Ad Campaign of the Week: Nike Breaking2 Fails But Succeeds

For its latest marketing campaign, Nike got extremely ambitious. Partnering with some marathon runners and other brands, the company set out to break the two-hour barrier that has long been considered impossible for marathoners to crack. While none of the runners actually achieved that ultimate goal, they came very close. And the marketing and advertising campaign surrounding Nike Breaking2 could still have some positive effects for the brand. So what do consumers think about the campaign? We asked 1,000 respondents about their thoughts on the Nike brand and the Breaking2 campaign.

Athletic Brands

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest online survey, 10% of respondents said they purchase sporting goods or athletic apparel a few times a month. 17% buy sporting goods a few times every three months. 34% do so a few times per year. 13% said they buy sporting goods every few years. 6% rarely ever purchase sporting goods. And 20% never do. Of those who have purchased sporting goods or athletic apparel, 60% said that they use Nike gear regularly, making it the most popular brand in that niche by far. However, 57% said that they have seen commercials or video ads for athletic brands within the past week.

Nike Breaking2

Overall, 32% of athletic consumers said they would be certain or practically certain about choosing Nike for their next purchase of athletic gear or apparel. And 29% said it would be very probable. Of those who viewed the Nike Breaking2 ad, 33% said they would be practically certain about choosing Nike for their next purchase. And 32% said it would be very probable. In addition, 22% of respondents said that they run regularly. And 34% said they run sometimes. Of those who run at least sometimes, 43% said they would be certain about choosing Nike for their next purchase. And 33% said it would be very probable.

Nike Brand Perception

In general, consumers used words like quality, comfortable, expensive, popular and innovative to describe the Nike brand. Those who viewed the Breaking2 ad were even more likely to describe the brand as popular, comfortable, trendy and stylish.

Key Takeaways

The Nike Breaking2 campaign does seem to have the potential to impact consumer opinions, even though the runners didn’t achieve their top objective. But while the ad had a small impact on consumers as a whole, it had a much bigger impact on runners. The brand already creates a wide range of ads featuring different types of athletes. So if it can simply target those ads to the people who are most interested in those activities, it could be a plus. In this case, showing the ad on running websites or even creating an audio version that could air on streaming apps that are popular with runners could be a good strategy. You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: Skopje Marathon 2013 by Marjan Lazarevski under CC BY-ND 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on May 9 via AYTM’s online survey panel.