5. The rise of Green Marketing

5. The rise of Green Marketing

Green marketing refers to the adoption of environmental friendly and low resource consuming strategies throughout the stages of the supply chain. These include the use of recyclable packaging, sustainable sourcing, clean and pollution free manufacturing etc. As per studies conducted world-wide, close to 70% of the people responded that they would spend more on a green product. (Weiss, 2014)This demonstrates the massive potential in embracing green marketing strategies by developing and showcasing green, environment friendly products. Sportswear is usually associated with an active, healthy and green lifestyle and therefore, Nike can work to be a pioneer by adapting green marketing principles through their supply chain and also advertise them accordingly. But Nike surely is leading the way in using “green” materials and creating environment friendly products. One such example is Nike Vapormax Random, shown in Figure 7, launched in 2019. It is created from unused Flyknit yarns which would have headed for wastage, giving it the random multi coloured look. While the bottom Air sole is constructed from 75% recycled materials such as discarded CDs.(Nike. Inc, 2019c)

Figure 7. Nike Vapormax Random Shoes Image Source: (Nike. Inc, 2019c)

Nike has introduced options on its mobile app to easily search, shop and learn about sustainable products on the webstore. This is enabled through a shop sustainable tab which can be used to identify sustainable products and learn about the raw materials used. These sustainable products are highlighted by a specially designed “Sunburst Logo”, shown in Figure 8, which consists of the original Nike “Swoosh” rotated into a circular pattern, signifying the circular design concepts.(Nike.com, 2018)

Figure 8. Nike Sunburst logo with sustainable products on nike.com Image Source: (Nike.com, 2018)

Yet another area where Nike excels in its green marketing is through the use of recycled, repurposed or biodegradable materials to create packaging. One such example shown in Figure 9 is the Air Max Shoe Box that was created from recycled containers and coffee cups with no added chemicals.(Tucker, 2017) Such innovative and sustainable designs bring a very positive image to the Nike brand and has a potential to dominate the sportswear industry.

Figure 9. Nike Air Max recycled packaging Image Source: (Tucker, 2017)