Is Nike Finally Winning With Women?

Twenty years ago, The New York Times published a story headlined “Nike Changes Strategy on Women’s Apparel,” detailing the company’s latest effort to win over that market “after years of failures.”

The strategy in May 2005: Mailing catalogs for its Nikewomen line to 600,000 homes, revamping Nikewomen.com and opening a new women’s store in a New York suburb.

Both the website and the store shut down long ago. For years after, Nike would repeatedly roll out new products, marketing and retail concepts aimed at female athletes. While it’s built a sizeable business – $8.6 billion in wholesale sales alone in its last fiscal year – women’s apparel and footwear never became the catalyst for growth or cultural clout that successive generations of Nike executives hoped.

Meanwhile, the brand sometimes found itself on the defensive over its treatment of women. Customers complained of uninspired products and superficial marketing. Female employees at Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon headquarters spoke to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times of a boy’s club culture where women were sidelined and passed over for advancement. The final lawsuit stemming from those investigations was settled in April of this year. In one two-year stretch, Nike lost two of its highest-profile female athletes, track star Allyson Felix and gymnastics gold medalist Simone Biles, to Gap-owned Athleta.

Now, Nike is once again in the middle of a major push to win over women. This time, it seems to be working.

For the first time in years, the storytelling and cultural cachet around Nike Women rivals – some would say, exceeds – what the brand is doing with men’s sports or athletes.

In February, Nike aired its first Super Bowl ad in nearly three decades — “So Win,” a 60-second spot celebrating women athletes, starring WNBA superstars Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson and others. Months later, Nike’s main Instagram account, with 300 million followers, is dominated by images of female athletes and Nike Women’s gear.

It followed up in May with a campaign for Wilson to promote the release of her signature shoe, the “A’One Pink Aura,” which sold out within minutes of hitting Nike’s SNKRS app and the brand’s website.

“Look who’s back!” former Nike marketing executive Adrienne Lofton wrote under an Instagram post of the campaign, captioned: “From the playground to the playoffs, real ones know there’s only one A’ja.”

On the product innovation front, Nike is backing Kenyan runner Faith Kipyegon in her quest to become the first woman to run a mile in under four minutes, which she’ll attempt on June 26 at Stade Charléty in Paris. NikeSkims, its upcoming partnership with Kim Kardashian’s shapewear label, is being set up as the next Jordan Brand, with a line of training apparel, footwear and accessories set to drop any day now, and a global expansion planned for 2026.

In the ultimate vote of confidence, Nike named Amy Montagne — who has overseen these initiatives as general manager of its women’s division — as brand president in May. Nike has also elevated other women to key leadership roles, including Ann Miller as EVP of global sports marketing and Nicole Graham as executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

“What I’ve really heard from everyone is — especially having experiences with so many women around the company — seeing me do this makes them see that they can as well,” Montagne told The Business of Fashion.

At a time when Nike is trying to find its way out of its worst slump in decades, its ability to authentically connect with the female consumer could prove critical to turning things around.

It’s too soon to know whether these moves will translate into sales. In the last fiscal year, ending in May 2024, women’s wholesale revenue overall was flat, and had grown at an average annual rate of 5.6 percent over the last decade, slightly slower than the overall business. Its share of the wholesale business, 21 percent last year, was virtually unchanged. However, the company said in December that growth in women’s basketball and running exceeded men’s late last year (new annual figures will be released in June with the company’s annual results).

Nike Women’s has momentum, but the brand has taken its swing before. This time, it’s the follow-through that counts.

“It’s clear that to become a $50 billion-revenue business, Nike has had to focus on selling to [men and women],” said Simeon Siegel, managing director and senior analyst at BMO Capital Markets. “But at the same time, they’ve clearly had their favourites.”

Courting Women

By sheer volume, Nike is already a powerhouse in women’s athletic apparel. Its closest competitor, Lululemon, generated about $6.7 billion in women’s sales last year.

Where Nike has stumbled, said Siegel, is in “voice” and “perception” — the emotional connection that fosters lasting loyalty, particularly among women.

This disconnect isn’t unique to Nike. Brands have historically underinvested in the women’s sports market, said Portia Blunt, who has held senior roles at Reebok and New Balance.

“As a whole, in the athletic industry, the women’s space is always ripe,” Blunt said. “It’s always on the ‘idea board’ as white space. That tells us brands still aren’t fully hitting the mark when it comes to capturing a potential audience.”

This gap created an opening for Lululemon, and later, Alo Yoga and Skims. With sharp messaging and expansive offerings that went beyond the old “shrink it and pink it” playbook, they captured territory Nike hadn’t fully claimed, said Matt Powell, senior advisor at BCE Consulting.

It’s not that Nike ignored women’s sports — the brand has put female athletes front and centre in its marketing practically from the start. In interviews, both Montagne and Nike vice president of global sports marketing Tanya Hvizdak noted Nike’s backing of Joan Benoit Samuelson, the first women’s Olympic marathon champion, in 1984. It’s been a marketing partner of the WNBA since 1997, and made an equity investment in the league in 2022. Serena Williams wore Nike for most of her three-decade tennis career; her name graces a building on the Beaverton campus.

But Nike traded away some of the goodwill those partnerships brought with a very “male-centric” go-to-market strategy, Powell said.

“They’re saying, ‘Oh, we got a new sports bra, it’s the only sports bra she’ll ever need,” he said. “If she’s doing yoga, she needs one kind of bra. If she’s a runner, she needs another type of sportswear. And to say there’s only she only needs one completely ignores her needs. That’s how a guy would think.”

Turning the Corner

Nike’s latest women’s campaign has roots in a pivotal period for the brand. In 2018, it faced internal turmoil after the WSJ investigation, prompting a public apology from then-chief executive Mark Parker. By spring 2019, Olympic champion Allyson Felix had parted ways with Nike, citing inadequate maternity protections and a proposed pay cut — a flashpoint in broader criticism of how the brand treated women athletes.

“If you were to go back to that period, our female athletes were saying that they wanted more from us; there were opportunities for us to lean in in a greater capacity,” Hvizdak said.

That summer, the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France became a breakout moment for women’s sports, drawing record viewership and cultural momentum. Nike had poured significant resources into the tournament, and its “Dream With Us” ad featuring the US team drew widespread acclaim.

“All of us were saying, ‘Women’s sport is going to take off,’” said Montagne, who oversaw the campaign.

In 2021, Nike launched its Athlete Think Tank — a collective of female athletes, including A’ja Wilson, brought together to share ideas, collaborate, and help Nike improve the athlete experience both on and off the field. Out of the cohort, now in its fifth iteration, came innovations like a new maternity line in 2022 and leak-protection shorts in 2023, designed to minimize the risk of leaks during menstruation and physical activity.

“The premise of the [Think Tank] was, ‘how do we bring [women’s] voices throughout the entirety of our organisation?’” said Hvizdak.

Nike’s campaign with Wilson embodies the brand’s evolution. Splashed across both its main Instagram grid and the Nike Women’s account, the campaign leans into Wilson’s trademark humility while unapologetically centering her Black identity. There’s an image of diamond grills between pink-glossed lips — and in the campaign video, little Black girls with braids clapping to a rhyme about Wilson, and an actress portraying a young Wilson being shushed by her grandmother in church.

“A’ja helped co-create everything about that launch from a product perspective — her voice was singular,” Hvizdak said. “Those insights came through all the details within that product, in regards to the fit and feel of it … And then when you’re talking about the community aspect and the storytelling, she wanted to make sure that it was tied to her community.”

Beyond the high-profile campaign and signature shoe launch, Nike has put real backing behind Wilson — supporting her “Dear Black Girls” book tour, bringing her to Paris Men’s Fashion Week, and naming her the first signature athlete for its partnership with Lego, which includes apparel and footwear co-designed with the toy company.

“Our job is to fuel the voice of the athletes, and I think that’s really what’s coming through on the campaigns,” Montagne said.

Overall, women’s basketball has long been a challenging category — sales of performance basketball shoes have been sluggish generally, and women’s footwear represent a tiny portion of that market.

But brands also haven’t stuck around long enough to unlock the sport’s potential, said Blunt.

“[They] invest for a season or two... and walk away because it’s not turning fast enough in terms of the results you want to see,” she said.

While Nike has long supported the WNBA, its track record of developing shoes for individual women athletes has been less consistent. After debuting several signature sneakers with WNBA stars in the league’s early years, Nike went more than a decade without launching a new one for mass distribution. That changed in 2022 with the Air Deldon, designed for Washington Mystics star Elena Delle Donne. The following year, Nike introduced the Sabrina 1, a performance shoe for New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, which saw strong sales in both North America and China, according to the brand.

Nike’s investment in stars like Wilson — and “ultimately Caitlin Clark,” a Nike athlete who many expect to receive her own shoe — could help shift that narrative and “legitimize the women’s basketball shoe business,” Powell said.

NikeSims presents another opportunity. The collaboration aims to create a new brand and reinforce Nike’s commitment to inclusivity through Skims’ focus on body-sculpting apparel, Montagne said.

“The idea behind this new brand is to bring some disruption, to really disrupt the global fitness and activewear industry,” she said. “We have a tremendous opportunity to invite more women into sport and movement.”

Women at the Top

Nike’s representation of women has steadily increased in recent years. As of fiscal year 2023, women made up 51 percent of the company’s global corporate workforce and 44 percent of its vice presidents and senior leaders. In 2020, those figures were 50 percent and 39 percent, respectively.

“If they continue down the path they are on, and it [remains] a long-term endeavor, then we’ll see those numbers continue to increase,” said Blunt. “I fundamentally believe that Nike does look at representation and having a diverse thought leadership as important — and you’re starting to see proof in the pudding.”

One of the clearest signs of Nike’s leap forward is the rise of women leaders like Montagne — a 20-year Swoosh veteran who’s twice led the women’s category, and one of the architects behind the Skims deal.

For the Nike brand, Montagne now leads across all product, storytelling, and what she describes as “delivering the most amazing experiences for consumers, both physical and digital.”

Having joined the company in 2005 as a senior director for kids apparel, Montagne says her tenure leading the women’s business positioned her to take on a broader mandate — one that still hinges on the women’s category as a key growth engine.

“Working in women’s, you have to have the belief of what the future can be … and see a different future than how it is today,” she said. “I take that spirit with me into this role.”