Ch. 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Just like other companies Nike apply methods of segmenting and targeting markets in order to get the most out of their products. Nike describes the market and segment depending on the product that they are selling. Mainly Nike uses demographic segmentation, because when Nike creates a product that depends on the gender, age, income, and ethic background. For instance when Nike creates a soccer cleats, they make it as unisex. When the gender is established,they usually have a foot chart,based on the ages of the customer (Youth Sizes,Big Kid Sizes and Adult Sizes). But Nike does not make a lot of soccer products for youth size, because they are just kid and they don't really know how to play. But of course age 10 and up Nike provides most of their cleats for kid, adult size Nike goes up to size 12 on their websites. Youth size (10c), Big Kid size (7y), and Adult size (11). A lot of Nike products are broken down into different lifestyle; golf, soccer, football, swimming, and tennis of course there are more sports that Nike involved but these are the most common ones. These sports are Nike's target market for their clothing and sneaker products. 

Nike apparel campaign geared towards women

To cater to the different consumer groups, any business must divide its targeted market into smaller units with specific needs or preferences, who may need to be served with unique products or marketing mixes. This process of dividing a market into several smaller sub-groups and offering different products or services is called market segmentation.  For example, Nike has done this by capturing the women’s sports apparel market by creating a separate line for them and opening several Nike Women stores across the country. By using gender segmentation, the company was able to step up its marketing and sales efforts and reach out to a whole new market.

Nike Women's Store

Nike also uses it's Air Technology which makes the sneaker more comfortable, for clothing like jerseys, shorts, and socks Nike uses a very different kind of technology from their competitors. For example; DriFit is the most common one because Nike applies this technology to team jerseys, shorts, and socks. There are over 10 different types of technology that Nike has created, all with different levels of comfort. Below is an image of 9 different variations of the Nike Air Technology.