Nike Basketball, North America: four signature franchises on one roadmap

What it is

Running is the heart of the Nike brand, but Basketball is the soul. Because of the visibility of its athletes, it is also one of the most scrutinized and culturally sensitive businesses in the portfolio.

In 2011 the category needed a long-range plan that could grow four signature athlete franchises at once, without diluting any of them, across wholesale, owned retail and digital.

What Khounlavong did

• Owned the four-year strategic roadmap: one plan connecting product creation, pricing, launch cadence and channel strategy for the full signature portfolio and the balance of the basketball line.
• Carried six footwear franchises across signature, inline and core on a single roadmap.
• Built the signature launch playbook, a repeatable launch and storytelling framework that aligned product, merchandising and marketing. It was later adopted more broadly across the company.
• Created the signature launch visual line plan and ran the playbook meetings that kept product, merchandising and marketing on one page.
• Brought the Zoom Soldier to market at $125 to $130 as the accessible tier under the signature shoe. One product ran in line, through energy and through team basketball, with colorways made for factory stores.
• Took basketball beyond on-court performance into off-court lifestyle, widening the consumer base without eroding athlete credibility.
• Tightened forecast accuracy with demand planning.
• Worked back through factories, warehouses and outside partners on custom repackaging, numbered pairs and special deliveries.
• Built three tools in his first year: the Signature Launch Calendar, a gross margin evaluation template and a visual flow chart for storytelling. The launch calendar ran to at least 72 versions.
• Built a launch calendar around sport, retail and brand moments, layered on the seasonal line plan. It was adopted across Nike Basketball in North America and used as the model for the global launch calendar.
• Ran market travel with athlete focus groups in Chicago, Miami, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Lexington, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Dallas.
• Drove the Air Visi Pro III, Amplify Basketball, Basketball by Nike, What The Madness for March Madness 2015, and the Net Collectors Society pack.
• Trained Team Jordan on planning and coached the Converse launch strategy.

Results

• Footwear revenue grew from $322M in fiscal 2011 to $670M in fiscal 2015.
• 20.1% compound annual growth over four years.
• $348M in revenue added.
• North America Basketball footwear passed $500M for the first time.
• Fiscal 2014: revenue up 17.1%, $78M over the prior year and $37M over budget, gross margin up 230 basis points, inventory flat.
• Cancellation rate cut to 2.8%, down a third from the year before.
• Fiscal 2012: net revenue $381.8M, up 14.9%.
• Fiscal 2013: up 15% and $30M over budget, margin up 90 basis points, Nike basketball footwear share from 52.2% to 67.1%.
• Fiscal 2015: $643.7M against a $610.1M plan, with all four seasons over plan.
• SKU count fell three years running while revenue grew: 673, then 639, then 569.
• Inline performance footwear from $70 to $125 grew 31% in fiscal 2013.
• Signature footwear drove about 70% of the category's incremental dollars from fiscal 2012 to 2015.

At a glance