The 2012 Olympic games were just as much a marketing competition as they were an athletic competition. Nike chose to “embrace the weird” and as a result came away a big winner.
During the “Marketing Mavericks: Driving Innovation” meeting earlier this month at the IMG Sports Marketing Symposium, Nike’s innovative olympic marketing strategies were a hot topic. Marketing experts raved about Nike’s guerrilla product insertion into olympic events where millions of people worldwide were forced to notice the incandescent sneakers worn by over 400 world class athletes. The conclusion? It’s time for sports marketers to “embrace the weird.”
The panel included marketing executives from JoNa Ventures, Altis Marketing, DDCD & Partners and Reebok.
Previously, Nike spokesman Brian Strong explained that the neon yellow color of the Volts was specifically chosen for scientific purposes. “Of all the colors of the rainbow, the human eye and visual system is most sensitive to the yellow/green zone,” Strong said. “The power of this visual signal is capitalized on when the background is highly contrasting, which the London Olympic track is — reddish. The human eye has relatively low sensitivity to red vs. much higher sensitivity to Volt color.”
Nike was not an official sponsor of the Olympics, but they might as well have been. Their innovative approach in London is already shaping the future of sports marketing.
(Photos courtesy of http://adage.com/ and Gia Goodrich)
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