In 2012, Summer Olympics were held in London,UK. And in the midst of all these happenings, there was a neck to neck competition between sports brand to win the title sponsorship of Olympics2012. Despite of all the efforts of all other brands as well , Adidas emerged as a Title Sponsor.
Adidas was all set to dive into success but here’s a catch something unexpected happened. Despite Adidas winning the Title Sponsorship of the Summer Olympics, another very famous sports brand that is Nike emerged as far more successful than Adidas.
Adidas generated 9k olympics-related tweets, whilst Nike received 16k olympics-related tweets. Adidas gained 12k followers on its social media account during the 2012 Olympics, whilst Nike gained 57k. The craziest thing was that most Americans who were questioned who was the event’s title sponsor mentioned Nike.
So the question here arises that how Nike emerged as the ultimate winner without getting the Title Sponsorship? To win at marketing Nike found out some loopholes and came up with some brilliant marketing strategies.
- They hired around 400 Olympic athletes to be their brand amabassadors. They did this by asking them to wear their company’s Yellow-Green shoes which were especially designed for the Olympics. The main attraction was that the shoes were at a complete contrast with the track of Olympics which made them stand differently.
- Second thing that they did was that as Nike was not allowed to shoot its commercials in London of UK as the event was going to happen there only . and only Adidas was allowed to feature London of UK because it was the Title Sponsor. So Nike played a little game here. Nike shot all of its commercials outside London of UK. It should be noted that there are 28 more places named as London apart from UK’s in the world . in this way they never broke the rules as well.
- As Nike did not have the Sponsorship, it was not allowed to hire the athletes of Olympics for its Brand Endorsement. So it hired normal teenagers for its commercials and it really blowed up the internet. It used the concept of inspiration to promote its idea. And it surely did. By the commercial they did not want to talk about great athletes but they want to talk about you and me. If you are pushing your limits and becoming a better version of yourself , the commercials depicts your story.
And because of all the amazing strategies that nike adopted, it was No1 trending on Youtube just the week after Olympics started, and Adidas which was its Title sponsor was on third position.
