The Essay On Marketing Strategies Of Emirates And Nike Is Insightful.

Background of Emirates and Nike

Discuss about the Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors.

Marketing is one of the important function of each and every business organisation, which helps the organisation to distinguish itself from its market competitors. It provides a sense of individuality and novelty to the concerned business firm. Each and every organisation in this world works hard in order to distinguish itself in the form of creating world class marketing strategies. Right from production, till the final distribution and selling, marketing plays a crucial role in providing a sharp edge to the firms, which helps it in lending a sense of distinctiveness in this ultra-competitive world. Keeping these areas in mind, this report helps in unravelling some of the marketing ideas of top two Airline and Sport Wear Company, Emirates and Nike respectively. The report tells about the different strategies of each of these firms and discusses about their respective roles and success.

The Emirates is one of the most successful airline companies of recent times, which was originally built in the 1985, by the initiative of the Dubai government for reducing the dependency on the oil resources as the main source of revenue of the economy (Emirates.com, 2018). It successfully flies the largest fleets of Airbus and Boeing, and has earned the international reputation of world class airline services, with a state of the art technology. Emirates uses nine different languages in its website for its marketing prospects, spanning billboards, TV advertisements and many other mediums (Forbes.com, 2018). It enjoys a greater competitive advantage and goodwill over its competitors as it was the first airline company to offer TV screens for all classes and it also offered the very first plane simulator training to its staffs and pilots, which had helped it to garner significant cost advantage.Nike originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports had started in the year 1962, with the aim of providing world class running shoes for athletes. One of its most important marketing strategies has been its close association with sports stars from different genres of sports for increasing its influence over the different games (Gupta, Koontz and Massisimo, 2013). Its first ad campaign in 1988, ‘Just Do it ‘was also an instant success and was one of a kind, which distinguished it in the market.  Most significantly its association with the Brazilian football team, after they had won the Football World Cup 2002 was an important marketing endeavour of the company. It helped in invading the genre of football, gradually it invaded into other sports as well (Shank and Lyberger, 2014). Most notably in 2008’s Summer Olympics in Beijing, where Nike countered Adidas’ marketing strategy by taking over the sponsorship of the games. It also made its presence felt across the genre of Tennis by sponsoring the sportswear of Maria Sharapova, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Nike Golf had grown with its association of Golf Legend Tiger Woods, which had changed the course of dressing and clothing sense of golfers across the globe (Mahdi et al., 2015). Through these increased number of associations, Nike has been able to garner the worldwide reputation, which is one of its greatest competitive advantages.

Marketing strategies of Emirates

Nike is a leading sportswear company which has left an indelible mark in the sports industry across the globe. It has taken all the correct steps in the marketing arena which has helped it to gather all the necessary competitive advantages. It has established its brand and logo with large scale marketing investments, has embraced new technologies like Vaporfly shoes, AirMax, Flywire technologies. Additionally, it has also created a brand based on providing elite quality sports product (Nike.com, 2018). Since its inception it has focused on endorsements and has maximised its marketing returns with increased number of sports investment such as Lebron James in basketball and Cristiano Ronaldo in football (Goal.com, 2018). It utilises emotional branding on a large scale and makes user of motivational messages underneath its ad campaigns, making it a sports driven marketing giant (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). From utilising social media, digital marketing and other forms of extensive strategies.

Nike makes use of emotional branding and marketing strategies telling stories of greatness, strength and struggles. ‘Just do it’ campaign is a good example of this. It also was the pioneer in launching its own website, when it launched it in 1999. These steps helped it to receive various kinds of competitive advantages over its rivals. It was also the first one to introduce the auto lace technology and the first sports company to use social media for promotional purposes. 

Nike’s sponsorship with the NBA has been very successful. There has been a study, which revealed that the players wearing the Nike sneakers in the games, had better results. They have endorsed the best players of the game too, for their promotional purposes.

Emirates being one of the largest airline companies in the world, is also one of the major financial contributor to the Middle Eastern economy. It uses state of the art facilities for providing world class consumer service facilities. The company makes use of ‘Knowledge driven In-Flight Service’ (KIS). It allows the airline cabin crew to see which passengers have previously used Emirates and lets them serve them in a better way by serving according to their food and other preferences. The KIS as well as the CRM database (running inside the flight) system helps in providing real time feedback as it is mailed back to the headquarters upon landing, and this helps to receive important feedback and information about the passengers and flights. This is one of the most important sources of information from the company’s customers which helps in pioneering the competitive advantage in the form intelligence processes and thus in a way helps in taking due care of the loyal customers of the airline. The graph given below, provides a clear view. The financial results of the company has been increasing at a rapid rate. The graph given below suggests the astounding growth of the big three. Figure 2, (Source: fcsa.gov.ae, 2015) 

Marketing strategies of Nike

The profitability of Emirates has remained unmatched in the Middle-East as has been proved by the figure given above. Figure 3, (Source: Emirates.com, 2015)

Emirates takes special care in terms of its travellers ranging from both the economy as well as the business class travellers. It was the first company to introduce TV in flights for both the classes. It has also introduced elite class private lounges for attracting business travellers. The premium class travellers would be provided with personal storage facilities, seat reclines, couch and even individual mini bars for the business class passengers. From introducing the BBC world news updates in flight to the consumers, it was also the first among the flight companies to enable its users to send and receive emails and SMS texts even it was the first airline company in the Middle East to introduce a digital widescreen system in 2005.

There are various kinds of strategies which have been adopted by both the companies which has enabled them to continue in its progress of an efficient marketing success. Both Nike and Emirates have a specific set of strengths which have enabled them to sail through in their marketing activities. Emirates makes a good use of all the four Ps of marketing by focusing on each of them. It uses premium pricing strategy for making use of the luxurious and premium quality products and services. In terms of products, it doubles its fleets every years and has a large number of Boeing and Airbus aircrafts (The Independent, 2018). In terms of place, Dubai remains one of the key areas of its operations and in terms of promotional work, the company makes use a mixture of both traditional and modern marketing methods, ranging from providing advertising in many different languages, for creating a better image in front of its customers and competitors and its other stakeholders (Hagmann, Semeijn and Vellenga, 2015). It has been growing at an incessant rate since its inception and its present annual growth rate stands at 20% and it is expected to once again lead the line of venturing into the uncharted territories in terms of innovation in the future.

Similarly Nike has also grown by leaps and bounds from its inauguration year. It has grown by associating with every possible game in the arena of sports, right from football, tennis, basketball, Olympics, Nike has left its mark in every single one of them. Today Nike is at the helm of marketing success because of the foresightedness it had shown in its initial years (Inc.com, 2018).  The company has been successful, mainly because it has been able to adapt itself to the dynamic business environment in a better way than its customers.  Right from its association with top athletes, since its inception, to sponsoring sporting events, the company has come a long way.  The company has sponsored NFL, NBA, Golf, Olympics and many other lucrative sporting leagues and events, which has enabled it to create, produce and sell jerseys and other sporting accessories (Gharagozlou, 2018). Their biggest consumers and clients are sportsmen and the company has always projected and marketed its items in terms of a positive, motivation message of triumph, which has stuck a deep chord with all its consumers and general public as well. Nike had taken a pretty serious approach towards its marketing strategies. It has churned out a competitive marketing strategy which can uplift a company into a top notch marketing strategic company.

Emirates' focus on customer satisfaction

None the less, all is not good in the case of Nike, the intense competition has taken a toll in its performance. This has been seen in the past couple of years. It has been seen in North America, Western Europe, Greater China and many other emerging markets in the past quarters of the year 2016-17.

Conclusion:

Nike and Emirates have captured their respective industries on the back of a dominant marketing program and strategy. Nike has worked relentlessly in providing elite class of sporting accessories for top class athletes and has expanded its association with individual world class players and has even started sponsoring teams such as the Brazilian World Cup winning team of 2002. Since then it has embraced innovation, raised their marketing bar and has sponsored most of the elite kind of sporting events such as Olympics, National Basketball Association, National Football League and many other top tier leagues. Emirates on the other hand, has been successful in successfully becoming one of the most developed and elite airline service providers in the world. It has become the pioneer of bringing in innovative technological and marketing initiatives in the airline industry. The KIS, CRM and top notch private lounges, TV for all classes of customers are some of the prime examples of the initiatives taken by Emirates, which sets itself apart from its rivals.

References:

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Emirates. (2018). Business Class Cabin Features | Flying with Emirates | Cabin features | Emirates. [online] Available at: https://www.emirates.com/english/experience/cabin-features/business-class/ [Accessed 27 Jul. 2018].

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Gharagozlou, L. (2018). The real World Cup final isn't France vs. Croatia, it's Nike vs. Adidas. [online] CNBC. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/the-real-world-cup-final-isnt-france-vs-belgium-its-nike-vs-adidas.html [Accessed 27 Jul. 2018].

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Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer, New York, NY.

Images, G. and News, R. (2018). The numbers behind Cristiano Ronaldo's $1 billion Nike contract | Goal.com. [online] Goal.com. Available at: https://www.goal.com/en-in/news/ronaldos-net-worth-to-increase-by-1-billion/cr8f40nf75px1jwhta07orbk8 [Accessed 27 Jul. 2018].

Inc.com. (2018). 3 Nike Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using. [online] Available at: https://www.inc.com/kai-sato/3-nike-marketing-tactics-you-should-be-using.html [Accessed 27 Jul. 2018].

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The Independent. (2018). The best airline in the world has been named. [online] Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/emirates-is-now-the-best-airline-in-the-world-a7133061.html [Accessed 27 Jul. 2018].