For decades, Nike’s slogan was one of the world’s most recognizable: Just Do It.
In November of 2021, it was worth a staggering $280B. Today, it’s down to $57B (a 78% decline) and is set to be removed from the S&P 100 on September 21. Not the end of the world for the market behemoth, but certainly an ominous bellwether.
After being the face of sports, and certainly basketball, for decades, Nike decided to try something new …
It pulled back from retailers.
It pushed consumers toward direct-to-consumer channels. It became obsessed with digital data, memberships, and measurable marketing. And in the process, it made a classic mistake: confusing efficiency with relevance.
More importantly, it forgot why people bought it in the first place.
Don’t Lose Sight Of The Prize
Companies often forget a simple business principle when things are going well: keep the main thing the main thing. The world is always full of flashy new strategies, technologies, and trends promising to reinvent how business is done. But you can’t get so focused on chasing the new thing that you lose sight of what you’re really chasing.
Kodak didn’t lose because photography disappeared. RadioShack didn’t lose because people stopped buying electronics. Both lost relevance as the world changed around them and they failed to protect—or evolve—what originally made them valuable. Kodak was in the business of making memories, not selling film. Radioshack was in the business of being an expert source, not selling niche tech.
Nike faces a similar risk. Data, DTC, and digital optimization are useful tools, but they were never supposed to become the product. The main thing was always their brand identity … not just making people want to wear Nike, but making them want to wear it while performing. Customers wanted to feel like high-performance athletes, like they could be the next Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods.
When companies forget what made them great in the first place, they can spend years optimizing themselves right into irrelevance.
Nike didn’t disappear overnight (and it’s not dead yet)… but it’s certainly much easier to miss.
Just Do … Something Else
When Nike pulled products from stores, competitors happily filled the shelves. When Nike shifted its focus toward data and retention, smaller brands captured attention and culture. On, Hoka, and others didn’t just gain distribution—they gained an opportunity to become part of people’s identities.
For decades, Nike was more than a shoe company. The swoosh meant something. It represented athletes, ambition, rebellion, and culture. But as Nike focused inward—optimizing its own channels and selling more efficiently to people already in its ecosystem—it left more room for consumers to discover and identify with something else.
And Nike made an even more fundamental strategic mistake, that every sports franchise knows not to make.
Don’t get caught up in your opponent’s pace. Play your game.
Nike had spent decades winning a game almost no one else could play: building one of the world’s most powerful brands through culture, athletes, storytelling, and ubiquity, and pouring ridiculous money into the intangibles because everyone already knew the name.
Then it stepped onto the field with its competitors and started playing their game.
DTC optimization. Digital acquisition. Customer data. Efficient supply chains. Targeted retention.
The problem is that this is exactly the kind of game smaller, faster, more lightweight companies are built to play. They can move faster. Experiment faster. Pivot faster. While Nike was trying to keep up, its competitors were doing what competitors are supposed to do: finding openings and taking advantage of them.
Choose A Winning Game
The lesson isn’t that DTC is bad. It’s that distribution isn’t just about sales. Retailers create visibility. Marketing creates cultural relevance. And sometimes the hardest-to-measure things are the ones that matter most.
Nike built one of the greatest brands in history by being everywhere athletes were—and inspiring people who weren’t athletes yet.
Then it tried to optimize the magic.
Don’t do it.
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