Recently, Nike and Target have been in the news for the same reason: They’re both trying to overcome some public perception hiccups that have arisen regarding their brands.
Nike is working on re-establishing favor with athletes after a misstep during the 2026 Boston Marathon. Target, on the other hand, is working to re-engage consumers with its brand after a multi-year revenue slide. They’re taking different approaches to achieve their respective goals. Nike, for its part, is relying on its “Win Now” marketing campaign to turn things around, while Target recently announced it’s investing billions to remodel 130+ stores, focusing on improving the customer experience.
While brands like Target and Nike have deep pockets, big audiences of current and potential customers, and reputations they’ve spent years building, their recent difficulties still show that any brand, no matter how big, can find itself on the wrong side of public perception and, as a result, with declining revenue.
When that happens, it’s natural to go into damage-control mode and take clear, demonstrative action that the market notices. But without the right intelligence to understand the deeper values and motivations that drive negative perception, big swings can fail to connect. This is costly in terms of dollars and brand reputation.
When public perception turns against your brand, there may not be something that needs “fixing.” Instead, it’s an opportunity to re-orient your brand strategy around the changing values of your core customers and engage a new audience of your next “best customers” with messaging more aligned to signals from the market. This requires the right consumer intelligence paired with the right strategy. Here’s how brands can use consumer intelligence to ride the waves of perception and give customers new and old what they actually want.
How Predictive Consumer Intelligence Can Reveal the Disconnect
Public perception can be a fickle thing, so the capacity to understand who your audience is at this precise moment is especially important for responding to a reputational setback.
Predictive consumer intelligence is the greatest advantage a business can have: the ability to know every consumer as a unique individual and predict what they’ll do next, before they do it. So, how can it help brands looking for their next best customer figure out whether they’re on the right track with their audience or if they need to make some tweaks? Let’s take Target as an example.
Target’s remodel is focused on a couple of things. They’re giving the stores new layouts, better lighting, an expanded grocery section, and faster checkout, just to name a few. It’s a concrete step toward earning back the customers they’ve lost in the last few years and creating a better experience for new customers. But how does it match up with what customers want?
The beauty of predictive consumer intelligence is that it gets at the why behind customer behavior. It explains, for instance, why people shop with the retailers they choose and what their primary influences are when it comes to product selection. Target thinks customers will shop there because they’ll have a better experience in their renovated stores. Resonate’s predictive intelligence suggests something different about Target shoppers and why they pick one retailer over another:
- 78% want to know they’re getting the best prices/sales
- 23% want enjoyable, clean stores
- 21% are looking for easy return policy
These findings show a clear gap between brand actions and customer perception. Target’s focus on navigation, product visibility, and integrating digital and in-store experiences addresses the 23% who want enjoyable, clean stores. Faster fulfillment for Order Pickup, Drive Up, and returns speak to the 21% who want easy returns. Both are real improvements.
But that still leaves the 78% who are anxious about price and want to know they aren’t being ripped off when they walk into a store. This is a significant percentage of customers who, if Target could win them back, would represent real and lasting revenue growth for the brand, not just a sales lift of a couple of percentage points that satisfies shareholders for a quarter.
Winning Now: How Predictive Consumer Intelligence Can Help Nike’s Turnaround Plan
Nike is now a few years into its “Win Now” turnaround plan, and many aspects, like a leadership change and investing in high-profile endorsements, have already been rolled out. The reason why the Boston Marathon “Runners Welcome. Walkers Tolerated.” messaging was considered such a gaffe by critics is that it suggests that the brand is still out of touch with its current customers, but also the broader marketplace of potential customers.
How can Nike find its next best customers and work its way through the quagmire of public opinion? Personal values are a great place to start. When someone chooses a brand, they’re often signaling something about who they are or who they want to be. Values are the bridge between a product’s functional benefits and a consumer’s sense of self. When a brand’s values align with a person’s own, the relationship stops being transactional and starts feeling personal.
Here’s what Resonate’s predictive consumer intelligence reveals about the personal values of the audience of 58.4M Nike shoppers:
- They want to acquire wealth and influence.
- They value having a good reputation.
- They value achievement, or having the chance to show their abilities and be admired.
This data reveals what works about Nike’s brand marketing and also how they can succeed in the future. This audience isn’t primarily motivated by fitness or performance. Instead, they’re motivated by status and being seen. They want to wield influence, they value having a good reputation, and they want the chance to show their abilities and be admired. That’s not an athletic profile, it’s an identity profile — and it’s certainly not the profile of person that wants to feel merely “tolerated” by brand messaging.
When consumers make the choice to shop with Nike, it’s not really about shoes. Nike’s next best customers are looking for a version of themselves that’s worth watching.
“Just Do It” resonates because it’s about becoming the kind of person who does. Athlete partnerships with LeBron or Caitlin Clark transfer status to an audience hungry for influence. Limited drops and SNKRS exclusives are values-aligned strategies for an audience that wants access others don’t have. For Nike, every creative decision, partnership, and product drop should ask: Does this make our customer feel like a reflection of the person they want to become?
See the Resonate Difference
Both Target and Nike prove that even the most durable, recognizable brands sometimes have blind spots about their customers that can lead to negative perceptions in the market. While the natural tendency is to react (and fast), you can’t take the right step toward building back trust and reaching new customers if you don’t find that original blind spot.
Predictive consumer intelligence gives you the most up-to-date picture of who your current and potential customers are today. That means you can personalize your relationship with messaging and strategies that satisfy real consumer values and deeper motivations for brand loyalty. No more grasping at straws in a panic or wondering where growth is going to come from.
Resonate is the industry leader in predictive consumer intelligence, incorporating more than 15,000 psychographic, motivational, and intent signals to prevent the next PR faux pas and reach your next best customers. If you’re ready to find out how we can help your brand, schedule a consultation with a data expert today.
