Nike Philippines’ attempt at a social media campaign
NIKE Philippines recently launched a Social Campaign that sought to engage the market with a ‘Message Wall’ where one could post personal statements on what was worth fighting for in the Philippines.
As Social Media consultant, Carlo Ople, rightly pointed out in a blog post, the “Message Wall” tactic has been much overused by other campaigns including the now defunct (?) SMART-PLDT’s Ako Mismo and Senator Villar’s Akalo Mo campaigns.
NIKE Philippines “Team Pilipinas” Campaign
Where’s the conversation?
The penchant for filipinos for expression was correctly exploited by these campaigns. Unfortunately, it lacked any kind of compelling factor that would fuel continuing engagement between Nike and the market— a key ingredient in effective social media dynamics.
As shown by Flickr and YouTube, the conversations need not always be based on words. Neophytes can easily make that mistake as they try to reinvent their competencies towards social media.
Carlo presented a critique of Nike’s campaign and a few suggested alternative approaches. Here is how I would do try encourage the continuous interaction between Nike and the market while using an already sticky and popular mechanism Nike had already been using.
Nike+iPod
Last year, Nike launched a cool product in tandem with Apple called the Nike+iPod. This was essentially a digital pedometer which communicated with either an iPod Nano, iPod Touch, or iPhone through a wireless connector. Data collected by the iPod or iPhone could then be synced to the Nike+ website where kilometers are logged on the users personal profile. A rich set of analytics is then available to the Nike customer giving him or her comprehensive information on their progress through time.
Through this product, Nike has developed a strong community that constantly re-visits the Nike+ website loggin an aggregate (to date) 245,000,000 kilometers worldwide. This entire campaign is obviously designed to drive sales of their products, such as the Nike+ shoe that comes with a custom pocket accommodating the device.
The Nike+ Dashboard
Sweat out your Support
Nike should have exploited on an already loyal community by converting kilometers logged into an aggregate measurement of support for Team Pilipinas. This would have actually given the market a stronger affinity with Nike’s call for support by attaching the customer’s athletic activity with Team Pilipinas’ FIBA campaign.
I’m trying to figure out how this social media campaign was conceived. My thoughts though are that a lot more could have been accomplished if a bit more brainpower and out-of-the-box thinking were applied to the effort.
