In the upcoming war for Soccer mindshare, Nike isn't countering Adidas with conventional marketing. Adidas is set to spend upwards of $200m on ads - some of which sound very creative. Rather than match them dollar-for-dollar, Nike has launched a MySpace style network for Soccer nuts:
The site, which launched on Mar. 15, will roll out to 140 countries in 14 languages. Hoping to make Adidas wonder why it spent all that money on mere ads, Nike is making the site a replica of top social network site MySpace.com (NWS ) for soccer-mad fans to commune with each other over their favorite players and teams, download videos, create discussion groups, and the like. - BusinessWeek
Nice move. Both strategies are probably right. Where one zigs, the other zags.