Digital marketing: Nike golf

Nike uses a lot of very well made commercials and they seem to influence golfers very well. Nike is fairly new golf club manufacturer so it has to build it's credibility. Nike does same thing in golf what it does in every other sports, use succesful athletes. Nike uses to sponsoring atheletes more than 400 million dollars every year. This money gets Nike positive image as their athletes win in their sports and also buys Nike credibility that their products are at highest level.

Biggest star in golf is Tiger Woods. Woods gets estimated 20 millions each year by promoting Nike. Tiger Woods was injured about six months and analytics has estimated that NIke losed about 60 million dollars because of that. Tiger Woods is such a big promoter not only for Nike but for golf generally. It has been proved by television viewer stats that Tiger's presence affects how much people watch golf on tv. People won't watch golf tournaments as much if Woods isn't playing. If your promoter has that much power you can only guess what influens that have to your customers who sees him wearing your logo. Not only Tiger Woods wear Nike logo on Nike commercials but he wears it almost every other commercial that he appears also (Buick, Accenture, EA sports).

Nike is building a brand. Nike is actually a very strong brand but they try to build strong brand as golf manufacturer. It's not cheap to build your good image with money. Nike golf sponsors dozens of golfers so that they can get their products some publicity.

Product;
Products are good these days. Nike has used a lot of money to develope their products and they have also hired some very skilled designers who have experience in golf industry to make them even better. With great designers and help from PGA Tour players they hope to get people to trust their products.

Place;
Where can you buy Nike products? Every where. If you go to sport store that sells golf equipment you are about to see some Nike golf products. Nike does have so good selling network that they can sell their golf products all over the globe.

Nike differiates their website like all the other golf club manufacturers. When some of Nike sponsored player wins something it is in the front page. So Nike takes everything out of their players successing.

Price;
As mentioned earlier it isn't cheap to have best players in your "payroll" but it has some benefits. When customers see Tiger Woods wearing some cool shirt on tv you can charge 80 $ for it. Without Tiger wearing it you could only get about 40 $.
Nike golf products are good but are they really that good that you can double the price if one particular athlete wears your shirt?

Promotion;
This is where Nike shows it's skills. Nike promotes Nike brand and not the products. You can rearly see Nike commercial where are just one or two products that are promoted. On some websites there might be Nike Golf banners that promotes some single product. Nike also uses their web banners in websites which talks about Nike products, on reviews example. Usually Nike promotes whole sport. Seems like Nike have brain washed it's sponsored players or then Nike really is that good sponsor. Every player tells how Nike help them on and off the course. They seem so brand loyal and are very happy to Nike golf clubs. Ofcourse they do but theres something that makes customer believe it. Nike puts their famous Swoosh-logo everywhere but it doesn't seem to bother. It's almost like it should be there. Tiger Woods without Swoosh is some how notcomplete. There was this interesting article on some website that said that Nike is so important to Tiger Woods that although Tiger's contract doesn't obligate him wearing Nike clothes all the time he still does. You can see Tiger Woods promoting other products and still he's wearing Nike clothes. It's so used to that other companies doesn't even try to prevent this. It's sort of package deal, if you want Tiger you take also Nike.

In Tiger Woods case there probably won't be any disappointments but it is risky business use celebrities as your spokesperson. When your celebrity makes mistake, and some of them do, it also effects your brand image. There is one example where NFL player was sponsored by Reebok and then it was discovered that he was arranging illegal dogfights. This effected immediatly Reebok's image.

Nike Golf build it's marketing around Tiger Woods. Why wouldn't they because every one in golf world does look at what he does. Nike Golf has made many commercials where their athletes appear alone or with other athletes. Nike uses also humor and in some cases very expensive and very stylish looking material.

One commercial that showed Nike's good understanding of timing was when Tiger Woods made he's comeback. Every one was watching him coming back and after he's first shot there were commercial break where Nike had made commercial about how much other players enjoyed when he was gone. Others could win tournaments and no that he's back all the fun is over. Check the commercial on videos section (Tiger Woods returns).

Nike being so big corporation and sponsoring many athletes they also benefits this and makes commercials that shows two athletes from different sports together. Example there is commercial where appear Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. These commercials strenghts Nike brand and maybe if you doesn't pay as much attention that other sport you also start seeing that other athlete and remember Nike.

Nike uses a lot of time developing their website. Well maybe not a lot of time but they did know what they wanted and let the webpage creator worry about the time. Nike did complete makeover to their website. Nike knew what they wanted and they give 30 days to webdesigner to make new site.

What Nike get:
- More products to their online store.
- A lot more information on their products.
- Great looking web site which looks nice and benefits todays technology.

If you have a online store it is important that you make it look good. It just gives bad image if you have few products on your list. You should also so be able to give much information on your products and possible use different kind of ways to promote yor products. NIke uses videos and images. If you are looking for NIke golf shoe you can see what are the parts that it's made of.

See the link at the bottom to read more about website remake.

Most recent Nike golf promoting event happened early May. Nike golf had arranged event where Tiger Woods was promoting Nike products in one of Nike's many stores. As Tiger Woods was only able to be in one store Nike had arranged video link in seven other stores. To make sure customers could participate this event Nike had also made it possible to customers watch this video in internet. So if you couldn't make it to the store where Tiger was in person you could go to any other of these seven selected Nike stores or watch tiger in Nike golf's homepage.

With this event Nike get a great change to promote it's not only golf products but all the other products because people would come to their store. As they heard Tiger speak customers could try Nike products and also ask Tiger questions.

See the news paper article on the bottom about Tiger web talkback.

In Nike golf online store you can find everything that Nike is selling this year. You can buy balls, shoes or shirts. You can find a lot of information on their products and after all the facts you can decide if this product is worth buying. How ever I couldn't find golf clubs in their online store. There is store locator which will help you find the nearest store that sell Nike products.

You can probably find these products cheaper in your local sport store but they don't necessarily have those sizes or colours that you want.