Client: Nike Market: EMEA & Global Role: Creative Director

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CASE STUDY (THIS PAGE NEEDS SOME LOADING TIME ^^):
SETTING UP AN IN-HOUSE STUDIO AND BUILDING THE FUTURE STATE OF NIKE MEMBERSHIP

Nike Is No Longer a Brand With Membership. Nike Is Now a Membership Brand.

For 50 years we’ve served Athletes.
From the back of the Van, to the back of the house, to the app in their hand.

Our commitment is the same. Our aspirations are bigger. We’re here to help every member feel unbeatable – whether it’s their first run, or their 50th. We’re here to inspire members to get moving, and make sport a daily habit.

We’re here to listen.
We’re here to coach.

We’re here to meet their sport & style needs, big and small.

Not just today. Everyday.

The Business Need
Over the next 3 years Nike Inc. needs to double its membership footprint across:

Total engaged members (+87%)
Total buying members (+121%)
Increase member demand (+133%)

The Ask to Nike Marketing
Grounded in GEO-aligned, Priority Benefits, develop a new membership identity, messaging and O2O tools (stores, connected partners, Cities, etc.) to deliver more consistent, consumer-right, communication, journeys and application across all 4 GEOs by Q1, FY24. In doing this work, also better integrate the Jordan Brand into Nike’s Membership tools/identify, knowing Jordan member buyers spend 2.5x more than Nike-only.

The Outcome / Goal by the end of FY24
Increase benefit utilization rate from 9% today to 30%
Growth EMEA Membership with 10% (90 to 100 million EMEA)
Growth global Membership 200 to 250 million.
Increase C2R / retention across all channels.
Increase Member Demand 2.4%
Set-up a new in-house studio for Nike.

**There already redefining sport* for themselves**

The Member Promise
To reach these growth ambitions, I was recruited in July ’22 to set-up an in-house studio and lead, oversee and develop the future state of Nike Membership and all member-gated content.

This highly complex, cross-departmental and multi year project is called the ‘Member Promise’ and aims at solving for clear challenges grounded in consumer expectations. While the MP represents a long-term evolution of the Nike program, the first milestone we set was getting to “Bronze”.

FY 22-24

1. The Road To Bronze

Create programming consistency throughout Nike Membership and increase consumer visibility on Nike.com, Nike APP, NRC/NTC apps, SNKRS, In-stores, Lifecycle moments, 365 and Member-led activations.

FY 22-24

FY 23-25

2. The Road To Silver

Unlock new technical capabilities, focus investing in Member Rewards, people & processes, customer segmentation, highly bespoke content based on affinity.

FY 23-25

FY 25

3. The Road To Gold

Globals vision for the future.

FY 25

Getting to bronze means making it easier for Members to feel the value of Membership in their daily lives and construct a program that is clear, consistent and tangible. One Membership, one identity, one voice, designed to speak the language of the Member, and connect with them on a deeper and holistic level.

To make them feel, we need to make it real. And then we need to make it last.

Phase 01: Listen & Learn.

Building a successful membership program is an iterative process that requires ongoing refinement based on consumer feedback and market dynamics. After having the goals & objectives defined, we needed to gain insights into our Members and really get to know them. Nike partnered up with W+K to do consumer research based on cultural insights from our members. I used these findings as the foundation for building a refreshed membership proposition and program.

W+K Crowd DNA (This is a curated and slimmed down version)

Phase 02: Nike Membership Strategy

Based on the Crowd DNA, consumer research and internal Nike playbooks I developed the EMEA Member Marketing Strategy together with Fabio Martini (director of member marketing). My role as a creative director is also part educator, where I took lead during daily meetings, onboarding partners, vendors, agencies, employees, leadership and GEO counterparts on our refreshed membership strategy. To safe time I’ve decided to construct the strategy as a story which helps explaining our thought process and making sure everyone is aligned from reading it the first time.

Chapter 01 EMEA Member Marketing Strategy

Phase 03: Developing a new Membership identity

Once the strategy got signed off by Nike Brand Creative, the EMEA leadership team and global counterparts, I pushed the work forward and began with developing a new Membership identity. I translated the member marketing strategy into a tangible set of messaging, design, photography and tone of voice guidelines, including the creation of bespoke Membership assets. This process took 3 months as it required a lot of calibration between myself, Brand Creative and the technical teams who helped me understand what is creatively possible in the current ecosystem. During our review sessions with EMEA brand creative we quickly concluded that we needed the involvement of global to guide the process as Membership is such a core brand and required approval at the highest level. In the end we developed a membership brand book (200+ pages) serving as the new marketing directive and offers up foundational support to help create new material for Nike Membership for all GEO’s.

Chapter 02 Creative Direction

Chapter 02/1 Tone of Voice

Chapter 02/2 Visual Direction

Chapter 02/3 Messaging Direction

Phase 04: Member Benefits
A key component of any membership program are exclusive and valuable benefits that will incentivize customers to join and remain engaged with the program and or brand. In total Nike Membership offers 14 member benefits (FE early access to product releases, special discounts, personalized recommendations, free shipping, members-only events). The member growth department aligned these benefits with our members preferences and wrote clear value propositions for each of them. My role was to translate these internal propositions into consumer facing propositions, creating bespoke identities, assets, landing pages and video content for each of these benefits.

Member Benefit: Nike By You (example)

Member Benefits Ecosystem Integration

Phase 05: Finalizing the Membership Brand Book
The new membership identity brand book consists of 6 chapters, and combined gives all the tools for marketeers, agencies and third parties to communicate and create content for EMEA Membership in a clear, consistent and tangible way. Creating this brand book took 4 to 5 months and countless of LT meetings, brand creative calls, copywriting, designing and late night brainstorm calls with Nike US and member marketing. I loved it!

Moving forward: Global Membership Photography Library Refresh & Nike Ecosystem
With a now finished brand book we had everything we need to move toward and start refreshing the Nike ecosystem and global membership photography library. Very exciting to use the new identity for creating, producing and shooting content.

Global Membership Photography Play book (Guidelines, Shot lists, Art Direction etc.)

Key Accomplishments 2022-2023:

– Set up an in-house studio in a fast pace, cross GEO and culturally diverse environment.
– Paris House Of Innovations.
– Grew EMEA Membership from 90 to 100 million.
– Grew global membership from 200 to 250 million.
– Increase Member benefit utilization from 9% to 16%.
– Delivered the ‘Road to Bronze’ within time and budget.
– Written the EMEA Member Marketing Strategy and Global.
– Developed the Membership Marketing Playbook (200+ Pages).
– Continuously sell my ideas and concepts to Nike Leadership, growing the program to a global scale.
– A Nike first by developing the global program out of a GEO.
– Lead produced the Nike Membership Global Imagery database refresh.
– Director Nike sizzle reel videos (one is seen on top of this page).
– Increase C2R, retention and demand (Member Newsletter) through extensive POD testing.
– Lead creative for the latest Member Days campaigns.
– Lead Marketing Activation within key cities and flagship stores (Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid).
– Refreshed the Nike Ecosystem on a global level (.COM, Nike APP, NRC/NTC APP, Nike Stores).
– Drive quality acquisition and repeat traffic for the Nike APP, through compelling value proposition across O2O ecosystem
– Drive top funnel Member acquisition for .COM and shift demand from guests to Members by giving more incentives to log in.
– Drive mid-funnel active member retention for NRC/NTC App through habit formation (weekly engagement) and deliver uplift through cross-platform journeys.
– Drive member acquisition and engagement IRL for our stores, through a mix of scalable and pinnacle services and experiences that meet different member intent.
– Driven multiple member gated campaigns for key cities: Berlin, London & Paris.