Just a few minutes after France won the football World Cup earlier this month, several players were cavorting around the pitch wearing a Nike jersey with two stars. It marked France's second victory in the tournament – and by most measures it was a marketing win for Nike, which outfitted three out of the four teams in the semi-finals as well as many of its stars.
Although Nike isn't sharing figures on its jersey sales they are likely to be juicy, due to France's win as well as the euphoria unleashed in Croatia over the performance of its Nike-clad team. More than 10 percent of the country's population reportedly turned up for the return of the team that reached the finals – starring Luka Modric in his Nike boots.
A batch of the French shirt with two stars was made available on Nike's online store and through the French football federation's online store shortly after the victory. On the other hand, it will take several more weeks for the jerseys to reach stores in August. Nike is urging customers to register at Nike.com to stay informed about their arrival. An article in the Journal du Dimanche last week suggested that Nike has ordered eight million French jerseys, most of them to be manufactured in Thailand.
Bert Hoyt, Nike's vice president and general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said in a statement that the demand continued the trend from the last quarter of its fiscal year to the end of May, when its sales of global football apparel approached triple-digit growth. The group said its football products resonated on the pitch as well as on the street, and it saw consistently strong sell-through across product ranges at premium price points.
Among the ten teams outfitted by Nike at the tournament, Brazil was probably a disappointment but England reached the semi-finals for the first time since 1990. Nike said that England warm-up jerseys were sold out in most channels. Nigeria's shirts, with conspicuous lime green and white zigzag patterns, had customers lining up outside of stores.
When it comes to boots, Nike claimed that over 65 percent of players taking part in the World Cup were shod in Nikes. Out of the 150 goals scored in the entire tournament, the Swoosh took part in 100 shots, 66 of them scored with the Nike Mercurial 360.
Nike footwear was worn by many of the most high-profile players in Russia, such as Harry Kane, the England player who won the Golden Boot for scoring six goals, the largest number in the tournament; Modri? with the Golden Ball for best player of the tournament; the Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, the Golden Glove; and the 19 year-old Frenchman Kylian Mbappé.
Although Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar's teams exited early, their social media following certainly helped to whip up Nike's marketing efforts. By its own estimates, Nike recorded 441 million views for its football brand media films. Its top film on Youtube was a Brazilian clip with 21 million views, which Nike said was considerably more than competing brands. The most tweeted moment was Mbappé scoring the fourth goal for France.
The Swoosh was so prominent in Russia and elsewhere during the tournament that over 50 percent of respondents in a survey commissioned by Campaign, the British advertising publication, thought Nike was an official sponsor. In reality, Adidas has been paying millions to be Fifa's official sponsor until at least 2030. This partnership allows the brand to have its name and the three stripes on the referees' uniforms as well as hoardings – not to mention the ball used for all games.
Nike reported sales of $2,146 million for the global football category in wholesale equivalent terms for the full fiscal year until the end of May 2018. The Adidas Group reported sales of €2.1 billion in the football category in 2014 but quit providing the breakdown thereafter.
Belgium's unprecedented run to the semi-finals in Adidas jerseys made up for some of the brand's disappointments, led by the early exit of the German team. Adidas sold about 3 million replica shirts for the Mannschaft when it beat another Adidas team, Argentina, in the final of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Yet the company said that it still expects to reach record sales of World Cup jerseys this year – above the eight million sold in 2014. While Argentina and Spain didn't make it as far as their supporters anticipated, Japan and Russia both outperformed. Argentina's relatively early exit removed the spotlight from Lionel Messi and his Adidas boots. The German brand still had a flamboyant representative on the pitch during the final in the shape of France's Paul Pogba.
Adidas claimed plenty of other exposure in Russia, which probably helped to more than double the volume of e-commerce on some of its sites during the World Cup. Download numbers for the new Adidas app jumped by 14 percent on the day when perimeter advertising was first used. Overall, the number of downloads of the Adidas app during the tournament was 2.5 times higher than usual, at peak times even five times higher, and the app was successfully launched in Russia and the CIS countries during the event.
Adidas further claimed that it achieved more video views of its branded content than any other sports brand during the tournament. A single Instagram post with Messi before the last Argentine game alone was seen by over 11.8 million users, which Adidas said was the highest from any player during the tournament.
Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud made sure that Puma was on the pitch in the finals as well. Griezmann was Fifa's man of the match for the final and a key protagonist in the French victory. Another player wearing Puma, Romelu Lukaku, made it to the semi-final with the Belgian team. Griezmann and Lukaku were the second and third most prolific goal scorers in the tournament, after Kane. Griezmann, Giroud and Adil Rami were at the center of a social media campaign by Puma, #Newlevels. It created a special store window for its flagship store in Paris as well, overnight after the French victory.
Two of the four teams outfitted by Puma, Uruguay and Switzerland, reached the knock-out stage, with Uruguay making it to the quarter final. The brand will provide further details about the impact of the World Cup when it releases its second-quarter figures later this week.
Five other brands were represented on World Cup jerseys, New Balance with Costa Rica and Panama, Hummel with Denmark, Umbro with Peru, Uhlsport with Tunisia and Errea with Iceland. Uhlsport claimed a piece of the French victory as well because it provided gloves for Hugo Lloris, the French goalkeeper – as well as his counterpart on the Croatian team, Danijel Subaši?.
Hoyt suggested that Nike wanted to build on the momentum, taking advantage of the game's increasing popularity in North America and Asia, and its growing influence on culture and fashion across international markets. As previously reported, it has sealed a ten-year partnership with the China Super League, and Ronaldo is currently in Asia with Nike to whip up further interest. Ahead of the Women's World Cup in France next year, Hoyt further pointed out that women's football is one of the fastest growing sports in Europe.
