The latest advance in Nike Yoga apparel is now on nike.com.
Source: Nike Yoga Infinalon
In the midst of dialogue about Under Armour’s difficulties during COVID-19, Lululemon’s growth was brought up as the anti Under Armour story. I wrote about the brand in 2017, but I also thought Victoria’s Secret was doing an okay job of catering to women in the yoga community. VS wasn’t all in on fitness however and decided to focus on fashion athletics or athleisure solely and it backfired. Lululemon saw an opportunity to cater to an underserved market and they built their market slowly and consistently:
In the link to the post above I discussed why Lulu was doing so well:
In this last quarter Q2 2017, the company looked to adidas and reinvented its marketing and social approach. They launched campaigns. A quick look at every aspect of their social media and their website and you will see a huge spike in video. Video is the medium of marketing for today’s customer. Along with their video campaigns they crafted slogans and then followed those slogans up with content that supported the movement. The “This is Yoga” campaign was launched at the end of the 1st quarter and shows that lululemon pulled a card from adidas’ book of marketing. They didn’t use traditional models and images. They crafted a narrative and then on social they took the time to respond to their followers directly.
Nike is a company that is always active and looking to be considered the leader in every sport category. While the company had ignored Yoga, as analysts have begun to talk about Lululemon in the same breath as Nike, Nike has begun to counter. The question is, “Is it too late?”
Nike introduced their new Yoga material at the start of this year, but they didn’t promote or create any marketing around the product. With COVID-19 disrupting the sportswear economy, digital, which is where Nike lives, is becoming the realm of homebased athletes who are trying Yoga. This plays right in the hands of Lulu so this month Nike is making sure to re-introduce Nike Yoga Infinalon:
Because everyone’s body is a yoga body, Nike’s latest yoga collection is designed to be inclusive, serving all genders and body types, from extra small to plus sizes. Thoughtful seam placement and minimal trims contribute to a zero-distraction apparel experience. The collection includes leggings, pants, shorts and bodysuits, and more.
The imagery in the launch is an inclusive delivery of body shapes and in typical Nike fashion they focus on every demographic. The irony is that Lululemon, as it began to roll out its menswear, updated their website and content to include more diversity. When the brand originally began focusing on content development via YouTube over 4 years ago all of their video content was of white women with a bit of white men sprinkled in. About a year ago the YouTube began to include more men and people of color.
In the dialogue taking place on Under Armour on Linkedin I explained that Lululemon was in an excellent position, but in order to continue their growth they had to successfully move towards diversifying their product and fan base. I also stated that the moment Nike felt threatened was when the market would be able to see if $LULU is the brand everyone thinks it is.
Nike Yoga Infinalon is the first step towards Nike becoming engaged in Yoga in a serious fashion. Nike’s first foray into Yoga happened in 2012 with a Studio Wrap shoe for dancers and was based on athletic endeavors and yoga as an “add-on”. Throughout the years Nike approached Yoga as a sport featuring Nike Master Trainers. The apparel was simply Nike sportswear for women, but not designed for yoga. In 2015 Nike created a store in Newport featuring classes, but they still placed traditional Nike sportswear in the building. In 2017 they continued to offer “Yoga” courses, but they hadn’t utilized any Yoga specific design elements in their apparel. Nike assumed they could half ass their way into the Yoga community. It wasn’t until last year that the language changed, but the imagery was of their athletes, which wasn’t true to the Yoga community.
Nike has dabbled in Yoga, but they have never truly focused on the sport and community beyond pushing their Nike digital app to inspire engagement.
This is now a discussion to pay attention to.
This post is meant to be a catalyst for conversation and is my opinion on this topic. To give context to how Nike and sportswear has overlooked women here is a recent post on Foot Locker:
In-Store Visit Series: Foot Locker Was Ahead of Its Time and Should Go Retro