what a Nike Ad campaign could look like in a newsletter

good morning media folks ☀️

We're all familiar with Nike's groundbreaking marketing campaigns.

They're risk-taking and emotionally heavy. But what doesn't get talked about is how amazing Nike is at knowing their audience and personalizing at a ridiculous level.

So if you're an email publisher, and you want to work with Nike... how could it translate into newsletter advertising?

Well, today we'll come up with a mock campaign for Nike. We’ll look at content strategy, how this campaign would run across the newsletter, and how we will engage the audience to produce results and sales (while still creating emotional attachment).

For this example, let's say that we have a newsletter that's focused on finance tips and news for 150,000 subscribers. Our audience is primarily made up of retail investors, a few private investors, and folks who are just beginning their financial journey.

storytelling and emotion

First, we need to start with a narrative. What's the overall campaign concept?

The good thing is that we have a medium/newsletter where it's easy for us to tell Nike's story to our audience.

We don't have to go as far as trying to create a legendary campaign like Just Do It. All we need to do is develop a story based on our audience, their interests, and backgrounds.

After that, we're going to mix in some social proof, imagery, and strong copy to create the narrative.

Let’s take the Steve Jobs approach. It's not about the products, services, or whatever it is that Nike is offering. How can you solve a problem or invoke an emotional attachment to the product? From there it will sell itself.

One thing I've learned about Advertising, specifically in newsletters, is to let your readers make their own decision if they want a product or not. How can you make it easy for them to make that decision?

Some of the best ways to do this is to use social proof, but also speak in their context. What I mean by that, is that your audience comes to the newsletter for finance information. So we need to make our campaign with Nike adjacent to that narrative.

here's a campaign concept (The Endurance Portfolio):

design

With someone like Nike, this will be tough. Because they have strict brand guidelines that you'll have to adhere to. And that includes copy guidelines. On top of that, you have your own brand and copy guidelines. So as long as you set clear expectations beforehand on how much creative freedom you have... you're going to have to work within those constraints.

I tell my publishers that your Ad product design is so important. It should feel native, on brand so you can tastefully capture your audience's attention.

example:

audience engagement

One of the most important things I urge my publishers to do is to get to know your audience as detailed as you can. What this does for you is help you create holistic campaigns for your advertisers because you know so much about your subscribers. This puts you at an advantage when you're going up against another publisher.

Nike understands their audience so well. And your goal should be to get brand-aligned. How can your audience overlap?

What's going to be the kicker here is the campaign goal.

Depending on what team you're working with, this will be different. If it's the Brand team, they're going to want assets and as many eyeballs as possible. If it's a Performance marketing team, they're going to want sales and detailed metrics. From there you can decide the right way to engage your audience.

example:

segmentation and personalization

Nike has their target audience nailed down. So you need to determine how you can niche down and find the exact persona that you can advertise to in your newsletter. Since we're a finance newsletter, we need to find the target audience that Nike would associate with. In this case, one of Nike's personas is Athletes, Professionals, and Enthusiasts. Sounds like a good fit to me.

If done right, this can directly impact the performance of your advertising campaign. To personalize at scale, you need to figure out a way to talk to your readers 1 to 1. And that the messaging makes sense for this audience. If you can figure this out early, Nike will be a repeat customer forever. Any insights and new information that you can give them puts you ahead of the pack.

calls to action

At the end of the day, Nike needs to drive sales. But that might not be the metric we're focusing on here. It could be something different. Like website traffic, email capture, data, etc…

Everything needs to have the CTA in mind. The action needs to feel consistent, across the board. And it also needs to be appealing enough to your audience

The message here is to cater to your audience's interests and backgrounds at all costs. Even when it comes to your advertising. That's what Nike does, and it seems like they're doing pretty well to me...

see you next week,

shaan

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