Though quarantine is keeping us at home, Americans aren’t worried about getting all dressed up with no place to go. The sneaker craze continues, so top athletic footwear companies are still putting out new designs.
Let’s dive into Pathmatics marketing intelligence and take a closer look at how three of the biggest sneaker companies—Nike, Puma, and New Balance—advertised their new products throughout the month of November.
Nike Spends $8.6 Million Promoting Modern and Retro Styles
While Americans of all ages have embraced the sneaker trend, it’s primarily driven by Gen Z and Millenials. Considering how much of Nike’s advertising dollars went to Instagram in the month of November, it’s clear they understand their market.
Nike’s retro Air Jordan II line has been a top priority from an ad spend perspective—the Jordan brand itself was allocated $1.1 million of Nike’s November ad budget. Ad creatives like these below show off the bold color block and zig zag patterns of this retro look.
The Pegasus 37 Betrue style also has seen some support throughout November. The images below are of the 5th and 8th most financially supported ad creatives of the month.
Like most of Nike’s November ads, these ads saw spikes in revenue in mid- and/or late-November, likely due to an advertising push leading up to Black Friday.
New Balance Showcases The Kawhi Across Many Channels
New Balance’s November ad spend was $1.4 million—not much higher than Nike spent on the Jordan brand alone. However, this footwear company cast a wider net in terms of its ad placements compared to Nike’s 61% on Instagram.
One of the notable sites that we saw as a priority for New Balance but not for Nike in November is twitch.tv. Both allocated most of their budgets to social media platforms with espn.com following behind. Taking a look at its top creatives, it’s clear that The Kawhi is a big deal. The top creative on twitch, also the second-most supported creative for the month of November overall, features the Kawhi in an epic video generating hype for the design.
The Kawhi + Jolly Rancher was also widely promoted in November. This design includes bold color blocking similar to Nike’s Retro Air Jordan II, and was promoted by new Balance on all platforms.
Puma Uses Videos to Show Off Future Rider and Calibrate Runner
Similar to New Balance, Puma relied on a more distributed array of channels to get the message out about its sneaker designs in November, but skewed more heavily towards video ads than either of the other two brands discussed in this post.
Its $2.2 million advertising placement budget for November was primarily focused on both Desktop Display and Desktop Video ads. Of the display ads, however, the top website was YouTube, so Puma shows priority to young consumers streaming online.
Puma’s top creative in November was one such YouTube display ad promoting its simple all-white Calibrate Runner shoe. This design was the most widely promoted overall, with another 3 of its top 10 creatives dedicated to it as well. Its simple design contrasts sharply with the colorful retro revivals promoted by Nike and New Balance.
However, the rest of Puma’s top creatives each focus on promoting a different style, many of which are just as colorful as The Kawhi and Retro Air Jordan II. Puma’s second most-widely promoted creative is a powerful video featuring the Future Rider and its retro appeal.
Hypebeast (read: streetwear) culture and its obsession with sneakers lives on through the pandemic, and top athletic footwear companies have not allowed Black Friday shopping season to pass by without vying for their slice of consumer attention in the month of November.
To learn more about the data behind this article and what Pathmatics has to offer, visit www.pathmatics.com.
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