NikeSKIMS: A Stroke of Genius Innovation or a Desperate Move to Restore Nike’s Mojo?
Nike’s newly announced collaboration with Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS to create a line of co-branded shapewear is creating real buzz with consumers, retailers and marketers. They announced that their new brand will “disrupt the global fitness and activewear industry with best-in-class innovation in service of all women athletes.”
But when viewed through the lens of Nike’s legacy as one of the world’s great brands and serial innovators, it’s fair to ask whether this is a bold, form-fitting stroke of genius or a reflection of how far a revered brand has fallen.
The argument for this being a brilliant move is rooted in a timeless insight about athletes. Whether you’re running the 100 meters in the Olympics or doing a brisk treadmill walk at the corner gym, looking good feeds confidence. Confidence feeds peak performance.
Nike has known this for years but danced around it in a particular way. It learned long ago that coupling performance technologies grounded in real sports science with eye-catching design is a far more potent combination on the retail floor than performance alone. Many Nike fans buy Nike for the look alone and never break a sweat. But the company always stopped short of overtly making “look better” part of its value proposition.
Drawing that line wasn't a mere marketing decision, but a manifestation of Nike’s DNA. Since the launch of the revolutionary Waffle Trainer in 1974, Nike has been all about boosting performance and winning. SKIMS is first and foremost a look-better brand. Nike latching onto that is a noteworthy shift.
Maybe this is a timely move in response to profound cultural change. It’s no secret that participation in youth sports is tanking. We’re living in a screen-soaked age of self-obsessed vanity, Instagram filters and omnipotent influencers.
For many of today’s “athletes” — a term Nike proudly uses to describe anyone and everyone — the most important scoreboard in their daily lives doesn’t tally points, goals and runs, but likes, follows and shares.
Post a fine-looking selfie from the gym, the crowd goes wild, and the scoreboard explodes. Maybe we’ve reached a point where looking good is winning.
If we give Nike the benefit of the doubt that this cultural moment calls for an overt strategic leap into the “looking good” business, it’s fair to wonder whether the way they’re doing it — by partnering with Kardashian — might be a symptom of Nike’s recent missteps and lost mojo.
Consider that Nike is just a few years removed from one of the most costly acts of misguided brand hubris on record. A new leadership team decided its brand was so almighty powerful that they could pull back from the retail partnerships that built their brand, sequester their best products in the high-margin outlets of nike.com and company stores, and back off from world-class mass marketing and innovation.
In the process, Nike destroyed billions in company valuation at the speed of Usain Bolt. Nike stock is trading at half its 2021 peak, and only now starting to rebound as analysts see the company returning to its proven playbook, in which retail plays a big role. The brand is still powerful but has lost some sheen.
It’s not too much of a stretch to say that Nike’s decision to borrow Kardashian's brand equity in pursuit of this market opportunity is an admission of its brand’s limitations and recent struggles. The basis of this partnership is obvious. Nike isn't partnering with Kardashian because she has some engineering breakthrough or performance fabric up her sleeve that the brand needs. They need her name — a name that for now has more pull than Nike alone. The whole point of borrowing someone else’s audience is that you trade a slice of margin for faster impact than you’d get cultivating your own demand. Nike needs a quick win.
So, is this genius, capitulation or a bit of both? Time will tell. But either way, it shows that rebuilding Nike’s mojo — as a brand and an innovation powerhouse — will be a marathon, not a sprint.
Mark Payne is the CEO and a founding partner at Electric, a next-gen strategy, innovation and ventures firm.
