Ja Morant + Nike Basketball
Marketing Mitigation
This week, after months of teasing -Nike Basketball finally debuted the Ja 1 in wide release…while Ja Morant sat on the bench. But because of their marketing strategy, it wasn’t a moment of failure.
Nike has been teasing this release for over a year-even since I left the company.
I got the privilege of working on Ja’s big splash with Nike- on “SAYS WHO” almost 18 months ago. It was such a fun project.
We made it with the incredible W+K - Nike’s longtime ad agency of record & the creators of “Just Do It”. * swoon *
But, I digress.
Sports marketing principle: in marketing, we have something called the “tease phase”. It’s a pretty standard playbook run by anyone with products or fashion or anything of desire. You start to release little glimpses of the product, maybe you release limited additions to stoke the flame, and in this case, this turned out to be a great strategy for Nike. They did some small releases at NBA All-Star game and content pieces throughout, so there was no single point of failure in the plan, despite Ja’s troubles off the court, which I think he will recover from just fine.
Of course, it would be better if Ja’s dunk highlights were rotating throughout the internet while Ja’s new signature shoes that went for sale that night … but there were plenty of camera shots of him on the bench wearing his signature apparel…which is actually really hard to pull off.
You’d be amazed how many athletes wanna wear somebody else’s hypebeast product versus their own!
And it looks like it didn’t affect Nike‘s sales much on their own channels (SOLD OUT). No word yet on the larger market but I think the Ja Morant’s shoe is going to be a great success.
Kids love him, he’s incredibly marketable and it’s a $110 price point, which is on the lower end for the basketball market.
Between Jordan Brand + Luka: and Nike Basketball + Ja, there’s a good thing going at Nike, Inc. for young hoopers at a lower price point!
They’re gonna need it, because a long awaited unveil happened with their rival this week…
Read about Jerry Lorenzo + adidas’ debut.