Nike, Adidas, Under Armour: A Routine Brand Health Check Reveals Surprises

A silver lining for the apparel industry is the increased popularity of athletic athleisure and leisure wear Google searches for quotsweatpantsquot were up 65 in 2020 versus the prior year as sweatpants became part of the everyday uniform in our new normal Source Google TrendsUnderstanding this I was curious to look at how brand health has fared for some leading athletic brands Nike Adidas and others during this atypical yearWith the right data and the right tools marketers and agencies can easily and quickly diagnose the real problems their marketing plans need to solveSince Nike is the top athletic apparel brand let39s start there Nike39s quarterly earnings report for September to November 2020 showed stability in the US and even growth globally due to digital sales However insights from YouGov BrandIndex suggest a more complicated picture of Nike39s brand health in the USYouGov39s new BrandIndex scorecard functionality allows us to see a succinct roundup of consumer perceptions around Nike Comparing 2020 to 2019 we see some softness in Ad Awareness and Current Customers I39ve come to expect this with reductions to media budgets and declines in consumer demand that plagued many industries However the yearonyear declines in net positive Buzz and Purchase Intent suggest that Nike may no longer sit at the top of those brand perception measuresTo understand where Nike39s situation is brandspecific versus a categorylevel phenomenon I looked at competive set scorecards We see Brand Awareness largely held across the category Under Armour was able to increase awareness which may be in part due to news coverage of their facemask designed for exercisingAs suspected declines in Ad Awareness were a category issue and not a brand issue specific to NikeAs we39ve seen in other categories there were slight but not significant declines in Consideration across the top athletic apparel brands again with the exception of Under Armour which saw a marginal increaseMeasuring the top sports apparel brands by Current Customers is where the data starts to get interesting Nike and Reebok show the types of declines we39ve seen in other categories during the pandemic while Puma and Under Armour were essentially flat But Adidas grew its customer base slightly I suspect being early to release facemasks and two drops from a highprofile collaboration with Beyonce39s Ivy Park are contributing factorsIn many categories we39ve seen that Purchase Intent remained relatively stable as people hold on to their brand preferences even though they might not have purchased anything from a brand during the pandemic But Nike and Reebok took bigger hits to Purchase Intent than others in the category and Under Armour was able to grow Purchase Intent slightlyNike is the top brand across all the traditional brand funnel metrics but surprisingly this not the case with net positive Buzz which is positive Buzz minus Buzz In the past year Nike fell from the leading spot to third place When I dug in deeper Nike still leads the category in positive Buzz but it39s on the decline And an increase in negative Buzz pulls down their net positive Buzz from a leadership position Reebok also saw a significant decline in Buzz this year and Under Armour saw a slightly decline despite all the PR around their facemasksThis makes me wonder how many brands could be struggling to find their brand39s story in their data or worse yet don39t have access to data that will help them quickly identify where to focus their resources to make the biggest impact The opportunity for Nike and other brands seeing similar trends lies in building a connected marketing system across paidownedearned feature content and activations that will fuel positive PR and word of mouthInvestigations into various dimensions of brand health are essential for calibrating marketing plans and driving growthThe best solution to the wrong problem won39t accomplish much Continuous tracking keeps a pulse on brand health and helps us adapt in real time We also need to step back periodically to look at the bigger picture such as annual planning exercises Media fragmentation has not slowed down and marketers must build Reach ampamp Frequency with purpose Contact me if you39re interested in seeing this data and more broken out for your specific target audiences brands etc I39m here to strategize and helpSource for all charts YouGov BrandIndex Current Period 11 12312020 Comparison Period 1112312019Click the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Nike, Adidas, Under Armour: A Routine Brand Health Check Reveals Surprises

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Tamara Alesi

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Nike, Adidas, Under Armour: A Routine Brand Health Check Reveals Surprises

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