"Everybody is an athlete": Avinash Pant, Nike

12 Feb 2014 05:30 IST

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"Everybody is an athlete": Avinash Pant, Nike

Avinash Pant, marketing director, Nike India, will complete two years at the organisation this March.

"I'm in my dream job," he says about his role at Nike, "What we do at Nike touches me at the very core as a person. I'm totally into sport and it rings true for me every day. I have two passions - sports and marketing. It doesn't come together better than this job."

And we believe him; after all, he spent last Sunday running the Auroville half marathon at Pondicherry.

Prior to joining Nike, Pant was executive director, marketing, Walt Disney, prior to which he was director, marketing, still beverages, Coca-Cola.

Edited Excerpts

How has the journey at Nike been so far?

At Nike focus has been on truly understanding the consumer - the athlete. And if you have a body you're an athlete... all the way up to the elite athlete representing India on a global scale.

We focus on understanding what goes on in the minds of cricket enthusiasts in the country, we try and understand their dreams and fears. What time does he get up in the morning to train? What is his world like?

Similarly, we try understanding the same for the football kid, for the runner... what they feel, what they do, what their life is like. We target the young athlete, who is pursuing a sport and trying to get better.

Where is this athlete? One would assume most of your buyers come from the metros...

"Sure, if you look at the natural stratification of India, yes those patterns would follow. But the Nike audience exists across the length and breadth of the country. You will find cricket academies right down to the hinterlands of India, in every district, at every location; and there's a structure to it. Even running is developing in a huge way, everywhere. So from that perspective I'd say our consumer exists everywhere.."

Let's apply a cricket lens for a second. Look at the cricket athlete, look at the young boy sitting in any part of India who is truly following cricket, and then look at our marketing - for me, there is a certain democratisation of our effort, in a sense. We want to reach all those guys who're really into cricket.

If you go back to our Bleed Blue campaign around the T20 World Cup, you'll see that it's actually talking to him - the young cricket athlete. On a wider level, yes, it is talking to every single person in the country, but our laser focus is the young athlete, the guy in the ad.

Nike understands who he really is. Nike tells him, "We understand your game, the way you train, the way you go about playing cricket, in your gully, in your club, in your area... and in the Indian national team." For us, the passion, energy and training are the same.

Any specific geographical pain points on your radar?

"I wouldn't say we're trying to fix any specific geography. There's an enormous amount of opportunity in India. Sport is developing at an incredibly fast rate. Cricket has always been the mainstay in India in terms of both, following and participation."

We're starting to see a lot of traction around football as well. And I say this based on what we see around us. Look into schools, academies, parks in any city on Sunday mornings... you'll see kids learning soccer.

We also see a lot of momentum around running in the country today. Just look around and you'll see a race happening somewhere.

Of late, lay consumers, not just fitness/sports enthusiasts, have started showing interest in specific features of shoes, like cushioned heel, buoyancy, material that breathes, etc. What does this tell us?

Yes, we've seen it happen and are very happy about it. It's all a process of evolution. Consumers today are far more educated and savvy, and can go online and quickly figure things out based on what they're experiencing.

We want our products to be relevant to everyone, not just the elite athlete. And to us, everybody is an athlete. They're just at different points in their journey.

There have been reports about Nike ramping up focus on multi-brand outlets as opposed to exclusive stores. How does this help?

Retail is where the brand comes to life for the consumer. You mention multi-brand but the way I would put it is - for us, all channels are important. There are what we call 'Nike exclusive' or 'Nike only' spaces, where we get a larger opportunity to make our brand come to life for the consumer. But we've been working on multi-branded spaces as well.

Even on digital, along with Myntra and Jabong, we've created unique Nike spaces where we allow consumers to experience the brand.

So it's not about one versus the other; all these channels are important for us.

In India Nike operates on a franchise model and not a company-owned store model. What are the pros of this?

The only thing I would say is - that is the model we have been following in India and it works extremely well for us. That's where we are.