Most Shared Clip: Inside Nike’s Branding Genius: Lessons for Building an Iconic Brand: Greg Hoffman

Steven Bartlett (0:03)

When you think of the most iconic logo in the world, which brand comes to mind? For me, it's probably Nike. Their former CMO, Greg Hoffman, knew exactly how critical strong brand recognition was. And in this clip, he shares his tactics on leveling up your own marketing. I have about 40 companies in my portfolio. And when I think about what's worked in terms of marketing, LinkedIn ads stands out. They're also the sponsor of this episode. Here you have access to a professional network of individuals who influence your business with over a billion members, 130 million decision makers, and 10 million C-suite executives. So you can kill the guesswork and know exactly who you're reaching. If you're ready to make an impact, give LinkedIn ads a try and enjoy this moment on us. Or if you want to get started now, LinkedIn ads is offering $100 credit to launch your first campaign. Go to linkedin.com/doac24 to claim your credit. Terms and conditions apply. To create a strong emotional connection with someone else, I'm presuming you have to take a strong emotional stance yourself often. So I'm just thinking about the things that have evoked the strongest emotional connections with anything I do. The things that have evoked the strongest emotional connections with this podcast and its audience are strong emotional stories. But when you do that, when you avoid indifference, you are putting yourself in line for potential criticism and attacks, and you're going to polarise people, some people are going to love and hate you. How important has that been for Nike? And how important is it for a person starting a podcast or a business or leading a team or whatever else?

Greg Hoffman (1:31)

For a brand like Nike, it was, you know, look at the athletes that represented the brand early on. I mean, they were all rebels, you know, within their own sports. And so, you know, this idea of having a maxim within the company that was defy convention, right? So your values kind of say, it's like, yeah, there are going to be things we do with conviction that may be polarizing, but it is the deep belief we have in those things. And as long as we always relate them back to sport and this idea of, you know, serving the athlete, then we're willing to go there.

And if we're not clearly tethered to, you know, what we say and what we do, then we would deserve the critique and the criticism. So I think you can, for any small or large company that's kind of, you know, that's wrestling with this, that maybe wants to kind of go beyond just the transactions and truly move into that arena where you really are having real relationships with your audience, that their affinity for you comes from the fact that they're getting meaningful benefits, whether those are mental or physical, that are allowing them to progress in life, you know? When you reach that status, I believe indifference isn't an option right now. I believe we need to look to brands that have that level of success. And again, it's not about scale, because there's plenty of small brands, you know, mom and pop brands, that are doing great things through their business to affect the lives of underserved communities. But again, so much of what we're talking about is authenticity. Even doing this book, it's like, well, you know, how much social media should I do? And on this platform, does that seem like an authentic? And so at the end of the day, because I'm driving people crazy with these questions, is that because, you know, I'm not the most public person, right? But as long as I speak to from the center and the anchor of the power of creativity in business and its ability to change the world and make that connection clear, and then if people are pissed off about that, then it is what it is. But more often than not, look at some of the most successful brands and it's made their own business successful. It's accelerated their growth. And so that's where I get into this, you know, yeah, our primary goal, certainly for a public company, is to drive growth, both from a brand and business standpoint. But more and more I believe that within that, you have to integrate this, you know, being a great corporate citizen and using your platform to, you know, provide your innovation and your inspiration to those that, quite frankly, don't have the access and opportunity to get it.

Steven Bartlett (4:59)

How do I find which story to tell? Because if I'm running this podcast and I'm thinking, okay, I need to do the logo, the branding, I need to position it in a way that's going to be, this is typically the way the brain thinks. It's trying, it's, the outcome is success. And it's trying to figure out which story to tell to get me to success. So how do I make this podcast successful? How do you go about knowing where and how to find that story in your business, brand, team, whatever it is? And which one is the right one to tell, to get the outcome I'm looking for, which is success?