Heidi O’Neill, President of Nike Direct, looks to the future of brick-and-mortar retail and sees it closer than you may think.
Source: The Confidence of Nike Retail
When I sat down to write the ebook below my goal was to tell brands and retailers that hiring writers was a much needed tactic in creating an omnichannel experience that moved customers to visit websites. In the book, however, I spent a number of pages stressing the fact that Nike had opened more doors than any other retailer in the last ten years. The reason I wrote about brick & mortar in a short but detailed manner is because the connection from online to shop isn’t more evident than in the physical locations Nike is opening.
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To further establish why a book on Nike’s C.D.O. led to an analysis of how writing teams in the marketing department are vital to a company’s long term plans, take one look at how Nike is presenting the news about their newest store in NYC. Listen to this section of the article found on Nike News and the storytelling around Nike’s President of Nike Direct. This website post reads like the opening of a novel on O’Neill’s childhood as it transitions into a discussion on brick & mortar:
I was 11 years old when I saw retail pivot for the first time.
Growing up, my parents owned a sporting goods store, Portside Sports, in my hometown of Charlevoix, Michigan. I remember spending afternoons waxing skis and stringing tennis rackets — I loved it.
At the time, downhill skiing was all the rage, but cross-country skiing hadn’t really landed in Charlevoix yet. My dad got excited about the opportunity there and started stocking cross-country skis. But there wasn’t much awareness, and business was slow.
Then the transition into a discussion on Nike’s new NYC location begins:
Today, as the President of Nike Direct, I get to think about the evolution of retail every day, as we craft our vision of a modern, digitally transformed store. It was just three or four years ago that the industry declared brick-and-mortar retail dead. If you believed the whispers then, we wouldn’t have any physical stores — just a grim landscape of empty storefronts as far as the eye can see.
The post continues forward and discusses the implementation of the data driven Nike Melrose store and how it is informing their new retail locations. I continue to establish that Nike’s blueprint is the goal of every major brand and the wholesale accounts that work with the brand have to begin working in a similar fashion to inspire connection to their locations. Nike in this post has just humanized an executive while delivering information on where they are headed. Retail sites are simply posting product and hoping for the best.
Take a second to use the source link to read more about how Nike NYC will continue to shape the landscape of retail.
Source: The Confidence of Nike Retail
