Amplify Basketball: performance and sportswear sold to retailers as one story

What it is

Amplify Sport was one of eight strategic imperatives in Nike North America's plan for fiscal 2013 to 2015. The idea was to present a sport to the consumer the way he shops it, on the court and off it. For basketball that meant one assortment across performance footwear, apparel and equipment and Nike Sportswear's basketball product.

Khounlavong joined North America Basketball merchandising in May 2011. His goals that year asked him to partner with the Sportswear, Training and kids teams to build assortments around shared stories.

What Khounlavong did

• Co-led the Amplify Basketball charge with his Sportswear counterpart in fiscal 2012. His review records that the two of them drove unity between performance and sportswear basketball with retailers.
• Built the seasonal Amplify decks for the product review meetings. The spring 2013 master deck and the spring 2014 deck carry his name. The spring 2013 deck set the consumer definition, the flow by month, the plan and margin targets and the assortment by channel tier.
• Edited the line to amplify it. The spring 2013 deck shows performance footwear styles down 4% to 106 and performance apparel styles down 6% to 505, against a season forecast up 16% to $150.1M across footwear, apparel, licensed product and equipment.
• Planned integrated assortments by athlete and story. For summer 2013 each story, such as Superheroes and Outdoor, paired a signature shoe with Hyper footwear, shorts, tees and socks on one page with one flow date.
• Worked from the global directed assortment as the base. The spring 2014 deck defines it as a best level entry into the category that should be adopted in full at the style and color level.
• Piloted the cross category "Basketball by Nike" initiative with key retailers in fiscal 2013, and carried the message to city specialty retailers at the twice yearly sales meetings in August 2012 and February 2013.
• Led the communication with Sportswear counterparts to close revenue gaps between the lines.

Results

• His fiscal 2013 review marks the Amplify goal complete and points to the spring and summer 2014 hand off decks as the record.
• The same review records directed amplified assortments delivered to retail partners every season.
• The category's seasonal plan pages from spring 2014 report performance and Sportswear basketball together under one total, headed "Basketball by Nike".
• No revenue figure is recorded for the program on its own.

At a glance