Critical Analysis of nike.com by Ioanna Koliou

HULT MASTERS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

MODULE A

Attracting Profitable Customers Professor Ronan Gruenbaum

IOANNA KOLIOU

Student ID: 893793 Word count: 2308

[CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF NIKE.COM WEBSITE ] Nike is the world’s leading brand in the sports and apparel industry, delivering athletic shoes and sports equipment since 1978, when the company was oﬃcially trademarked as Nike, Inc. Today, the brand is valued at 14,528 million dollars (Interbrand, Best Global Brands 2011 report), with international presence and sales across the world.

[CONTENTS]

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2. INTRODUCTION

4-6

2.1. OBJECTIVES OF THE WEBSITE 2.2. AUDIENCE Geo-demographic segmentation Psychographic segmentation Four familiarities

3. TESTING THE WEBSITE 3.1. FIRST IMPRESSION: is the site persuasive to make the user stay? Homepage analysis a) Colour b) Calls-for-action c) Online Value Proposition

Eye tracking evaluation 3.2. CONTENT: is the content of high quality? 3.3. NAVIGATION & USABILITY: is the site easy to use? Links and labels Search and search results 3.4. PERFORMANCE: is the site performing under all circumstances? Accessibility and readability a) Browser compatibility b) Platforms

W3C standards Time to load

4. CONCLUSION 4.1. RECOMMENDATIONS: what more could be done to improve the website?

5 5-6 5 6 6

6-11 6-8 6-8 7 7 7-8

8 9 9 9 9 9-11 10 10 10

10 11

11-12 12

5. APPENDIX

13-17

6. REFERENCES

6.1. TOOLS USED TO ACCESS THE WEBSITE

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY

[EXECUTIVE SUMMARY] This report is analyzing the website of Nike, leading brand in sportswear and sports equipment. The main objective of the site is to create an online experience of the brand (sizzle) and to increase sales or identify leads for sales (sale). At the same time, it is delivering the rest 5Ss objectives (serve, speak and save) by using small elements and functions. Nike is targeting a wide range of consumers, men and women of all ages, kids, athletes, fashion-conscious, dynamic, achievers, familiar with the internet and Nike’s brand. They visit the site first and foremost in search of the online store and then to get information about Nike’s innovations or their sport of interest. The website was tested under the spectrum of whether it is optimally facilitating user’s tasks. The first impression on the site was generally evaluated as positive. The site design of the homepage is familiar and follows some standardization rules. The colours used represent the brand successfully and there are clear calls-for-action. The Online Value Proposition (OVP) was hard to find but with satisfactory benefits. Then, the eye-tracking test showed that the website is delivering Nike’s objective. While navigating in the site, the content was found to be too graphic-intensive making it hard to read, but the presentation is innovative and eye-catching. Also, the site organization tends to be confusing with many links re-directing to different domains or subdomains and opening in the same or different window or tab with no apparent logic. The user tends to be confused as well by the fact that mostly every page has a di fferent design with no or little consistency and the navigation is not supported by a search function, since currently there is an option only for product search. In terms of performance, the website is accessible from any browser or tablet but not from smartphones. In fact, there is an IPAD version of the site, which is more user-friendly than the desktop one. A significant shortcoming of the desktop version is that is designed using flash technology, making it time-consuming to load and multimedia tend not to work optimally at times (Appendix: Exhibit 4). Finally, the website was tested for W3C standards compliance and few errors and warnings were indicated. The conclusion of the testing is that the website does achieve its objective: to create hype around Nike’s products and leads for sales. For further improvement, it is recommended that flash should be replaced by HTML 5 and design consistency, at least in the navigation menus, should be implemented in all the pages. Then, the internal linking structure should be redesigned, maybe after testing different usage scenarios and it is suggested that search function scans through all the site content not only product-related content. All of these recommendations aim at improving the navigation and usability of nike.com, which at the time of the testing was identifying as the key drawback of the site.

[INTRODUCTION] The official www.nike.com website goes back to 1997. Starting from a very simple HTML informative page, the website evolved to a rich-media interactive platform, using high-end technologies (Images 1 and 2).

Image 1: Screen-shot, as seen on 13th of July 1998, on Way Back Machine

Image 2: Screen-shot, as seen on 5th of November 2011, online

2.1. OBJECTIVE OF THE WEBSITE Nike’s main website is a brand-building site, aiming at an online experience of the brand, where people can “Experience sports, training, shopping and everything else that’s new at Nike” (Nike’s tagline). Through the audio-visual features of the site, Nike is positioned as an innovative, dynamic and modern brand that caters for all sports from very popular ones, like football and basketball to very niche ones, like golf and skateboarding. Top products are displayed but available for purchase at store.nike.com or a shop near the user’s location. The website also serves as a directory of Nike’s sub-domains (Appendix: Exhibit 1), so people can be redirected to the site that is most relevant to them. 5Ss objectives SELL grow sales

SERVE add value

SPEAK get cl oser to cus tomer

SAVE sa ve cos ts

SIZZLE extend the brand online

How is this objective being delivered through www.nike.com? Presents the wide range of Nike products, segmented for all different audiences; men, women, children, football, basketball players, golfers, etc. Supports both online shopping with Nike store and online-browsing-offlineshopping, with the store locator. Provides information relevant to sports that cater for individual interests. Gives customers the opportunity to design their own shoes online (Customize with NikeID). Includes blog posts, with RSS feed and comments enabled for an online dialogue. Social media channels and login option are in place for community building purposes. Enables customers to track their order and fill forms online to address customer services. Uses video advertising featuring best athletes or celebrities and slick graphics to increase brand favorability. Customization with NikeID aims to increase customer loyalty.

Table 1: How are the 5Ss objectives being delivered through www.nike.com? (Chaffey & Smith, 2008)

2.2. AUDIENCE Nike targets a wide range of customers, all over the world. Geo-demographic segmentation The users of the website are between 18 and 34 years old, equally proportioned among males and females, childless, with college or higher education and an income wage more than $100K a year. Relative to the general internet population, people of Caucasian, Hispanic and African-American ethnicity are over-represented at nike.com (based on audience demographics from alexa.com).

Image 3: Percentage of visitors on www.nike.com, by country, based on audience demographics from alexa.com

Psychographic segmentation Nike customers are athletes or athletic people, conscious about their health. They are also outer driven, seeking for societal acceptance and fashion-conscious, looking for high-end products, not just sporting equipment. They are achievers, people that put effort into everything they do. Four user familiarities Forrester research (2008) shows that internet users have a different level of familiarity with every organization, its products, the web and websites. For Nike, this means that visitors to the website: can identify Nike as a high-end sportswear supplier, focusing on shoes have seen or bought a Nike product at least once usually browse on Nike from work or school have to learn different interfaces when navigating in the website or accessing from mobile devices (Appendix: Exhibit 2)

Familiarity with the organization Familiarity with the products Familiarity with the internet Familiarity with the website

Table 2: Nike’s user’s familiarities (Chaffey & Smith, 2008)

[TESTING THE WEBSITE] People visit nike.com with the purpose of finding the Nike store, checking for new products, or availability of products, tracking their order and reading news from Nike in general or in relevance to their sport of interest. While testing the website, the focus is on whether it is optimized to facilitate the user’s tasks.

3.1. FIRST IMPRESSION: IS THE SITE PERSUASIVE TO MAKE THE USER STAY? When first accessing the website, the user will be asked to choose his/her preferred language and location, a personalization feature, which leaves a cookie on the user’s computer. Homepage analysis Nike.com is a graphic intensive site build on flash technology and XHTML. The layout seems simple to understand and is complying with some standardization rules (Appendix: Exhibit 5), having the logo at the top left corner followed by the main menu at the left margin. There is top bar featuring top products and recent blog posts, as well as order track and search options. A grid of images in the half bottom section provides extra navigation to the main pages Nike is promoting and a footer menu has corporate or customer service related links. The main featured object is a flash video in the top center of the site. Generally, the layout of the homepage gives a good overview of how to use the site, but the actual navigation doesn’t agree with the first impression.

The user can identify the company, even if the name is not prominently mentioned. Every image in the grid section is labeled with a “NIKE-keyword” title (e.g. NIKESTORE, NIKEiD, NIKEWOMEN, etc) and anyways Nike brand is widely recognized. a) Colour The main colours used are orange, black and grey. These colours associate with brand elements, like energy, power, reliability and the background image on the homepage creates a sense of outdoor activities on a field (Table 3). Energy, balance, enthusiasm, warmth, vibrant, expansive, flamboyant Power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, depth, style, underground Security, reliability, intelligence, dignity, maturity, solid, practical Background image on homepage: Field, outdoor sports, football, running Table 3: Symbolism of Nike colours from princetonol.com

b) Calls-to-action There are clear calls-to-action on the homepage (image 4). Different messages addressing different audiences are presented with slick graphics, in a grid format. For example, “Run Unleashed” is addressing runners, mainly males or “Customize now” is addressing more creative, brand loyal customers. The user will intuitively feel like clicking on the category that best associates with him/her.

Image 4: Grid of Calls-to-action, as seen on 5th of November 2011, online

c) Online Value Proposition (OVP) However, there is no obvious OVP. The OVP should clearly state what makes the website different than competitors or offline services (Chaffey & Smith, 2008). In nike.com, the OVP cannot be found unless the user clicks on the login option under the left margin menu. This will activate a flash pop-up object, which mentions the unique benefits he/she can get by registering with Nike (image 5).

Image 5: Screen-shot of login pop-up, as seen on 5th of November 2011, online

Eye tracking evaluation Eye tracking heatmaps provide valuable information on the gaze trail the visitor’s eye follows when viewing the website (Chaffey & Smith, 2008). When visiting nike.com, most users go directly to the Nike store. If not, they will be drawn to the left-side menu. Third thing they observe is the central video, followed by the Nike+, which is the product advertised on the video. Login and track the orde r status are the last things visitors will click on, as well as the “About Nike” section, which is not visible unless scrolling down to the footer section. Overall the website is performing in correlation to its main objectives: SELL and SIZZLE, as indicated in image 6.

Experience sports SELL

everything else that’s new at Nike SIZZLE shopping SELL

training SIZZLE & SELL

Image 6: Heatmap generated from feng-gui.com. Objectives of the site as stated in the tagline (Experience sports, shopping, training & everything else that’s new at Nike) can be seen in different places on the site

3.2. CONTENT: IS THE CONTENT OF HIGH QUALITY? The content of the website consists of hardly any text. Most of the information is either in a flash or video format. For example if the user wants to find information on Nike+, he/she has to watch a series of six explanatory videos. While this is a very innovative approach and definitely gets the user’s attention, it can also drive customers away from the site if they don’t have the required flash plugin on their browser (Appendix: Exhibit 4) or if they just want to read the information quickly. The volume of the content is high and is not intuitively readable because the advanced design formatting makes the content appear in a different place in every click. It is focused on creating hype highlighting specific features and benefits of Nike’s products and what is interesting is that there is no news section on the desktop version in comparison to the mobile one. At the time of the testing, the last update on the content was made in August 2011.

3.3. NAVIGATION & USABILITY: IS THE SITE EASY TO USE? While the site is very impressive in terms of look-and-feel, it’s not easy to use because the over-designed elements and functionalities tend to be overwhelming and there seems to be no apparent concept of how the pages strung together. Links and link labels There are duplicate links in mostly every page (main menu and inside the content) which give different navigation options. But the fact that most of the links open in a different way (open in the same window, new tab or new window) makes it hard for the visitor to realize if he/she is at the same website or if he/she has been redirected to a new one once having left the homepage. The pages are properly labeled, but there are neither breadcrumbs nor a sitemap to help with the navigation and in addition to that, inconsistencies in design (e.g. main menu and footer menu change from one page to the other) don’t help the visitor understand how he/she got to a specific page or how to go back. In the Appendix, exhibit 3 shows a variety of links in the footer section that the visitor will encounter while navigating. Search and search results There is a search option on the right top corner. The function is intended only for product search and any keyword search will redirect you to the store.nike.com subdomain; which additionally opens in the parent tab, making the visitor leave the main website. When searching for the term “about”, this is the reply that comes: “Sorry, we found no product matches for your search. This could mean that your product is sold out or not currently available for sale online.”

3.4. PERFORMANCE: IS THE SITE PERFORMING UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES? The website was tested using a variety of tools in terms of accessibility and readability, W3C standards and time to load.

Accessibility and readability Web accessibility means that people are able to access the website and get the intended information regardless of the platform they are using to access it and of their possible disabilities. The nike.com site was tested for compatibility with different browsers and platforms as well as for compliance with the W3C standards for accessibility (table 4). a) Browser compatibility Today, most internet users have a screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels (w3schools.com). Nike’s website can fit into 800x600 pixels, which is more than adequate for any screen display. Also, taken that the user has installed the Adobe flash player plugin in his/her browser, then the website is compatible with the most popular browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari). b) Platforms When accessing the website through an IPAD, a different version appears which is completely different than the desktop one (Image 7). The mobile website focuses more on delivering news and displaying Nike products, which are also available for purchase. The design is simpler, the site is lighter, hence faster to load and its organization is far from the clutter of links on the desktop version. However, accessibility through smartphones is not optimized. Testing the site on an iphone, it is surprising that the user will not be able to access the site, but instead will be forced to download one of the Nike apps. On an android phone, the site was unable to load because the server timed out. Image 7: Screen-shot from IPAD version of the website, as seen on 5th of November 2011

W3C standards W3C standards are a set of guidelines every website should use for an error-free, “healthy” Web (W3C mission). These are the results from nike.com: W3C Markup Validation (XHTML) W3C CSS Validation W3C Link Checker W3C Feed Validation WAI Validation 508 Section Validation

125 errors and 143 warnings 6 errors 14 malformed links that cannot be parsed by the server and 1 link broken No feed coming from this website Nike website was found to comply with some of these standards Nike website was found to comply with some of these standards

Table 4: Results generated from W3C Validation tools and Web HiSoftware® Cynthia Says™. The links re-direct to the reports of the tests.

Download time The website is using flash video, flash menus and images which make it a â&#x20AC;&#x153;heavyâ&#x20AC;? website to load. The size of the homepage is 3 MB (pingdom tools). For visitors, who use a high-speed internet connection, loading the site will take approximately 2 seconds, which is almost acceptable, based on research from Akamai (2009) that suggests that visitors will leave the site if loading takes more than 2 seconds. Nike.com will take significantly more time to load in broadband or dial-up connections (Table 5). Internet connection speed Dial-up speed (tested wi th a speed of 40 kilobi ts per second (kbps) whi ch is the a vera ge speed wi th a 56 kbps modem) Broadband (tested wi th a speed of 512 kilobi ts per second (kbps ) which is the a verage speed over Broadband)

1 Mb/s 2 Mb/s 4 Mb/s

Seconds to load 29.94 3.91 2.75 2.58 2.1

Table 5: Report generated from Site Confidence

[CONCLUSION] After having analyzed the website thoroughly, the results are quite satisfactory (table 6). The website is memorable and has the sizzle factor. It is not very user-friendly and while improvements could be made in terms of depth of content and mobile accessibility, the recommendations focus on improving first and for most the usability of the site. Success factors for website design Accessibility User-centric design and usability Information architecture and findability Search engine optimization Web standards Persuasion to deliver commercial results Visual design Web analytics Legal requirements Internet marketing planning and improvement process Integrated marketing communications (online and offline)

Y/N NO NO NO YES NO YES YES YES YES YES YES

Table 6: Checklist for website design success, (Chaffey & Smith, 2008)

4.1. RECOMMENDATIOS: WHAT MORE COULD BE DONE TO IMPROVE THE WEBSITE? Design consistency While it is good to have a different template for pages that are designed for a different purpose, it is advisable to have consistency at least in the main menus and the footer section, so that users can easily navigate back and forth to different pages. Additionally, while being in the same section (e.g. Nike Women) different buttons appear in different places, making it difficult to understand where to read and where to click. A decision should be made on where to place the buttons and which pages need to have a different look-andfeel (especially the background pictures), so that it doesn’t seem like different developers worked on different pages of the site. Non-flash content Instead of flash elements, HTML5 could be used to create the same impressive functionalities and design. The current flash version doesn’t allow search engines to index the content and additionally the site is “heavier”, hence time-consuming to load. Internal linking structure Usage scenarios should be developed for specific tasks, so that there is a decent organization in the redirections between location-based versions and Global version of the site. It is advisable that internal pages open in the parent window and pages redirecting to another Nike domain of subdomain open in a new window. Search function It is recommended that search function isn’t only for product search but also scans through different blog entries, news and information about Nike. Especially brand enthusiast people want to read about Nike’s initiatives, either that’s a product or a CSR campaign and feel proud about their choice to be committed to this brand. Non-product related information tends to be hard to find currently.

[APPENDIX] EXHIBIT 1: EXAMPLES OF DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS OF NIKE

Domain/Subdom ain www.nike.com

Pages indexed in Google

50800

Tagline Nike - Home

Purpose Main company website/directory of all subdomains

CORPORATE ni kebiz.com

11600

inves t.nike.com

1380

ni kemedia .com

5510

ni ke.net

Nikebiz: Nike Inc. Official Site, the world’s largest. Leading athletic brand Nikebiz: Investors: Nike is a Growth Company: Investors Nike Media

61 CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ni kebetterworld.com 1

Nike.net

ni kefounda tion.org

Nike foundation: Welcome

Nike Better World

Corporate website Corporate website aiming at attracting investors Website will press releases and news announcements from Nike Portal for Nike’s retailers Website showcasing the CSR activities of Ni ke Website dedicated to the girl effect campaign, promoting education to young girls

NIKE STORE s tore.nike.com ni ketown.nike.com

774000 1230

Nike store. Nike Trainers, Clothing & Sports equipment Nike store. Nike Trainers, Clothing & Sports equipment

Website for online shopping Redirects to store.nike.com

CUSTOMER SERVICE help-us .ni ke.com

446

help-all.nike.com

408

forums .nike.com

65300

Nike customer service. Find info on contacting us, returns, ordering & products. How do I contact Nike for service in the UK, Ireland and Scotland? Support forums: Forum Home

Customer service website providing any short of assistance: live chat, phone enquiry, email, FAQs, store locator, track order, etc Varies in terms of your location Online community for people to discuss and address issues on Nike+ with other runners

CUSTOMIZED PRODUCTS ni keid.nike.com ni keteam.nike.com

ni kevision.com

5550 98 6840

Nike store. NIKEiD Nike Trainers, Clothing & Sports equipment Nike Team Sports – Engineered to the exact specifications of championship athletes Athletic Sport Sunglasses & Technology | Nike Vision

Re-directs to store.nike.com at the section wher e customers can design their own shoes Website where you can customize Nike sports equipment for teams Website displaying eyewear products

SPECIFIC SPORTS ni kesnowboa rding.com

172

Nike Snowboarding

ni keskateboa rding.com

1320

Nike Skateboarding

ni kegol f.nike.com ni kefootball.nike.com ni keplus .nike.com

1 6 107

Nike Golf Nike football Nike running

ni keplusacti ve.nike.com

1280

Nike+ Active

ni kerunning.nike.com

5350

Nike running

Website with products, news and information on snowboarding Website with products, news and information on snowboarding Redirects to nike.com at the golf section Redirects to nike.com at the football section Redirects to nikerunning.nike.com Interactive game for customer engagement, focusing on runners Community for runners to share experience

Nike.com Profile

795000

EXHIBIT 2: INTERNAL PAGES OF NIKE.COM

Language selection: http://www.nike.com/

http://www.nike.com/en_gb/sportswear

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikebasketball/en_GB?sitesrc=gblp

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nke6/en_EMEA?sitesrc=gblp

http://www.nike.com/nikewomen/home?locale=en_GB&sitesrc=gblp

http://www.nike.com/nikewomen/features/ntc?locale=en_GB

Screen-shots of different pages of nike.com website, as seen on 5 of November 2011, online

EXHIBIT 3: DIFFERENT FOOTER MENUS FROM DIFFERENT PAGES

Nike Football: the only page where a site map appears http://www.nike.com/nikefootball/home/?locale=en_GB&sitesrc=gblp

Nike Women: social media channels appear on the footer menu http://www.nike.com/nikewomen/home?locale=en_GB&sitesrc=gblp

Nike Basketball: the simplest version of the footer menu http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikebasketball/en_GB?sitesrc=gblp

Nike Sportwear: a completely different look-and-feel of the footer bar http://www.nike.com/en_gb/sportswear

Nike 6.0: another simple version of the footer menu with a like button http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nke6/en_EMEA?sitesrc=gblp

Nike Home: the first footer menu the visitor will see http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nike/en_GB/?&ref=

Screen-shots of different pages of nike.com website, as seen on 5 th of November 2011, online

EXHIBIT 4: ERRORS THAT OCCURRED DURING THE TESTING OF THE WEBSITE

Adobe Flash Player collapsed

Plugin required for Internet Explorer in order to view the website

EXHIBIT 5: STANDARDIZATION OF WEB FEATURES Company Name Logo Main Menu Sub-menu Breadcrumbs Search box Sitemap Footer Widely used standards for labels Logo top left, hyperlink to home page Main menu left margin or at top Signposts of content at top or top left of page Standard underlined links Footer for reference to copyright and privacy

Not mentioned, but the brand is widely recognized Yes Yes Yes No Only for product search No Yes Some labels are there, like About Nike/Jobs, Privacy and Terms of Use Logo is at the top left; linking to homepage, as well as a rollover function enables a drop-down menu with additional links Main menu at left margin No signposts No underlined links, most of them are either images or links from the menu Footer provides such information, but changes while navigating in the site

Standardization checklist by Gruenbaum (2011) and Chaffey & Smith (2008)

[REFERENCES]           

Sancho, A., Spekhorst, B., Roncal, V. (2010), Report of Nike.com. Published January 15th 2010 at http://www.slideshare.net/guestfafa720/nikecom Incredible @rt Department (2009), Color Symbolism and Culture. http://princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/color2.htm W3C Schools, Statistics on browsers. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp W3 Consortium, W3C Mission. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission Akamai (2009), Akamai Reveals 2 Seconds as the New Threshold of Acceptability for eCommerce Web Page Response Times, Press Release, September 14th 2009. http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2009/press_091409.html Chaffey, D. and Smith, PR, 2008. Objectives of 5Ss of e-marketing, eMarketing excellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing, 3rd edition, ButterworthHeinemann, p. 23. Chaffey, D. and Smith, PR, 2008. The four familiarities, eMarketing excellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing, 3rd edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, pp. 243-244. Chaffey, D. and Smith, PR, 2008. Success factors for website design, eMarketing excellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing, 3rd edition, ButterworthHeinemann, p. 222. Chaffey, D. and Smith, PR, 2008. Standardization of web features, eMarketing excellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing, 3rd edition, ButterworthHeinemann, pp. 243-259. Chaffey, D. and Smith, PR, 2008. Online Value Proposition, eMarketing excellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing, 3rd edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, pp. 243-259. Nike (2011), Annual report, http://media.corporateir.net/media_files/irol/10/100529/nike2011ar/nike2011ar/index.html

6.1. TOOLS USED TO ACCESS THE WEBSITE      

Test the size of a website and time to load, http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ Web analytics on traffic and audience demographics, http://www.alexa.com/ Attention analysis for websites and advertisements, http://www.fenggui.com/Default.aspx Load testing with different internet connection speeds, http://www.siteconfidence.com/test-your-site.aspx W3C Standards Validation tests, http://www.w3.org/Status.html Web content accessibility testing, http://www.cynthiasays.com/

[BIBLIOGRAPHY] 

Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R., 2008. eMarketing excellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing, 3rd edition, Butterworth-Heinemann.