How Motion and Emotion Power Jordan Brand Design for the Next Generation — NIKE, Inc.
I responded to a Tweet on Nike’s release strategy for Jordan Brand. After responding I realized that I hadn’t done a research dive into what JB has been working on and if they have completely relegated their marketing to IG, TikTok and social media where the brand has allowed fans to control the narrative. I took one second and visited the Nike News site. While Nike and Jordan Brand have basically moved all content inside of SNKRS I needed to know if the abandonment of air.jordan.com signaled the brand’s end to amplifying the insight of the people inside. The Nike news site featured technical breakdowns of every new signature release and the following video:
When Nike got rid of air.jordan.com I understood it although the site inadvertently informed a marketing strategy I named E.N.D.E.A.R.S. In 2018 I developed the concept. It wasn’t new or novel, but the components hadn’t been combined and discussed as I laid it out. Much of my marketing strategy leaned on the roll out of air.jordan.com. The Jordan site was beautifully designed with amazing stories featuring coverage of designers and personalities. In two years, the site grew, organically to over 100,000 visits a month. By comparison, when I began growth hacking my site in 2020, organically, I’ve only grown to around 45,000 visits. This is important as other sneaker blogs are at 1 million plus visits a month and some are over 5 million visits. The content on other sneaker-led sites tends to be less developed and more about hype and style solely than here on arch, but air.jordan.com shed light on the reality of a more mature sneaker content site. I learned from air.jordan.com there is interest in long-form content.
Why did Jordan get rid of the site? Fractured search. When a brand has too many channels it moves the buyer away from the end goal, selling a product. As fantastic as air.jordan.com was, it created fractured search and required links to move visitors to products. This isn’t a bad thing, but for Nike it was an additional step. Someone there thought it added friction and the site began forwarding to Nike.com/Jordan in January of 2022. A visit to Jordan Brand’s YouTube shows a variety of different shows, but nothing quite as compelling as the content featured on the air.jordan.com site. Jordan Brand had a rapidly growing CMS with solid content, and the YouTube since last January looked like a blend of SNKRS and content made to mimic what a brand thought consumers wanted. Jordan content hadn’t focused on educating fans about the design and the people behind the product… until now. It’s taken 18 months for Jordan Brand to revisit the way content was being developed under air.jordan.com, but with the video above, the brand has recognized its strength is in leading vs following. While air.jordan.com probably won’t come back, it looks like the concept is now informing Jordan Brand again, and that’s good.
arch Data on Jordan Brand sales for Jordan flagship and signature athletesÂ
Notes: These are items sold on third party sites. It’s important to note the dates. The Jordan flagship arrived in both high and low colors and in third party they were very slow to sell. The Zion includes numbers from 2021 which was the year the Zion 1 released. The numbers here are poor. The Luka 1 was easily the best performing model for Jordan Brand. arch didn’t have access to Why Not models and when we did, they didn’t sell. The Tatum has been more than solid. It’s performing in the same way as the Luka initially did. The Luka has cooled considerably, but basketball is seasonal, and the model was bumped in interest by the Ja 1. The models look similar, and both cost 110.
- Jordan 37 32 since 9/18/22
- Zion 43 since 3/09/21
- Luka 79 since 10/19/22
- Tatum 25 since 4/19/23