CASE STUDY 2: NIKE X SKIMS - MARKETING, UX/UI, ADVERTISING

Project Overview

Nike X SKIMS - A Marketing, UX/UI, And Advertising Case Study

For Client: Nike x SKIMS

Nike x SKIMS, NikeSKIMS is a new sub-brand from Nike and SKIMS, co-founded by Kim Kardashian, that offers a new system of activewear and foundational pieces designed for performance, comfort, and style, featuring sculpting, functional fabrics like Nike Dri-FIT, and a diverse range of sizes and silhouettes to serve all athletes.

The collection, Nike x SKIMS, aims to redefine activewear by merging SKIMS' focus on form and curves with Nike's innovation, creating a complete wardrobe solution for workouts and everyday wear. 

Objective: Increase traffic and DTC sales on Nike.com for the new athleisure line – Nike SKIMS.

Disclaimer: 

Deepika Sriraman conceptualized this case study based on a marketing brief she received for a Digital Marketing Capstone Project at Columbia Business School for Nike.

The assignment was broad and pertinent to 2011, so Deepika Sriraman developed the case study by modifying the facts to make it current and relevant to today’s market.

She took into account Nike’s latest product launch, the Nike x SKIMS athletic wear collaboration branded as NikeSKIMS, which officially launched on September 26, 2025, to ensure real-world relevance while satisfying all Capstone project criteria for Columbia Business School. The original facts of the case presented to Deepika Sriraman, along with the requirements for the same, are mentioned below.

Even though the brief specified only Digital Marketing campaigns, Deepika also included UX/UI advisory elements to highlight her ideas and the connection between Digital Marketing and Design, demonstrating how they complement each other. She also included Advertising.

The competitor analysis for Nike was included as a mandatory component of the assignment brief and was not intended as a personal critique. Deepika Sriraman also uses products from other brands and endorses them accordingly.

Facts of the Case (As per data provided by Columbia Business School):

The sportswear giant Nike Links to an external site.has traditionally relied on sales through wholesalers and third-party retailers to reach their customers. As recently as 2011, 84 percent of Nike’s total sales came from sales to wholesale customers.

The organization has changed focus since then, in what it is calling the ‘Consumer Direct Offense Links to an external site.’. The core tenet of the Consumer Direct Offense is: 2x innovation, 2x speed, 2x direct connections with consumers.

Nike aims to sell in much greater volumes directly to their customers in order to control the customer experience and increase their profit margins. Nike will still partner with wholesale customers, such as Foot Locker, in the long term alongside their direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales. However, Nike also plans to open more physical retail stores across the United States.

So far, the strategy is on course. Overall revenues are rising, and unlike ever before, a greater proportion (39 percent) of the total comes from DTC sales.

Now, Nike wants to accelerate this progress.

Scope:

Nike wants to use digital marketing to attract more traffic to their Nike.com website.

The organization wants to convince customers to buy direct from Nike.com, and they are focusing on a new range of athleisure clothing.

Propose a digital marketing strategy for Nike, for which they have budgeted *$1,000,000. The timeframe for the project is two months.

*The Budget may or may not reflect a real-world scenario and is hypothetical and purely for academic purposes only.

Requirements (Part 1):

1: Challenge statement: Clear business objective, customer insight, marketing strategy, targets, and budget.

2: Data analysis + insights: What do you know about this customer? What about the industry? Competitors? How does keyword data inform this?

3: The customer journey + channel mapping: How does this customer typically find/research/buy your product? How does this map to the marketing channels?

4: Brand positioning + competitors: Where does this brand sit within its competitive space? What is the reason-to-believe, etc.?

5: Channel strategy: How will you use your proposed digital marketing channels?

6: Content marketing plan: How is the brand message communicated? How does the story develop?

7: How offline and online work together: Will you use offline media? How will this tie in with the online campaign?

8: Assumptions + risk mitigation: What assumptions are built into your plan? How will you course-correct if things do not go to plan?

9: Proposed testing: An experiment that could help validate/falsify a hypothesis, with best practices for conducting the test.

10: Budget allocation: How will you split the allocated budget across channels for optimal efficiency? How will you analyze results and optimize once campaign data is available?

11: Metrics: What metrics will you look at?

12. Future opportunities: Based on your research on the future of digital marketing, what are the three big opportunities that this brand should be aware of? Why?

Additionally, by Deepika (Part 2): Proposed phase-by-phase Implementation of the said campaign across various stages of the AIDA Funnel within the two-month time frame given.

Additionally, by Deepika (Part 3): Creative - Ad Copies & Advertising.

Part 1: Strategy (Click On Slides To Expand)

Part 2: Proposed phase-by-phase Implementation of the said campaign across various stages of the AIDA Funnel within the two-month time frame given. (Click On Slides To Expand)

Part 3: Creative - Ad Copies & Advertising by Deepika Sriraman. Note: Some Images Appear "Cut" As The Pictures Were Cropped As Is From The Internet & Nike Website, purely for illustrative purposes. (Click On Slides To Expand)