Nike’s Joga Bonito Campaign

The article is about two major sports brands in the world- Nike and Adidas. It talks about the event of World Cup 2006 when Adidas had become official sponsor of the event to increase its visibility. It had bought most of the airtime and billboard space in US to increase its visibility and to shut Nike out of most of the traditional media. The case then talks about the multipronged strategy of online campaigns initiated by Nike which comprised of online advertisements that featured a number of football superstars, an online TV channel called Joga TV dedicated specially to football, a social networking website, joga.com and a Joga3 futsal tournament.

Analysis:

The main stimulus that led Nike to set on such a creative campaign was that Adidas had blocked all the methods of traditional media for Nike to prevent “ambush marketing”. It had bought most of the airtime and billboard space in the US. That led Nike to find out another way to market itself during the world cup. Hence, it approached Google Inc. and launched its Joga Bonito (Play Beautiful) campaign. Here, it showcased football as a beautiful game.

Nike chose its target audience as young males who were fond of football and also used internet frequently. They lured them with a variety of original and exclusive video clips casting their favourite players. These clips were available in nine formats as an increasing number of youth went online. This ultimately led to buzz marketing.

Eventually, Joga Bonito campaign not only helped Nike to ambush market its product during the high profile event to make itself visible, but also posed to be a major challenge for Adidas who also had to switch to online campaigning. It proved to be very cost effective. As mentioned in the case, Nike was able to reach people globally, for the price of 30 second TV commercial.

Although Joga Bonito turned out to be a successful campaign, it had certain weaknesses. Many critics felt that the website launched was only appealing to the kids as it only focused on stylish and glamorous players. Many felt that the site promoted Brazilian players quite a lot, since they were the official sponsors of Nike.

According to me, one big issue of the campaign was the inconsistency of the message communicated. Nikes slogan “Just Do It” emphasized on hard work and perseverance. However, Joga Bonito was communicating more of “Take it Easy” message. It is utmost important for a company to communicate similar message even though it is communicating through different channels as the message conveyed forms an image of the brand in the mind of the consumers.