There’s not a marketing guru on the planet who hasn’t pointed to the Nike+ system as an example of where all brands should be going.

I’ve been as guilty as all the other gurus, as I believed the system was a perfect fit with meaningful marketing. Back in my entries about our trip to the Cannes Advertising Festival, I fawned over the program. I’ve brought the Nike+ case study in front of a few clients and it will appear in our upcoming book. But whenever I have spoken or written about Nike+ I have felt a little embarrassed that I have never personally used it. Our President, Jay Woffington, is all over it and supplies me with insights, but that wasn’t enough. Recently, however, I’ve gotten myself back into the running habit big time, and I felt it was a perfect reason to get some first-hand experience with the “God Shoe.”

Getting Started

It turns out that some running shoes I bought three years ago were Nike+ capable, so all I had to do was order the iPod+sensor kit. It came in the typical, beautiful Apple style of packaging. I had to commandeer my wife’s iPod Nano even though pink is not my color. Within minutes I was up and literally running on my basement treadmill.

Overall, the concept works as advertised. A woman’s voice calls out your mile or time splits and adds gentle encouragement. The sensor is very accurate (correct on average, but has random, incorrect splits once in a while), and the iTunes software has no problem receiving the data and uploading it to the Nike+ website. The overall experience met my pretty lofty expectations. Now for the analysis…

What I Love

True runners know that there is something special about tracking your runs and looking back on your progress. My Dad, for example, has a running journal that he has kept for decades. In each of my first three runs, I was still sweaty and out of breath as I synced my Nike+ and “got credit” for my workout. The site has nice touches, such as a graph of your speed and distance. I liked that a special message said, “Congrats on your first 11 miles; now make it 100.”

I haven’t played with all of the features, but a few things stand out for me. I absolutely love the “Human Race 10k” that is happening around the world this Sunday. I signed up right away, giving me a new challenge and the feeling of participating and uploading. A key focus of the program is the Challenges tool, where people have posted a variety of small and large contests. A few buddies have a one-on-one running competition that I might join soon. I also like what Nike is doing with its “Nike+ Mini” application. It’s an avatar that you design, and its running pace is a live reflection of how much you’ve been running lately (mine is above). I do think Nike is thinking small, though, with only a rudimentary Facebook application (where’s the widget for my desktop and this blog?). Finally, I really like features such as special music motivation soundtracks that you can buy on iTunes.

Improvements Needed

There are a few important areas that I think the Nike+ system, site, and community are missing. First, the site itself is extremely slow. You would think a giant video is loading every time you move from one feature to the next. I’ve actually lost patience a few times and decided not to explore something new because of the delay. My guess is that the Nike team and agency chose cool design over simplicity and speed, which speaks to my issue around prioritizing user experience in these programs.

Second, the data presentation is very, very basic. There is no way to truly analyze your performance over time, and there are no insights or suggestions from Nike based on your runs. It would be very easy for Nike+ to, say, calculate helpful information such as the number of calories burned (I later discovered this but had to go through the FAQ section). I would also like to see Nike’s sensor be able to judge elevation, which would add another dimension of measurement and challenges to the daily run log.

Third, the program is missing out on a lot of basics that other smaller brands with tiny budgets have embedded. An obvious miss is the lack of the ability to post blog or journal entries about your runs; another is the inability to create a network of friends within the site. I’m also really surprised that Nike+ hasn’t learned from video game marketers and included rankings of where you stand versus everyone else in the system. I can tell you how my high score ranks against all Guitar Hero players, for example; why not be able to see where I rank on speed and distance among everyone else who ran this week?  Finally, there’s no search bar for help or other info, which is very odd.

Conclusion: Nike+ almost completely lives up to the mega-hype, but it needs to constantly improve to attract and retain runners. I have definitely formed a digitally enabled relationship with Nike through this program, and the brand is providing a free service that is adding a lot of value to my life. I will be recommending this product to others, and as long as Nike+ keeps doing the job for me, I’ll buy Nike shoes and other products for life. I really can’t wait to go home and run with my Nike+ system after work today.

That said, I hope that Nike has enough focus on supporting this platform. Creating a value-added digital service is still a very new marketing and business model for Nike. The brand makes money off of shoes, not websites, which will continually put pressure on the program. I have seen this pressure often in relationship marketing programs that we have created for our clients. And I have no idea how many people are in Nike+, so it’s hard to calculate what an ROI might be for the program.

During my most recent Nike+ data upload I was asked to complete a survey about my experience with the program. This in itself suggests that the brand gets the need to keep improving on what seems to be working very well so far. I’ll keep running and sharing my personal experiences with this meaningful marketing program.

UPDATES from my experience:

• (9/7/08) I’ve never seen Nike actually report how many people are using the system.  I think I’m pretty close to a good estimate, though: There is a page that lists the number of members that have recorded 100 miles, which I think is a pretty fair judge of ongoing use.  As of 9/7/08 there are 17,086 pages of members with 14 members per page.  That makes 239,204 people.  Overall, this is a smaller number than most would assume, given the hype around the product.  I’m not at all surprised, though, it takes time to build up a community like this (think Awareness, Trial…) and anything around technology like this takes time for people to be comfortable.  I’m looking forward to joining the 100 mile club – 52 down, 48 to go!
• I made 100 miles – very cool to experience the achievement and get the following code to brag about it:
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