The Genius of Nike

Shoes Meet Instagram
The days of personalizing your shoes with a sharpie in Algebra are officially gone. Nike successfully targeted every shoe enthusiast/hipster on the planet earlier this month with their new marketing campaign Nike Photoid. Plus they did it for almost free.

The company took advantage of the popularity of Instagram and paired it with everyone’s secret desire to design their very own special pair of kicks. Basically, potential customers are encouraged to visit Photoid.Nike.com and grant the site permission to their Instagram account. Then users pick the style they want and design away, their treasured Instagram memories are dropped in as the background. When customers are through they can order the pair for anywhere between $135-$200.

It’s incredibly easy and fun to fool around with: Win
It’s totally free for Nike: Win
Win. Win.

Plus, It’s Impeccable Timing
But there’s more. In addition to the increased sales, building a new type of brand loyalty, and not needing shoe designers for this project, Nike’s campaign has perfect timing.
Earlier this week Instagram introduced a new feature that allows users to tag their photos (much like their parent company Facebook).

Rather than just use hash tags and @s, the “Photos of You” feature encourages users to tag not only their friends, but brands they follow.

It’s perfect for a company like Nike, with over 1.3 million users, and only 600 of their own photos; they can showcase their products as highlighted by users without doing any actual marketing.

Other brands will have the same good luck. For instance, if Beyonce tags H&M in her photo, the clothing company reaches almost 4 million of her followers immediately. 

Maybe Instagram won’t need to advertise after all.