The Kill Zone: growing the mid price band under signature

What it is

The Kill Zone is Nike's name for the mid price band of a footwear line. The term was in use before Khounlavong moved to merchandising. It appears in a Nike basketball footwear flyer for holiday 2008, and in an account plan from his sales years covering fiscal 2006 to 2009, where it meant $70 to $90.

The band moved up over time. In his documents it is $80 to $110 in late 2011, $90 to $120 in his fiscal 2013 goals, $70 to $125 in his fiscal 2013 results, $100 to $140 in his fiscal 2015 goals and $100 to $130 in the 2015 plans. Signature shoes sat above it. Competitors attacked inside it. A pre-season deck from November 2011 lists Adidas at $90 and $130, Reebok at $100 and Under Armour at $90.

What Khounlavong did

• Co-wrote the marketplace pages of the category's input to global product teams for fall and holiday 2013, dated November 2011. The pages named the opportunity at $80 to $110 and listed "Conquer the Kill Zone" as a seasonal opportunity, with a request for a new visible technology model at $95.
• Worked on the fall 2012 feedback to global product teams in July 2011, in his first months in the role. It recorded the category as challenged at $90 to $100, with an estimated gap of $3.6M.
• Made the band a written goal for fiscal 2013: drive retailer and consumer adoption of inline performance footwear with a focus on the Kill Zone.
• Priced into the band in margin review. The Hyperquickness was held for a move from $100 to $105 or $110, and the Zoom Soldier VII moved from $120 to $125.
• Wrote tiered signature into the first three year line plan in November 2013 as the way to win the band. The plan added the KD Trey 5 for holiday 2014 and the Kyrie 1 for spring 2015, the second under the heading "Win with Kyrie I @ Kill Zone", sized at $12M.
• Positioned the Venomenon IV in the spring 2014 merchandising presentation to key accounts as a Kill Zone signature shoe for Kobe Bryant.
• Tied the band to sporting goods in fiscal 2015. His goal that year read "Win at Sporting Goods" with a focus on $100 to $140.
• Named "Conquer the Kill Zone" as one of three growth drivers in the 2015 line plan, beside Signature 2.0 and "Dominate at Good".

Results

• Inline performance footwear in the $70 to $125 band grew 31% over the prior year in fiscal 2013, as recorded in his year end review.
• Tiered signature grew at a compound rate of 55% a year over four years, as stated in his 2015 career profile.
• The Hyperquickness booked $5M across fall and holiday 2013 at five sporting goods accounts.
• Holiday 2013 orders for the Zoom Soldier reached $13.7M, up 158.5% on the prior year. The category's business review noted that the consumer was looking for more tiered signature at moderate prices.
• The 2015 line plan was candid about the band. Retail results from $90 to $130 were "soft & inconsistent", with the Kyrie as the exception, and Under Armour had grown share in the band with the Clutch Fit at $125 and the Curry 1 at $120.
• Point of sale data in that plan showed the $100 to $125 band of the market falling from $144M to $129M between the years ending June 2013 and June 2014, and Nike's share of it falling from 76% to 71%. Those figures are retail market data, not Nike revenue.

At a glance