about a subset of their customers from another source: a marketing firm that asks Millennials about their favorite brands each year.

And while the brand value might provide a snapshot in time, I think the affinity younger customers have for a brand might be better news — a promise of greater value in the future.

Here are the top 10 brands for millennials according to Moosylvania, and what they might mean for the companies involved:

1.    Amazon

Amazon is just the big winner across the board. It was at the top of the BrandZ list, and now it’s jumped form number 3 on last year’s Moosylvania list to the top slot. In fact, its grocery brand, Whole Foods, separately tied for 82nd on the list as far as Millennial affinity is concerned.

2.    Apple

Apple was number 2 on both the brand value survey and the Moosylvania list. The difference was slight, relatively speaking, on the overall brand survey — $6 billion, but that’s less than 2 percent below Amazon given that the brands are are so valuable to begin with.

3.    Nike

Interesting and promising jump for Nike, which was the 21st most-valuable brand on WPP’s list (with an estimated brand value of $47.360 billion). It corresponds with Nike’s all-in backing of controversial ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

4.    Walmart

Another positive sign for the future for Walmart, which ranked #32 on the overall brand value list earlier this year. It would seem any brand that ranks higher on preference lists for younger consumers than overall should take that as a good thing.

5.    Target

Target doesn’t even seem to listed in the BrandZ Global Top 100, which might be explainable by the fact that it’s a worldwide ranking, while Target at this point is basically an American brand. But good news for the future: it’s number 5 on this Millennials list.

6.    Samsung

Samsung was only ranked 38 in terms of value on the BrandZ Global list and 10th among technology companies. But it comes in at number-6 here. The big difference, one would think, is higher Millennial adoption of Samsung’s phones.

7.    Google

If I were a brand, and I were to worry, I would be Google. It’s still a gargantuan company, of course, and it has some interesting plans to take over more parts of the world. But setting aside Target, it has the biggest negative difference between overall brand value according to Brand Z, and ranking on this list of younger customers.

8.    Adidas

Another brand with an amazing sign for the future if these rankings have value: Adidas ranked the 100th most-valuable brand according to Brand Z, but here it is at number eight among younger customers’ favorites.

9 and 10.    Coke and Pepsi

Rather than write the same observations about similar brands Coke and Pepsi twice, we’ll combine them here. These brands ranked 9th and 10th as Millennial favorites from this survey. (Coca-Cola was also number 14 on the Brand Z survey.)

It’s even that even as younger consumers eschew sugar water and sodas, the brands behind those products retain affinity from this cohort.

You can see the entire list here. (opens as .pdf). Let us know in the comments what brands surprised you on the list.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Bill Murphy Jr.

Sourced from Inc.

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In effort to grow direct sales, Nike integrated its app strategy into its stores

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By Hilary Milnes

If you’re a Nike+ member, entering a Nike store with the Nike app unlocks a new experience. With the app in in-store mode, customers can request fitting rooms and shoe sizes instantly, receive special offers and exclusive product, and checkout in the app and leave by skipping the line.

Nike has woven its mobile app into its retail stores, and now, having realized the power of its mobile apps to drive customer loyalty and sales, it’s tightening the relationship between the two channels. The secret sauce behind Nike’s success in building up its digital and direct-to-consumer businesses is the link between its apps and its store strategy.

“The way we look at digital and in-store is not channel-by-channel, or one channel helping the other. Instead, we architected the entire notion of why someone with a phone in their pocket would walk into a store,” said Michael Martin, Nike’s global head of digital products. “We want to have the best store experience where our most connected customers are, whereas another company might look at the inverse — if people are shopping in the app, they don’t need a store there. But we see our approach as better serving our customers.”

Martin oversees Nike’s apps — which include the main Nike app, the SNKRS app, Nike Run Club, as well as Nike’s WeChat store — as well as digital retail experiences and services. His role expanded a year and a half ago to include leading digital integration in Nike’s stores, at the same time the company was putting together an internal strategy to increase direct sales. In 2017, Nike announced its “Triple Double Strategy” focusing on doubling the innovation, speed to market and direct customer connections at Nike through a series of initiatives.

To double direct connections, Nike rethought the way its apps functioned in Nike stores, including rewarding Nike+ app members with in-store perks and exclusive features, in an effort to drive direct sales.

Over the past year, Nike has built a feedback loop of customer data that flows from its collection of apps into its stores. It’s mostly in Nike’s new store concepts: House of Innovation, now open in New York and Shanghai, and Nike Live, which opened last year in Los Angeles. These stores include new digital features like app-reserve for sneakers, mobile checkout and buy online, pick up in-store lockers. Martin said that by approaching the two channels — app and store — as connected customer touchpoints, sales have increased.

The impact is felt throughout the store experience. Store merchandising strategies are informed by the data coming from users in that area that use the app to predict what will sell well, and in stores, customers can check on size and style availability and checkout in the app to make it a more frictionless experience.

Nike’s using its internal channel strategy to eliminate the silos between digital and retail sales channels, banking on the idea that success in one channel should drive success in other channels, too. As a result, it’s writing the rules on how a legacy retail brand can drive direct sales and customer connections: By offering customers a reason to opt-in to membership programs and app downloads by improving all other retail channels in return.

“Nike’s shown that a massive brand can navigate a new retail landscape that prioritizes direct sales and customer connections,” said Robin Copland, group vp of retail practice at Huge.

Nike’s digital and direct sales are up. Last Thursday, the company announced its results for its third financial quarter for 2019. Total revenue was up 7 percent to $9.6 billion, while digital sales were up 36 percent, making it Nike Digital’s first billion-dollar quarter. Direct sales grew by Nike CEO Mark Parker stressed the investment Nike is making in signing up more Nike+ loyalty members and app users, who spend more in Nike stores: At the new House of Innovation stores, Nike has found that more than 50 percent of transactions come from Nike members, and that customers who use the Nike app average 40 percent higher sales across all of Nike’s retail stores than those who don’t use the app, Parker said.

Martin said that driving app users to shop in Nike stores was made possible because of his team’s integration, which bridged the gap between digital products and the store concepts.

“The shift was a key early, but a critical part of the strategy shift to focus on one-to-one relationships with consumers at scale,” said Martin. “It’s given us greater license because we’re immersed in all this data that leads to decisions that come back to the consumer, because it’s a rapid cycle. I’m also responsible for the digital innovation team, which isn’t a lab off to the side. We’re pushing the boundaries of innovation into the core of the company as a whole.”

It’s a strategy that also extends out to Nike’s retail partners. Martin said the team is testing digital features powered by the Nike app with Foot Locker and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

“We’re designing our own stores in the same way you would a digital experience, and we can build a better experience that serves the customers more,” he said. “Then, we can take what we know and bring it to our retail partners. The goal is no weak links.”

By Hilary Milnes

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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