When Nike turned Air Jordan into a global brand, it was the power of television and the worldwide marketing force of the NBA that did the trick for the footwear giant. Today, dependence on television is lessening as can be seen in the new Nike campaign for the Air Zoom LeBron IV. Unlike versions I, II and III, Nike has decided to expand the campaign into a variety of new media.

This time, the campaign is highlighted by a kickoff of cable television advertising, when Nike became the sole advertiser for the first edition of SportsCenter on the first day of November. The campaign also includes the distribution of hundreds of thousands of copies of DVDs, saturation ads on espn.com, and mtv.com, video clips appearing as programs on MTV2 and a billboard near Madison Square Garden that features LeBron dunking continuously. The television ads feature LeBron playing himself as four characters and you have undoubtedly seen many times already.


The saturation digital ads are also appearing on other websites, including, noticeably, bet.com, as well as cbssportsline.com and nba.com. The video ad will also show up, as you might expect, on youtube. So, what to make of Nike's campaign? It is attempting to reach its typical consumer where they live and play. Why restrict your campaign to any one medium, especially the priciest of all? If your consumers spend half of their life online, that's where you need to be. If Nike's campaign succeeds, as I expect that it will, it is likely that it will spur other companies to expand their outlets to non-traditional media. The sooner that older companies get over their reluctance to try non-traditional media, the sooner they will begin to build relationships with younger consumers.