NIKE²
Creative Direction
Transformation
Culture and Values
Audience-driven Innovation
Experience Design
Exhibits
Like many global brands in recent years, NIKE wandered into territory misaligned with their own values. This has wounded morale, and confused the market. Yet, customer loyalty has never been stronger. By listening to the NIKE team, we began to heal company culture. By harnessing consumer love, we bolstered the brand and put the spotlight on an audience that has been carrying the torch of NIKE’s original mission: to inspire and innovate.
1. LISTENING
NIKE came to the agency with complaints of a fractured internal culture, and abrasion with consumers. Our 2-part solution confronted both problems head-on. First, we gave NIKE executives an unprecedented vantage on their employees, logging hours of anonymous testimonials and journaling. We then created an audio / visual exhibit of this “radical transparency”. Just as Rob Strasser spelled out in his original 10 Principles for the company in 1977, we accepted that: “It [wouldn’t] be pretty”.
2. LOVE
The best brands are audience-driven. This is especially true when culture falters, and founding values fall by the wayside. After we gave the NIKE C-Suite a health check on their people, we took them on a tour of the most valuable aspect of their own brand: the consumer love that has persisted since the company’s inception, and the trove of creative interpretations of the brand that might carry it forward.
LOVE/WORK BALANCE
3. THE FUTURE
For a team to be successful, they need a mission, clarity of purpose, and a sincere belief in the company values. For a team to be extraordinary, they need a vision: an idea of the future they want to create — for themselves, and the consumer.
But, a vision is not always specific or measurable. It’s more like a dream. A vision for NIKE can range from producing biodegradable shoes, to reshaping the work environment itself. We help the company look ahead, embracing nuanced shifts in athletics, technology, and design, rather than taking up causes detached from the brand.
BACK TO BASICS
Even the biggest brands on earth lose their way. Lack of growth, and rapid growth can both be culprits. Misplaced trust in Ad agencies has been deleterious in recent years, compounding the problem of companies repeatedly betraying the core values that garnered success in the first place. And yet, values need to evolve.
NIKE’s problems today are not unlike those overcome as a scrappy entrant in the running world. In 1977, in a fit of pique that employees were losing sight of the company’s values, Rob Strasser authored 10 principles that became central to the NIKE brand. We resurfaced them in this project to great effect.
Most consultancies hurry the client into “what’s next”, leaving glaring, fundamental problems unanswered. We solved NIKE’s identity crisis by looking inward, and backward first: by delivering unfiltered employee voices directly to the company C-Suite, we shocked them out of complacency. Surfacing the contrasting brand love that lives on through the customers, we showed them what was possible.
