Air Jordan and Retailing

Chapter 15: Retailing

The role of retailing is an important part of business and has a huge impact in our daily lives; whether it's furniture, electronics, cars and any other services and goods that can be utilized by the ultimate consumer. Before a business can reach the ultimate consumer they must apply a retail strategy in order to mouse trap the target market. Retail strategies are a composite of the six P's which is a retailing mix.

These are the 6 P's

 

Nike Air Jordan as a company focuses on 4 major components of the 6 P's, these components are Product, Price,Place and Promotion focusing on this retail mix brought Nike to where they are today and that is a booming sports apparel company.

 

Product:

 

Product is very important to the Nike company because they carry the largest amount of different products such as footwear, clothing and sports equipment. Nike carries over 5 major brands including Jordan, Converse, Umbro, Cole Haan and Hurley International.

 

Price:

 

The strategies that Nike uses to price their products is mostly based on the compositions of the Brand , being on top of the competitors, and Nike has always been. Nike's  charges high prices or premium prices for it's product because of brand and the quality of the products which it offers.

 

Places:



 Nike Air Jordan sneakers are carried by multi-brand stores and the exclusive Nike stores across the globe. Nike sells their product to stores across the U.S. and in almost 200 countries around the world. In the international markets, Nike sells its products through independent distributors, licensees and subsidiaries. Independent distributors need not adapt to local pressures because the 4P's of marketing are managed by distributors.The location where a company places its products is key, if a company places its products in the wrong hands the product might not sell as well as it should if it is not being marketed right. Nike sneakers are being sold in many stores where the fit is right such as Foot Locker, Jimmy Jazz, Hyperactive, Dr. Jays and Nike's own stores such as Nike Town and Nike Outlets in the United States and all over the World.

 

 

 

Promotion:

 

Promotion is largely dependent on finding a convinient store locations. It also account of targeted advertising in the newspaper and creating strategic alliances. Nike Air Jordan  has a number of famous athletes that serve as brand ambassadors. These ambassadors are apart of a team called "Team Jordan". 





click photo to expand

Nike Targets China's Female Consumers

Chapter 6: Continuation

Tennis Star Li Na on a billboard advertisement for Nike

According to " The China Observer" Nike is on a quest to gain the Chinese consumers trust. Although, demographically Nike has successfully intrigued male consumers through  sponsoring conspicuous athletes in China such as, Olympic gold-medalist  Liu Xiang and also famous NBA basketball players. Nike's new market development focuses on opening a new market for the subcultural group in China  which are women. Nike achieved this by composing a commercial  with tennis stars " Maria Sharapova and Li Na". Then later partnered with Tudou to bring forth a campaign called " Fuel for Dream". Which  allowed 50  female college students to broadcast and share their dreams of becoming  professional athletes, while utilizing and displaying the latest Nike sportswear and sneaker  apparel. Thus bringing awareness to the  young female demographics in China on women's sportswear and athletic apparel.





http://thechinaobserver.com/2012/01/19/nike-leveraging-online-video-to-attract-female-chinese-consumers/



( video segment of the 50 female chinese college students)
http://nikewomen.tudou.com/nikewomen/home.do

Air Jordan And Understanding Consumers Behavior

Chapter 6: Consumer Decision Making

When choosing a brand as a consumer; how do one come to the conclusion on why the brands  or products we purchase fulfill our needs? For a business it is vital to understand the decision making a consumer makes because this helps the business approach consumers in a way where promoting their product changes the consumer's  decision making criteria.  This is all part of the consumer decision making process, as consumers we take all the parts of this process to determine if we want to buy this product; these five steps are key to the purchasing process. When society chooses to buy the Air Jordan sneaker it is mostly because the consumer desire it. Based on the step of needing recognition; whether its because people are looking to fit in with others that currently own a pair because they like the style of the sneakers; or maybe because they grew up witnessing Michael Jordan's career take shape and enjoy his brand. Jordans first being introduced to the basketball world would  be related to a nonmarking- controlled information source which is part of the information search step. There are many different reasons and decisions being made while the consumer are looking to purchase this brand. Based on the target market of the company they first target professional athletes and then move on to society who have a great deal of appreciation for the stylish sneakers on their feet. The social class of a person also determines if a person could afford to buy a pair. The current rate for a pair of Jordan sneakers range from $125 dollars to over $200 dollars, for people that have the money and have no problem buying them oppose to the people that can't afford them and are left out.  Overall consumer have the ultimate decision to buy or not to buy the Jordan product due to having so many other sneaker brands out there such as Adidas and Reebok which is realized as the evaluation of alternatives but in the end result the consumers will choose Jordan due to the reputation the brand has. When purchasing the sneaker the postpurchase behavior of a person is left with the expectations of feeling good about yourself and is experiencing a great boost of self esteem because they are now feeling accepted with in the social class.

Air Jordan Vs Qiadan Sports Co.

Chapter 5: Developing A Global Vision

According to "BloomBerg Bussiness Week" the famous athlete Michael Jordan file a law suit against a chinese company that produces sportswear and shoe apparel . The hall-of-famer  allegedly acusses Qiadan Sport Co. for profiting illegally by utilizing the players name in chinese. Athlough Qiadan Sports  is operating according to the chinese law and the office of The Trademark of China's state Administration for Idustry and Commerce. China's  trade mark association claims  the  hall of famer doesn't own a register trademark name in china. Although, Michael Jordan made such claim; he would have to prove sufficient evidence that Qiadan Sport profited from his name. Despite the law suit  Jordan claims " his interest is not to put Qiadan out of business ; But to reassure  chinese consumers understand the product they are consuming and  are not being misled" and  that "any damages monetary award would be invested in growing the sport of basketball in china"


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-24/michael-jordan-sues-chinese-sportswear-company-over-use-of-name.html.

Air Jordan and Marketing Evironment

Chapter 4:  The Marketing Environment

In 1985 the brand of Jordan was born and has only grown from there, coming up with the Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan was targeted by Nike. Being an MVP and a champion in the NBA Nike wanted Jordan to promote this new brand of sneaker. As years passed by the popularity of the sneakers grew and more and more people wanted them.The brand Jordan can be found in many big cites targeting the many races and many sports other then basketball and also can be found in many big time retail store such as Nike town NYC , Foot Locker, Dr Jay's and as well as online at the Nike store.Nike uses marketing research to help make new products or improve old products and also combine many different sneakers in to one new sneaker. For example on December 23^rd 2011 Jordan brand re-released the Air Jordan 11 “CONCORDS”. These shoes were taken off the market about 11 years ago and since that time these shoes have become a collector’s item. People would pay big money to get their hand’s on these exclusive, limited Air Jordan’s.  So when these shoes came back onto the market people were breaking down metal doors and even killing to get themselves a pair of these exclusive shoes. Jordan's sneakers are so important to society based on how the company markets its products that no matter what the Air Jordan brand will forever be a desired Sneaker.

Air Jordan and Ethics

Chapter 3: Ethics and Social responsibility

As a consumer how do you if a company that manufactures the products you buy  practice ethical behavior? In chapter 3  in Mkgt the  chapter cover everything about ethics and why as a company or in business one should practice ethical behavior. To be consider ethical one must examine the consequences of one's  action. In other words  as a company owner  you must take into consideration those you impact like employees, customers,  surrounding communities, and especially most of all  the environment  ( How  are your products being manufactured and is it ecofriendly). Now  Air Jordan is a well established brand and even though Micheal Jordan himself may practices good ethics. The company  Nike  that endorses  his sneaker  practice unethical behavior. what makes this company so  unethical is that Nike comes  largely from Indonesia;  where employees that  make  the sneaker get paid $4.00 dollars a day. In today's  society a  pair of Nike  ranges  from  $70 to $220; so  why is that  employees that make the sneaker get paid $4 dollars a day;  when Nike  makes a whopping profit  97%. It  cost  Nike  90  cent a pair to produce a pair  of sneaker before advertising. To have a overall general idea below i posted a documentary "Behind the Swoosh". Enjoy!

Air Jordan Strategic Planning

Chapter 2: Strategic Planning for Competitive  Advantage

         The use of strategic planning is the most important thing in the marketing world; without knowing who you are going to target and promote your product to; you will find yourself  to be very unsuccessful. Jordan being a predominant as basketball sneakers, they will do their best to promote the product to that will reach out the intended target. Team Jordan is made up of many different players from many different sports teams. This year as Football season rolls around Jordan; Jordan has revamped a sneaker that was earlier designed for a better basketball shoe to help today’s highest performing athletes perform with the right footwear. The Jordan Brand has turned up the advanced, premium made performance shoe into a cleat called "The Super Fly" to help the football athletes apart of Team Jordan to dominate on the football field .

          The player exclusive, cleated editions of the Jordan Super.Fly will be worn by players such as Josh Freeman, Dwight Freeney, Michael Crabtree and Andre Johnson. Jordan has released different ads to promte this new line of sneakers by placing a video of each indiviual player talking about the proformance of being on the football field but they make sure that they focus the camera on the cleats after play or movement of the player.