Brand Loyalty

Introduction

Athletics is one of the sports which have gained fame after football. That has caused many companies to engage in designing athletics costumes and sportswear.  However, even though the number of brands has strongly increased in recent years, only a few have managed to endow themselves with significant brand loyalty. Besides the actual proprietary brand assets, such as patents and trademarks, other major elements like brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand associations, and others, underlie brand equity. A successful brand strategy must be based on creating brand loyalty. For achieving this goal, consumers must be classified on a loyalty basis while marketing strategies and mixes must be shaped accordingly. There is one athletic brand that I think has achieved almost all the above qualities among the long list of brands that exist today.

The athletic brand that I think has earned the loyalty and preference of several athletes is Nike. My judgment is due to the many athletes I have seen wear sports apparel of this brand. From shoes to socks, shorts to t-shirt I have seen many athletes wear outfits which have the Nike logo on TV during athletic competitions like the Olympics. More so, in my place of residence, many people prefer Nike brand. I have seen many people wear Nike shoes which they claim are much comfortable compared to other brands (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). Even though some may wear tops of different brands, like an Adidas t-shirt, it’s likely that the short and the shoes or either is from Nike. Nike’s brands come in different sizes to suit athletes of various body sizes. There are also selections of costumes which are specific for male, female though there are those which are unisexual. Nike’s athletes wear like any other sportswear associated with the company are easy to detect due to the famous logo of a tick on them. 

The other competitors of Nike’s brand as far as the loyalty of athletics sportswear is concerned might be ESPN, Adidas. Others include Sky Sports, Puma and Reebok (Shank & Lyberger, 2014).

            Compared to other closely competitive brand, Nike has been rated the highest selling brand before ESPN, Adidas. It has the widest market share (38%) in the sportswear manufacturing industry compared to ESPN which has a market share of and over 65% market share in America. The brand value of Nike in was estimated to be at $65.8 Billion as of 2014 (Bouchet, Hillarie & Bodet, 2013). The brand has been reported to make yearly revenue of around $27 billion per year. It is closely followed by Adidas which was reported to register a market cap of $22.7 billion and annual sales of $19.2 billion as at 2014. The brand has a fair market share in American sports though has been reported to dominate European sports industry. Of the three, ESPN ranks third with market share capital of $13.5 billion and an average yearly revenue of $8.2 billion as at 2014. It covers major sports in the United States (Shank & Lyberger, 2014)

As has been seen above, Nike athletic brands have dominated much of the market leaving its closest competitors afar. That is due to the comfort these brands have been associated with by most of their users who have this brand at heart.  Many athletes say that the shirts, shorts, tights, socks and more are made with material that is wet-wicking Dri-FIT fabric which keeps them dry and comfortable throughout the race. They also have styles that are water-resistant and insulated suited for running in wet, cool weather (Bouchet, Hillairet & Bodet, 2013).

References

Bouchet, P., Hillairet, D. & Bodet G.(2013). Sports Brands. Nova Science Publishers

Shank, D., & Lyberger, R. (2014). Sports marketing: A strategic perspective. Routledge.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in custom research paper writing service if you need a similar paper you can place your order for essay custom writing services.