Nike’s tentative turnaround suggests its return to brand plan is working 

Perhaps it’s the stretch before settling into the starting blocks of a race. “This is just the beginning of their turnaround journey, and many headwinds are still facing the company,” said Brad Jashinsky, director analyst at Gartner.

Still, despite challenges in the crucial Chinese market, market analysts consider the business to be moving in the right direction under chief exec Elliott Hill, who marks a year in the job this month. After-market trading on Tuesday provided the firm with a 0.9% boost to its share price.

“It is a big step forward from the declines of previous quarters… in that sense, they’ve turned things around,” said eMarketer analyst Sky Canaves.

Hill came out of retirement last year to helm the ailing brand, after an overreliance on direct-to-consumer sales and increased competition in the running category left it hobbled. “We are turning our business around in the face of cautious consumers [and] tariff uncertainty,” Hill told analysts on Tuesday’s earnings call.

The marketing industry is keeping a close eye on Nike’s progress. That’s not just because it’s an account creatives and media buyers would kill to work on – its devotion to direct sales and digital advertising in recent years, and subsequent dip in form, means it’s set to be the ultimate case study in the long-running brand-vs.-performance debate.

Over the last 12 months, Hill has pushed ahead on a “Win Now” turnaround plan intended to diversify the company’s sales channels, fend off Adidas and upstarts like On, Brooks and Hoka, and restore the firm’s brand in the eyes of consumers.

In practice, that has meant easing off on discounting and promotional work, as well as the performance-oriented channels often deployed in support of those efforts. “We made the strategic decision to become less reliant on classic franchises and pull back on our promotions for the long-term health of our brands and marketplaces in all geographies. We are working to find the right assortment and marketing mix to consistently bring consumers back to our digital ecosystem,” Hill said; he didn’t provide specific investment figures.

Though it has maintained its long-running association with Wieden + Kennedy (as well as PMG for its North American media responsibilities), Nike has continued to tinker with the shape of its executive team throughout its turnaround effort. Hill promoted four top executives to form an inner party at the top of the company, while shedding veteran execs like president of consumer, product, and brand Heidi O’Neill, who left this month after 26 years with the firm.

In May, Nicole Hubbard Graham, appointed CMO in 2023, expanded her remit in that time to include responsibility for the flagship Nike, Jordan and Converse brands. Furthermore, the company reoriented its structure around individual brands and sporting categories, moving to a more decentralized model; Hill said that move puts “sport and the athlete back at the center of everything that we do.”

Nike returned to the Super Bowl after 27 years away with an anthem slot focusing on female athletes like A’ja Wilson and Caitlin Clark – a shrewd move given recent heat around women’s sports like the WNBA. The latest quarterly figures actually showed a year-on-year decrease in marketing spend (Nike doesn’t break out media spending explicitly, but ‘demand creation’ investment fell 3% to $1.2 billion), likely reflecting the cash it shelled out around last year’s Olympic Games. eMarketer’s Canaves suggested that will likely rise in coming quarters, as the company gears up for a sports-packed 2026 that includes the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and soccer’s World Cup (held in the U.S.).

The company’s return to brand-focused spending, with its attendant TV investment, is still gathering steam, however. “They have a ways to go with their brand marketing to take advantage of more cultural moments… they haven’t done quite as much of that as they’ve been known for in the past,” said Canaves.

Its turnaround plan has also translated into a refreshed focus on wholesale retail and in-store experiences. While direct sales slipped 10%, a 7% increase in wholesale revenues represented “a big bright spot” for the brand in the latest quarter, noted Gartner’s Jashinsky.

Those changes have been, in part, aimed at restoring Nike’s position among running enthusiasts. Hill said the company had “reset” 1,300 running retail environments in the last three months. Runners are both a key consumer demographic for sports apparel brand and an area where Nike can bank an easy win, according to Canaves.

“Running has really boomed since the pandemic, and Nike was a little slow to take advantage of that,” she said.

In the latest figures, the firm recorded a 20% increase in running sales – per Jashinsky, that shows Win Now is having the right impact.

“The running category is incredibly important for Nike as running footwear continues to be one of the fastest-growing footwear categories,” he said. Early success in this area, he added, is “a sign that Nike’s shift to focusing more on performance footwear instead of casual footwear is working.”