They are two of the most iconic brands on the planet, both beloved by billions and loathed my millions. But as anyone who has worked with both the “Swoosh” (people really do call it that) and the “Googs” (nobody calls it that) can tell you, they could not be more different. There are things to be learned from each of them, so for anyone interested in how hugely successful brands work, here’s a single person’s experience – 5 years working on Nike, 2 years working with Google – of how the two organisations operate.
ROUND 1: Nike speaks to athletes*. Google speaks to everyone.
Before I worked on Nike, I thought that “preaching to the choir” in marketing was a negative thing. But nobody speaks to the converted more than Nike and I have realised that it is one of the keys to their success.
You probably noticed that cheeky little asterisk up there beside “athletes” and if you’ve ever seen a Nike deck, you’ll see athletes* everywhere. That’s because when they say athletes*, they mean every person on the planet because, to quote Nike co-founder and legendary athletics coach/shoe design pioneer Bill Bowerman “If you have a body, you’re an athlete.” But this version of “everyone” isn’t the same as the inclusive, democratic, ubiquitous, global “everyone” that Google speaks to. A better way of putting it is: Nike speaks to the athlete in everyone.
If you’ve ever competed in any kind of sport, you understand the mindset, the energy, the pressure of an athlete. That’s who Nike’s speaking to: the competitive, hungry, striving version of you. Nike uses the rich authentic language that comes out of the different sports to speak to the participants of each of them but over and above that, Nike’s voice has an active imperative energy that speaks to all athletes. The line “Yesterday you said tomorrow.” doesn’t just speak to every athlete who has ever set their alarm for 5am, but it speaks to every human being who strives to be a bit better tomorrow than they are today.
Google speaks to everyone. And they mean that: their target is humanity. So whereas Nike is willing to accept that some people don’t speak their language or share their point of view, Google seeks to be palatable for every woman, man and child on Earth. It’s a noble goal. It guides them toward inclusivity, diversity and accessibility in everything they do. But it blunts the edge of what can be said in marketing messages and pushes their communications work toward the lowest common denominator.
So, in case you can’t tell, this round goes to Nike.
What should you learn from this: Unless you’re selling something that can legitimately be useful for every single human being on the planet (Search, Maps, etc.), then don’t try to speak to everyone. Speak to the X in everyone: the artist, the fashionista, the professional, etc.
ROUND 2: Google hires nerds. Nike hires jocks.
This is a brutal oversimplification but as a rule Google hires nice, smart, extremely well-educated people. They treat their partners and agencies with respect and they have a very solid culture of collaboration that runs through their organisation. Every year they host an annual “Agency Academy” wherein all of the agencies in its extensive roster come together for a full day of workshops with Google clients to discuss their values, their aspirations, work they love, how their internal structures work, etc. Because they know that better relationships with their agencies result in better work. This inherent appreciation for collaboration might stem from its digital background in which no single person can build an entire system by themselves, whereas the competitive individualism thing going on at Nike might stem from its athletics background in which a single athlete can win the whole event.
Nike hires athletes. To give you an example: at one point, the newest Nike intern to join the German marketing team was introduced to me as “the fastest Women’s Under-21 10K runner in Germany”. When I asked what her marketing qualifications were, I was told again: “She’s the fastest Women’s Under-21 10K runner in Germany.” And while this may sound like a damning condemnation of Nike’s hiring policies, it is not.
Nike hires people who have spent years, if not decades learning the language and the culture of athletes before they’ve even started their careers. Its marketers have been in the locker rooms, the practices, the pitch and the court performing their hearts out at every level and so they know what their audience is going through and they know what they need. These things can’t be learned, even in the most expensive colleges.
So Round 2 goes to Nike too.
What you should learn from this: having people who genuinely understand your audience makes it possible for you to speak authentically about your product and the culture that it inhabits in the language currently being spoken there. That’s not to say you shouldn’t hire smart people or people with fancy degrees. Or that you can’t hire people who haven’t been living and breathing your category for years. It’s to say that audiences can spot inauthenticity from a mile away, so be true to the culture that you’re trying to contribute to and staff up accordingly.
ROUND 3: Google makes informed decisions. Nike goes with its gut.
Not surprisingly, Google is a big fan of data even when it comes to marketing. For the most part, they don’t do creative testing, but they want to make decisions, even creative ones, based on facts. So when they select scenarios for stories, they want numbers to back up their selection: e.g. “You want to show someone doing antigravity yoga? Bring me the numbers on how popular antigravity yoga is in France.” This approach makes sense and actually forces creatives to dig deeper into real things that are going on in culture, as opposed to what they think is going on. But this approach makes it hard to take creative leaps of faith, especially when it comes to comedy. It’s hard to find data to explain why a Burmese mountain dog farting while draped over George Clooney’s ex-wife is funny - it just is.
Nike on the other hand is not interested in the “data”. It is proudly allergic to creative testing, which is excellent. But sometimes they simply cannot be convinced of things, even when all of the facts and figures in the world back up your argument. They go with their guts. Which is rash, bold, daring risk-taking behaviour which, we all must admit, is cool.
So I’m calling this Round a draw.
THE DECISION: The fight goes to the Swoosh.
It’s not really a competition but framing it as such makes this post more interesting to read, I hope. There are many other differences that I could list: (E.g. Google has one brand book. Nike has dozens. Which makes sense given that Google puts out a new mega product every couple of years and Nike drops at least four products a year for many of its categories.) But the ones above are the ones that come to mind off the cuff.
THE COMMON THREAD: Both understand emotion, culture and humanity.
I’ve been contrasting Nike and Google in the hopes that you would glean something useful from reading about two totally different ways to run comms departments, market products and build brands. But you may also benefit from what they have in common. And that is an appreciation for emotion, culture and humanity.
It should come as a surprise to no one that Nike is second to none in human truth, contemporary culture and emotional storytelling. The much more surprising achievement is the fact that a global tech behemoth like Google can achieve the level of cuddliness that it has. Google excels at all things human-centered, be it in its design, its products or its marketing. The products they launch tend to be technical innovations that require a certain amount of demonstration in their communications, but they have always understood that those demonstrations need to be grounded in human truth, contemporary culture and emotional storytelling. These two approaches to emotional storytelling are both worthy of their own posts. So maybe I’ll do that next.