Can Nike’s ‘Winning is Everything’ Strategy Save the Brand After Major Layoffs?

What New Technology Did Nike Launch at the Paris Olympics to Reclaim its Innovation Crown?

Read Mark Wilson’s Fast Company analysis of Nike’s aggressive comeback plan during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Discover how the sportswear giant aims to reverse slowing growth and a 2% workforce reduction by doubling down on the controversial ‘Winning is Everything’ campaign and launching a new cycle of innovative performance gear.

See the full breakdown below to find out if this bold return to ‘winning’ is enough to get Nike back on the podium—or if the brand is still running behind.

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Long before the Paris Summer Olympics began in July 2024, Nike executives were polishing their company’s Olympics branding strategy. The company had just laid off 2% of its workforce to cut costs. Having sponsored athletes and teams, including the US soccer and gymnastics teams, Nike chose as its theme, “Winning is everything,” even if that declaration might make people uncomfortable. Writing for Fast Company, Mark Wilson details how Nike, a storied sportswear giant digging itself out of a downward period, looked to the world’s biggest sports extravaganza to reboot its brand.

Take-Aways

• Sportswear giant Nike laid off 2% of its staff before the 2024 Olympics.
• Nike committed to a Paris Summer Olympics branding strategy.
• The Paris Games started a cycle of new Nike product releases.

Summary

Sportswear giant Nike laid off 2% of its staff before the 2024 Olympics.

Shortly before the scheduled opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, Nike laid off 2% of its staff, releasing some 1,500 employees who worked at its sprawling Oregon campus. The layoffs were a cost-cutting measure in response to Nike’s slowing growth.

“The company is still a titan, taking in $51 billion in sales for fiscal year 2023, which ended in May 2023, and $22 billion in gross profit. Even so, its pace has faltered in recent months. In the nine months ending in February 2024, the company grew revenue by just 1% year over year.”

Nike anticipated a revenue reduction and only 1% growth in 2024. The company announced it would reduce spending by $3 billion over the coming three years, hence the layoffs. Those announcements affected Nike’s stock price. In a market that gave Nike a 10% price bump in early 2024, its stock took a 20% nosedive.

Nike needed to dig itself out of a slump – and the Paris Summer Olympics presented a unique opportunity. The Olympics rank among the world’s most high-profile sports events, and Nike has sponsored countless individual athletes along with the US soccer, basketball, and gymnastics teams. Nike saw the Summer Olympics as a potent venue for its shoes and sportswear.

Nike committed to a Paris Summer Olympics branding strategy.

Months before the games began, Heather O’Neill, Nike’s president of consumer, product, and brand, scheduled a Paris Summer Olympics branding strategy. She sought to formulate a specific voice or identity for Nike at the Olympics, an opportunity the company saw as a “quadrennial big brand moment.”

O’Neill has worked for Nike for 16 years and is responsible for updating its retail approach. She centered her branding “manifesto” around the idea of winning. She understood that winning had fallen out of fashion and that celebrating winning might sound pretentious or arrogant. She even had concerns that a focus on winning might exclude nonparticipants. Yet, O’Neill believes, people who don’t regard winning as everything are deluded. Her branding approach is bold and a little disruptive. She wants to revive the glamour and glory of winning.

Nike has a reputation for getting ahead through innovative products – shoes in particular. Its winning streak goes back to the 1970s, when Nike introduced waffle soles and cushioning Air technology. But in recent years, Nike has succeeded by mining the depths of its own catalog rather than by producing new goods or fostering cutting edge innovation. Critics wondered whether Nike had lost its industry leadership mojo.

The Paris Games started a cycle of new Nike product releases.

Nike CEO John Donahoe committed to correcting any public perception of Nike as a company in decline. He hasn’t had an easy run at Nike. Soon after he became CEO, he had to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. He laid off 700 employees, reorganized product development teams, and put money into digital. He approved exploiting the deep Nike catalog and rereleasing products. But on the eve of the Paris Summer Olympics, he and his team were all in with the new branding strategy. The Games featured new Nike shoes in different sports and new technologies it has developed in recent years.

“The company typically uses the games to showcase new innovations, frequently on runners.”

Nike’s Olympic gear combines performance, value, and eye-catching design. Ads for the Alphafly 3 running shoe emphasize its speed, while promotions for new Nike glasses for sprinters show how well they keep the sun out of runners’ eyes.

Nike also introduced Jam shoes for “breakers,” participants in the dance and sport of “breakdancing,” to exemplify its cutting-edge new products. The nubs on the Jam’s soles increase dancers’ traction as they “break.”

Nike’s Paris palette featured a bright orange paired with a safari print. Its marketers studied the Olympic track and field venue’s bluish-purple running track and determined that orange would be the most striking, visible color on that surface. The Olympics won’t necessarily spur a massive increase in sales, but Nike already had plenty of visibility when it set out to achieve a boost of Olympic attention that will help sales over time.

According to CEO John Donahoe, it won’t be until after the Paris Summer Olympics that people will regain awareness of Nike’s renewed and vaulting ambitions.

About the Author

Mark Wilson is the Global Design Editor at Fast Company.