Why the digital economy re-discovers the brand.

Actually, brand management and technology should go hand in hand by now, shouldn't they? However, the current case at NIKE shows once again that this is still not the case all too often. Brand management and technology are concepts that can mutually reinforce each other to a massive extent or, alternatively, block each other. With fatal consequences.

Waren wir nicht schon mal weiter in Sachen integriertem Marketing? Oder zeigt der Fall NIKE einmal mehr, dass die Integration von Marke und Technologie immer noch eine echte Herausforderung ist? Mit den heftigen jüngsten Turbulenzen bei NIKE und der nachfolgenden Exemption for NIKE CEO John Donahoe a conflict that seemed to be resolved comes back on the agenda, and then it seems not to be. Two worlds play a role here that should actually be interwoven: brand management and technology.

How NIKE wanted to replace the brand with digital processes

For years, the brand, product and sales channels were Nike's holy trinity in a brand world that the company branding pioneer had defined itself and in which the sports brand, with its global vision was the star. The focus: an iconic brand, innovative products, staged through multi-million partnerships and brand stories that could be told to your grandchildren. Stories that had both a long-term effect (“Just do it”, Jordan, 1984) and could be activated in the short term in sales environments. 

For decades, Nike has been building on its aggressive but highly effective brand formula: investing a portion of its revenues in demand generation and sports marketing, and using the power of innovation, storytelling and the athlete-product synergy to make the decisive leap forward. The result: a world of success that has produced one of the most iconic brand stories with the swoosh (book recommendation: Phil Knight's “Shoe Dog”). A brand that every child knew and that was globally representative of the concept of a brand.

And then there is this other story from a much more digital world. A world that seemed supposedly more modern because it was fundamentally built on the truths of the digital economy and in which performance, data and D2C processes became more important than the brand. In his four years at the helm from 2020, NIKE CEO John Donahoe transformed the company with his experiences at Ebay and Paypal – beautifully described in Massimo Giunco's LinkedIn analysisThe central idea was that what NIKE represented was somehow no longer up to date. Too analog, too much focused on old structures.

“Long-term results cannot be achieved by piling short-term results on short-term results.“

– Peter Drucker, Economist

Nike shifted its strategy from acquiring new customers to maintaining existing ones, with the majority of investments going into customer retention. Starting in 2021, Nike doubled its spending on programmatic advertising and performance marketing. At the same time, it focused on brand design, while creative brand communication Centrally controlled content replaced local marketing initiatives. (Wholesale) trade relationships gave way to direct sales. Specific verticals were dissolved and transferred into generic categories (“men”, “women”, “children”).

The result: Nike's market capitalization fell from January to August 2024 by 24%The share is currently worth a little more than half as much as it was in 2021.
Nein, Börsenwerte sind nur bedingt gute Indikatoren für gesunde Unternehmen. Und Donahoe kann sicher nicht für jeden Aspekt dieses Desasters etwas – Corona und viel neue Konkurrenz trugen ihren Teil bei. Aber unter seiner Führung hat es eine der stärksten Marken der Welt nicht geschafft, sich gegen die Krise zu stemmen. Es braucht keine komplexe Marketinganalyse, um herauszufinden, dass in dieser Zeit viel verloren ging, was NIKE zu NIKE machte. Der Fall verdeutlicht wie kaum ein zweiter, was passieren kann, wenn ein Unternehmen langfristige Markenausrichtung zugunsten kurzfristiger Ergebnisse opfert.

[elementor-template id=“9148″]

Time to get out of the digital comfort zone

In fact, the NIKE problem is representative of a challenge faced by many digitally driven brands: too much short-term thinking, too much dependence on the next fix, and too little mental presence in the brand memory of consumers. To a certain extent, many digital and tech companies suffer from the mirror-inverted challenge of many traditional companies: they believe too much in the power of technology without considering the deep humanity of brand storytelling. But data, attribution models and atomized content snippets alone do not inspire buyers, even if they are more measurable.

In fact, when it comes to brand management, many digital companies are once again faced with the task of questioning their own realities, in which they have become somewhat complacent. Performance media, D2C and well-defined sales funnels are efficient for many companies. digital marketing toolsthat fit perfectly into your company's processes. 

And there is no doubt that all these topics have their place and work. But pure digital marketing has its limits, especially when companies (have to) grow and face intense competition. The world of short-term, click-based, quickly scalable successes is also interchangeable and can Long-term scalability is only possible through brand management – even in the tech world.

Brands help tech brands to scale

As a Marketing and innovation consultancy We have experience with companies that start out from different directions in order to break into unknown territory: on the one hand, with companies that come from the “old economy” and want to enter the digital world. And then, with an increasing number of companies that started out in the tech world and are now entering an unknown territory, where they have to go from startup to brand.

This usually happens when the story of the next feature has long been told – when the new onboarding process or the new darling under the post on the website no longer generates a difference among the masses of new users. It also happens when investors are looking at scaling scenarios that can no longer be achieved in the traditional way. And it happens when you are in increasingly generic digital markets where the apps, platforms and influencer discount codes of competitor brands are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from your own offering.

It is not without a certain irony that many tech companies today are going through the same phase that the old economy went through decades ago: the product is built, the processes are established, and the competition is pressing. And suddenly you realize that in order to scale, you need an ingredient that is new to your company: a story that has meaning, differentiates and builds long-term loyalty. If you want to grow, sooner or later there is no getting around building a human brand. Especially in the digital economy.

“Marken müssen wieder vom Verkaufen zum Überzeugen kommen.“

– Bettina Fetzer, Vice President Communications & Marketing bei Mercedes-Benz

Markenführung ist neu für die Digital Economy

As a Marketing and innovation consultancy haben wir bei superspring gute Erfahrung mit Unternehmen, die aus unterschiedlichen Richtungen starten, um in unbekanntes Territorium vorzudringen: Einerseits mit Unternehmen, die aus der „Old Economy“ kommen und die digitale Welt betreten wollen. Und dann eben auch mit immer mehr Unternehmen, die in der Tech-Welt gestartet sind und die nun ein ihnen unbekanntes Territorium betreten, wo sie vom Startup zur Brand werden müssen und diese bis zur Ebene der Content Strategy for target groups konsistent durchdenken müssen.

Dies passiert meist, wenn die Geschichte des nächsten Features längst auserzählt ist – wenn der neue Onboarding-Prozess oder das neue Herzchen unter dem Post auf der Website keinen Unterschied mehr bei der Masse neuer Verwender:innen generiert. Es passiert auch dann, wenn Investor:innen Skalierungsszenarien abklopfen, die auf klassischem Wege nicht mehr erreichbar sind. Die zunehmende Schwäche des Performance Marketing – des Media Stars in den letzten 10 Jahren – spitel dabei eine entscheidende Rolle. So schreibt Media Experte

So schreibt Media Experte Thomas Koch in der Wiwo:

„Es musste doch allen Fachleuten klar sein, dass Performance nur funktionieren kann, wenn die Marke gleichzeitig gestärkt wird. Es gehört zum Einmaleins des Marketing Funnels, eine ausgewogene Balance aus Markenarbeit und Performance herzustellen.“

Und weiter:

„Die Fehler, die die Mehrzahl aller Marketing- und Mediaverantwortlichen weltweit machten, liegen für jeden sichtbar – aber zuvor gut erkennbar – auf der Hand: ein Überinvestment in digitale Performance-Kanäle gepaart mit einem massiven Defizit in klassische Branding-Medien.“

Wie ironisch: History Repeats itself.

Die digitale Welt stellt überrascht fest, dass die alten Rezepte nicht mehr funktionieren ebenso wie es die Old Economy vor Jahren tat. Es braucht heute zum Skalieren noch eine Zutat, die fürs eigene Unternehmen neu ist: Eine Geschichte, die Bedeutung hat, differenziert und langfristig bindet. Wer wachsen will, kommt früher oder später am Aufbau einer menschlichen Marke nicht vorbei. Gerade in der Digital Economy.

How tech companies can successfully manage their brands

We ourselves have advised dozens of digitally oriented companies that ventured into the adventure of branding. Whether they were startups or more established tech-driven companies, we at superspring love the pragmatism of these organizations. Because there is one thing that really characterizes digital companies: they are geared for speed. Workshops and decisions usually move quickly and are very results-oriented. Results that would take months of stakeholder management elsewhere are usually implemented in days or weeks here. That's great.

Aber die Welt digitaler Organisationen ist eben auch erwachsen geworden. Ebenso wie in der „Old Economy“ gibt es hier Best Practices, gewachsene Strukturen und Prozesse, die man „immer schon so gemacht hat“. Hohe digitale Affinität bedeutet in Organisationen nicht immer, dass man auch wirklich flexibler arbeiten und sich aus den bestehenden Prozessen einfach befreien kann. In der Konsequenz bedeutet Arbeit an der Marke und an der übergeordneten Kommunikationsstrategie für viele Tech-Brands eine Lernkurve. Markenarbeit wirkt langfristig und muss in schnellen Test & Learn Umgebungen erst geübt und in bestehende Prozesse integriert werden. Da schreibt sich nicht jedes briefing von selbst.

Und genau darum geht es. Markenbildung sollte nicht durch eine digitale vs analoge Brille betrachtet werden. Über die Zeiten sind wir zum Glück längst hinweg. Vielmehr geht es um das Koppeln kurzfristiger (oft Digital-getriebener) und langfristiger (oft Brand-getriebener) Marketing-Effekte. Erfolgreiche Marken schaffen beides und bewerten auch Erfolge taktisch und strategisch unabhängig voneinander. „Marken sind am erfolgreichsten, wenn sie langfristigen Markenaufbau und kurzfristige Verkaufsförderung kombinieren“, schrieben Les Binet und Peter Field vor nunmehr über 10 Jahren in „The Long and the Short of it“. And we at superspring also believe in this truth.

[elementor-template id=“15012″]