FRONT PAGE Table Of Content

Introduction ------2

Problem Area ------2

Problem Statement ------3

Methods ------4

Process ------6

Analysis ------6

Strategy Solution ------8

Conclusion ------8

Literature List ------9

Reference List ------9

Appendix 1 - Social Media Pols and Discussion ------11

Appendix 2 - In-depth Intreviews, transcript and notes ------12

1 Introduction

This Exam, the Task consists of developing a creative concept relevant to Brand design using the keyword “ UNSPOKEN”. The goals of this exam are to test my knowledge skills ​ ​ and competences as a student in the area of Design and Business Brand design.

The Industry I will focus on is the Gaming industry, which at the moment is the biggest form of entertainment, with an Unspoken number of followers across the globe, surpassing ​ ​ Television, Streaming services (Like Netflix), and Cinema.

In the last decade, we’ve seen that Esports (Esports stands for Electronic Sports, which ​ ​ ​ ​ are competitions between Pro Gamers) is catching up and in some cases has surpassed the number of viewers of big sports events like Super Bowls, Fifa World cups and the ​ ​ ​ ​ Olympics Games wich all of them bring Unspoken amounts of money through adds ​ ​ ​ revenue and sponsorships.

Other companies have seen this Unspoken potential and are starting to dip in the Gaming ​ ​ industry.

In this exam, I will select NIKE as the brand to work with and will create a Brand Strategy ​ ​ concept for the brand accordingly with the skills and methods I’ve learned.

Problem Area

As mentioned, several other companies, not related to videogames, have already realized the Unspoken potential of the Gaming industry, either through Esports events either by the ​ ​ simple online content creators in platforms such as and among many other ​ ​ ​ ​ Unspoken ones. ​

Some brands in the Electronics industry, have done small adjustments to get advantages over the industry such as Samsung and LG, some companies like Red-bull, Monster have ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Succesful penetrated the gaming Industry hand have established themselves with small adjustments, a lot of other Unspoken brands like Gammer Supps and G-fuel are emerging ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ rapidly bringing nutrition values to consumers.

We’ve been witnessing also a lot of Brands Doing Small collaborations or even sponsoring some Video game content Creators and some Pro-Videogame players but not establishing themselves in the industry.

An Unspoken number Video game Content creators have made their own brand and ​ ​ merchandise making it available for their followers in a way to profit a bit more with their brand and in attempts to generate publicity to their own platforms, but, they do not have the knowledge nor the capacity to offer something with good quality at a reasonable price.

2 Clothing/Fashion industry so far is lacking behind, we have seen small collaborations Like Hello Kitty together with pro team FNATIC making jackets exclusively for the team, ​ ​ ​ Addidas together with game streamer NINJA crated Lmtd. edition Sneakers and jacket, and ​ ​ ​ NIKE recently in January 2020 Sponsoring LPL and Furia pro teams providing them NIKE ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ sneakers and designing the shirts for the team (exclusively) and making an exclusive contract with Pro Player Faker. (Esports Talk 2020) ​ ​ ​ ​

Corona Virus made even more clear the Unspoken importance of being digital in the ​ ​ present days, and NIKE being predominant tied to the sports activity and gyms was ​ ​ not immune to this market drop.

On the other hand, the Gaming industry continued to grow and had in their vast majority an unspoken profit during the pandemic without effort. (Sam Desatoff ​ ​ ​ 2020). ​

Problem Statement

There is untold potential in the video gaming industry that is not been taken advantage of by ​ ​ the Fashion industry, and by each day, Esports are being more accepted as a form of ​ ​ competition, entertainment, and Sports.

“How Can NIKE establish themselves and take advantage of the UNSPOKEN potential of the Video Game Industry and Esports?”

3 Methods

In order to gather information on the topics surrounding the industry and the company (NIKE), to gain insights, create assumptions and test these same assumptions, and make ​ ​ decisions, the methods that I chose was:

Desk Research - I went through several articles and youtube videos surrounding the topics ​ and collected second-hand, it's a good starting point to gather information.

In-depth interview - Altho a lot of information can be found through desk research, ​ Motivations, feelings, and more qualitative data can’t be directly extracted from it, therefore I conducted in-depth interviews to help me understand their unspoken motivations. (Kelly ​ ​ Angus 2013)

SoMe Poll / Brief Discussion - in order to test some assumptions and understand the ​ opinion of the majority I used pols and the comment section to get a better understanding of their unspoken opinions. (Appendix 1) ​ ​ ​ ​

Value Proposition Canvas - with information gathered I decided to organize it in a value ​ proposition canvas to see possible solutions and decide some pain relievers and gain creators than could be Offer by NIKE as part of my solution. (Alexander Osterwalder 2014) ​ ​

4 Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas - with the information gathered I realize that NIKE can stand ​ ​ ​ out, even more from the competitors, and tap on the unspoken potential of the gaming ​ ​ industry, therefore I created a blue ocean strategy canvas to make an overview of the main competitor and how NIKE can innovate and enter in a Blue Ocean.(Renee Mauborgue 2015) ​ ​

6 johnson's questions: for my brand strategy I decided to answer the 6 johnson ​ Brand questions to make it clear and to give a structure to the strategy itself. (Johnson 2016)

Verbal and Visual Audit - For the presentation of my strategic solution I will use ​ Verbal and Visual audit for a clear and better perception of the solution and explanation of the same.

5 Process

As a starting point, I went through several articles and youtube videos, to understand the industry, the consumers, and the current position of NIKE towards the industry. As I went ​ ​ deeper, I needed to understand the unspoken motivations and feelings, therefore I did ​ ​ in-depth interviews and made use of SoMe polls and comments to gather qualitative data needed and together with desk research to prove with quantitative data unspoken ​ assumption that I started to create. To start structuring and finding some answers to my problem I used the 6 johnson questions, altho I had already some answers, to help me answer the missing questions I used the value proposition canvas and the blue ocean strategy canvas.

Analysis

While gathering my data some unspoken truths became obvious. It’s clear that the vast ​ ​ majority of Video game Creators invest in simple clothing merchandise in forms of Hoodies and shirts that increase their revenue and gives some sort of publicity to their channels. The consumers of such merchandise do it mostly because they want to support them as a fan, and bc they think it looks cool, they also admit in that the quality it’s not the best and it’s overpriced (Appendix 1-2), which is understandable, because this Pro-Gamers and ​ ​ Pro-streamers altho having opinions and unspoken influence power over their followers and ​ ​ in the gaming industry itself capable of generating trends, they are not in the fashion industry, therefore, they don’t have the capacity to produce massively, with quality and make a profit at the same time, restricting themselves with small limited edition pieces. Consumers also complain about availability, either they can’t find some merchandise because they are sold out,(Appendix 2) due to the fact of limited editions stocks and the lack ​ ​ of capabilities of these Gamers, or simply, some of these team uniforms created are created for the teams and not for public consumption.

With the success of several video games that have the capacity of customization( Like GTA ​ V, , League of legends), we are seeing an unspoken influence of Video games in ​ ​ ​ the fashion industry. We can also observe other Fashion/lifestyle companies such as ZARA, ​ PRIMARK, H&M following this trend by releasing in some pieces of their collection Game ​ ​ ​ related or game reference designs.

Some clothing Brands, including NIKE itself more recently (2020) have started to do some ​ ​ moves over the game industry but not making a serious commitment, restricting themselves to offer already existing NIKE products such as pants sneakers and made some uniforms for ​ ​ the team exclusively, not making them available for public consumption.

Nike Competitors have also started to do similar moves but restricting themselves as small limited edition samples.

Esports is being more accepted as Sport and viewership grow by the day being today the

6 number 1. This means more unspoken opportunities for Advertisement and product ​ ​ placement reaching a greater audience.

Nowadays it’s a common practice for companies reaching out for content creators to promote their services and products on their network, this brings to the company and the Content creator unspoken revenue and advertisement. ​ ​ Corona Virus made a Huge impact on the market, affecting negatively the clothing industry in which NIKE is part but boosting the Gaming industry. ​ ​ Nike making a bigger presence on the Gaming industry, altho not being immune to the crisis, could have softened the blow by taking advantage of the vast digital platform that Video gaming industry offers.

Esports are dominating every type of entertainment and competition scene nowadays. November 10th, the League of Legends - World Championship 2019 ​ ​ ​ took place in AccorHotels Arena in Faris; France reaching a peak of concurrent ​ ​ viewers of 44 million with a 21.8 million average minute audience. (Lolesports 2020) ​ ​ To put in perspective, The Olympic Games of 2018 in Pyeongchang and Sochi ​ ​ altho being streamed and covered trought way more channels worldwide, they only manage to reach an average of 17.8 million views with a peak of 26 million views. (Joe Otterson 2018) ​ ​

Even with the Covid-19 crisis, League of Legends managed this spring 2020 to ​ ​ reach a peak of 3.985.787 views with an average of 2.481.679 consecutive views, Contrary to other sports events that had to be postponed and in some cases cancel, (such as Football, Soccer, Basketball among many others) causing unspoken ​ damage to the teams and sponsorships investments. (Sergey Yakimenko 2020) ​ ​

Pro-streamers have millions of followers just on their Streaming platform and more follow them on other social media platforms that can pull millions of views a day. Streamers like DrDisrespect, Tfue, and Pokimane altho they are not the most followed streamers, they ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ are the ones with most vies, all passing individually the 20 thousand views average reaching peaks of 105 thousand just in the month of May. This shows an unspoken reach that these ​ ​ gamers have on their platforms that promote their brand and their sponsors. DrDisrespect currently holds the record of more than 388 thousand concurrent viewers. ​ (Julia Alexander 2018) ​ ​

7 Strategic Solution

NIKE could easily tap on the unspoken potential of the Gaming/Esports industry, boosting ​ ​ ​ their presence even further, with small adjustments to their Brand Strategy, without getting ​ ​ out of their current way, maintaining goals and their current image. Due to the competitive nature of video games in general, NIKE could easily thrive in and expand their market in the ​ ​ gaming industry.

Furthermore, NIKE could make contract/deals with high-profile Pro-gamers and Pro-streams, ​ ​ making use of their vast platform and unspoken reach to promote their products and at the ​ ​ same time endorsing them and providing infrastructure and the quality of NIKE products and ​ ​ tied them do the brand and increasing revenue in both ways.

Another unspoken opportunity is making more Uniform/Jersey for several Esport teams and ​ ​ making these products available to the supporters and fans.

In the past, NIKE has successfully created sub-brands adjusting their products and focusing ​ ​ in specific fields, good examples are the NIKE Air Jordan focused on basketball-related ​ ​ ​ ​ products and lifestyle, NIKE SB focused on skateboarding products and urban wear. ​ ​ NIKE should create a game-related sub-brand and their lifestyle. ​

With the creation of such Sub-brand, they could make an unspoken entirely new line of ​ ​ products, make available all streamers, pro-players, and pro teams merchandise on these same lines and in long term, the creation of Video games related products making them directly connected to the industry and relatable as such.

Conclusion

It’s clear that nowadays Gaming is part of our lives, it is becoming widely more acceptable, and is dominating the Entertainment industry surpassing even the more conventional sports events. Gaming is still growing, it’s predicted to keep growing in the next years being able to reach more people.

There are unspoken potential and money to be made out of the gaming industry ​ ​ that several companies are taking advantage of it already. Altho Fashion/Lifestyle industry is lacking behind and not taking advantage of it.

Some companies in the Fashion industry have already started to do some moves as well as NIKE but, so far they have been quite limiting and restricted, this could easily ​ ​ change and there’s an unspoken promising future for NIKE in Esports. ​ ​ ​ ​

With small adjustments and with the creation of a Sub Brand NIKE could easily start ​ ​ ahead of the competition and dominate the Gaming industry in terms of Clothing merchandise.

8 Literature List

Johnsons, M. (2016) Branding in five and a half steps. 1st ed. London: Thames & Hudson

Osterwalder, A., Yves Pigneur, Bernarda, G., Smith, A., and Papadakos, T. (2015). Value Proposition Design : How to Create Products and Services Customers Want. Somerset: Wiley.

Kim W.C., Mauborgne R. (2015). Blue ocean strategy : How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

Angus, K. (2013) How To: Create Your Qualitative Interview Guide [online] Asking smarter questions. ​ ​ Available at: https://www.askingsmarterquestions.com/how-to-creating-your-qualitative-interview-guide/ [acessed ​ 18 May 2020]

References List

Lucky, J. (2020) Nike making HUGE Esports moves (T1, Furia, Vodaphone giants, LPL) [online] youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lQFnhL6rao [acessed 19 May 2020] ​ ​

Desatoff, S. (2020) Coronavirus leads to 35% growth for the video games industry online [online] GameDaily.biz Available at: https://gamedaily.biz/article/1709/coronavirus-leads-to-35-growth-for-the-video-games-industry [acessed 18 May 2020]

Ko, A. (2017) DO VIDEO GAMES HAVE A PLACE IN FASHION? [online] CGM. Available at: ​ ​ ​ https://www.cgmagonline.com/2017/02/06/video-games-place-in-fashion/ [acessed 18 May 2020] ​ ​

Dimitrova, K. Gaming is the Next Big Thing For the Fashion Industry 2019 [online] LoneDesignClub LDC Available at: https://lonedesignclub.com/blogs/blog/gaming-is-the-next-big-thing-for-the-fashion-industry[acessed ​ 18 May 2020] twitchmetrics (2020) Tfue stats and analytics [online] Available at: ​ https://www.twitchmetrics.net/c/60056333-tfue [acessed 20 May 2020] ​ twitchmetrics (2020) Pokimane stats and analytics [online] Available at: ​ https://www.twitchmetrics.net/c/44445592-pokimane [acessed 20 May 2020] ​ twitchmetrics (2020) DrDisrespect stats and analytics [online] Available at: ​ https://www.twitchmetrics.net/c/17337557-drdisrespect [acessed 20 May 2020] ​

LOL Esports Staff (2020) 2019 world championship hits record viewership [online] League Of Legends. Available at: ​ https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2019/12/2019-world-championship-hits-record-viewership/ [acessed 20 May 2020]

Roundhill Team (2020) Esports viewership vs sports [online] Roundhill. Available at: ​ https://www.roundhillinvestments.com/blog/esports-viewership-vs-sports [acessed 20 May 2020] ​

9 Otterson, J. (2018) 2018 Winter Olympics Close Out as Least-Watched on Record, Down 7% From Sochi Games [online] Variety. Available at: ​ https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/2018-winter-olympics-ratings-2-1202710137/

Tassi, Paul. (2020) Report: Livestream viewership grew 99% in lockdown [online] Forbes. Available ​ at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/05/16/report-livestream-viewership-grew-99-in-lockdown- microsofts-mixer-grew-02/#509eb5b376cb [acessed 20 May 2021] ​

Alexander, J. (2018) Dr. DisRespect sets a huge new Twitch streaming record, beating [online] Polygon. Available at: https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/6/16979394/dr-disrespect-tyler-1-twitch-viewers-record-holder [acessed 20 May 2021]

10 Appendix1

11 Appendix 2 - in-depth interview Transcript and notes

What’s your name?

Patricia, Søren, Pedro, Joao, Claudio

What’s your age?

19, 24, 23, 32, 31

Where do you work dor for a living?

Engineering, Prt. Air Force, Student, Hr Coordinator, Architect

Do you buy or have you ever bought Merchandise from Content Creators (YouTubers, Twitch streamer mixers pro teams?

Yes, a couple. once or twice. Every month, I have a subscription. A couple of times on some special events Yes on .

Why do you buy it?

I have been following JackFrags for ages and it’s a way to help to put out content The guy is super (Kody Ko) cool and he had these 2 cool shirts so I threw him some money. If you subscribe to Garand THumb Patreon you will one of his stuff every month. I bought Joel Miller Shirts because of his tours, kinda to say I’ve been there and at the same time give him some support. I was on e3 so I decided to buy an EA shirt of mirrors edge, looked dope, is till have it.

Tell me about price vs Quality and Comfort?

Well its not the best quality for the price, but at least I know where the money went you know? What did you expect to form it? it’s not like he knows what he’s doign but looked cool and it wasn’t that expensive. It’s quite good actually, and comfortable but I’m also paying good money for it so it’s expected. it washed out the printing after a few washes, but it was comfortable for the price. Way too expensive, I could have bought something branded and probably better, but not as cool and youtube and twitch already steal a lot of money from him (Wubby) so… its a way of me supporting him.

How Eazy is for you to find it?

It was bad bc the best colors sold out instantaneously and you can’t get them anywhere anymore. ​ Easy.. clicked on the link, went to his page and order it, simple. I never know what I’m getting, so it kinda like a surprise, like loot box, it’s mysterious so I’m not “looking” for it.

12 It was there and I bought it, but I don’t know where could I get it if I wasn’t there. It depends on which content creator we are talking bout, some actually have good stock other, not really so, it can be easy or really hard.

DO you know of any “major” brand endorsing in video game-related cloths?

I know that Ninja has some stuff from Adidas right? like a jacket and Sneakers? Does Zara count? bc, I’ve seen some super Mario shirts. No, are they? never heard of it. I know that Puma and Nike have done a shirt for LoL teams, but that’s it, you cant get them.

Would you Like to See More of Major branding stepping up?

For sure! that would be dope! That would be awesome! probably it would have more quality! I don’t know why this isn’t a thing already. Yes, but probably the prices would be super high. Damn ye, in actually tried to look for those team shirts, but they are nowhere.

13