Nike X Skims?!

Kim Kardashian and… Nike?! Collaborating on a new brand together? To those outside this might make complete business sense. To myself & others, this partnership is puzzling, but it’s the sign of bigger shifts in the business & brand landscape.
There’s two main themes from this move: 1. Surrender to Succeed. 2. The Power of Personal Brands Continue to Encroach on Consumer Brands.
But first? Let’s acknowledge the obvious & review the strategy…

The Elephant: Are we just trying to poke the Kanye bear here? If so, that's already working. Kanye famously was slighted by Nike, took his ball to play with adidas, where he built a billion dollar business, only to sink it through anti semitic remarks & controversy.
He took to Instagram immediately to share some sarcasm. The former Nike athlete who also had a falling out with the company, Alyson Felix’s company By Saysh, dropped a heart of support.

The Strategy: Perhaps there's a bigger business strategy? And all of this will make sense when you view it through my my proprietary athleisure chart below.
But, first, Collaborations work best when both sides get something out of the deal.

To understand what they want, let’s check the sports & athleisure chart to see that they both get on the surface. The chart illustrates that any brand who started in footwear, or in men's sports, like Nike or Adidas eventually want to go grow their business by getting into women's athleisure and apparel. And all of the brands on the bottom of the chart, like Skims or Lulu, who started serving women in apparel, will eventually want to get into sports, footwear and men.

This is why Kim started with the NBA before the WNBA last year. She already had a female audience, so she was going after the men.

Nike's been trying aggressively to win with women for a few years now. Their Super Bowl ad would reflect that.

They’re making headway with women in sport, but that’s a small fraction of the buying audience of women. Most women are out of sports entirely by 15, and then evolve into movement: yoga, pilates, dance, running. Lulu, Outdoor Voices, Carbon 38 and a host of other brands specializes in serving those women. Nike has always been playing catch up.
As someone who spent two years as a Brand Director in Nike Women’s (one of only a couple of men) at the beginning of their serious efforts to serve women, I see this as the brand waving a white flag. If you can’t beat them, join them. Just a few years ago, this would be unthinkable. On one side it’s Nike’s competitive spirit and jealous nature. They don’t like admitting when someone else does something better. On the other, it may be time to give in and let someone else lead you there.

As someone who studied & believes in the women’s empowerment movement, and acknowledging all the tricky areas of political correctness before I type this…
I can’t help but see some puzzling & confusing signals here. 1. The brand is founded by women, Kim and Emma Grede, but their BRAND seems to be built on the male gaze: “a feminist theory that describes how women are portrayed in a way that objectifies them… The male gaze can impact how women see themselves and …can reduce women to aesthetic value.” I won’t include the images here, but their latest campaign is a direct impersonation of Terry Richardson, a popular photographer who was [mostly] ousted in the Me, Too movement & charged with sexual assault. Nearly all of their images are hyper sexualized, not empowering stories of female leaders, founders or others. 2. Nike is supposed to be doubling down on serving athletes in sport, but instead they focus on…shapewear? Doesn’t shapewear inherently imply that there’s something wrong with the female form? It’s confusing, but compelling when you see the next big theme:

The Power of Personal Brand

I heard a prediction that seemed insane, but starts to make more sense in light of deals like this…
”Personal Brands (& founder led brands) will overtake Consumer Brands by 2030”

Disrupting Car Brand? Tesla. (Elon) Top Energy Drink? Prime. (Jake Paul) Top Shapewear? Skims. (Kim)

Kim's 360 million followers on Instagram is actually more than Nike’s 300m. She's one of the top 10 most followed people on earth at number 7.

1 and 2 are global football stars. This family makes up 3 of the Top 9! Kylie's number 4, and Khloe's number 9!
This allows Nike to reach Kim’s audience, and it allows Skims to get more distribution. Generally, I think it will help Kim reach a more male audience, but they're focused on women's in this initial press release.

This move is not normal for Nike.
For business, that could be great.
For their brand? It’s not a great look to me.
But to the millions of young women they’re trying to reach? Maybe it’s brilliant.

Education:
The BrandFathers new episode is out NOW: this week we cover XYZ

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Blessings:

I was honored to deliver the Keynote speech at the Visit Fort Worth convention last week. Afterwards, I received so many kind words, but the one below stuck out the most. I believe in Personal Branding, not to build an empire, but because of how we can impact people when we are clear about our purpose & focus.
Your story can bless others too!