Sun & Sand Sports owner GMG has a special relationship with Nike, the U.S sporting giant.
GMG Sports is a distributor for global brands like Nike, Columbia, Jordan, The North Face, Timberland and Vans. It has also developed home-grown concepts like Sun & Sand Sports, Dropkick and Basketbolista.
“We really see ourselves as an extension of the Nike brand in many ways,” Mohamed Azhar Bodiat, Senior Vice President, Brands – Sports at GMG, told Campaign Middle East.
Sun & Sand Sports (SSS) is the flagship brand of GMG, and is expanding its footprint globally. In many of the markets it operates in, SSS runs the Nike stores, a relationship it is supremely proud of.
“I think Nike is obviously an interesting one because we share a very, very special relationship with Nike that goes back a very long time. GMG is the longest-standing Nike distributor globally and one of the largest, if not the largest. We are so entrenched into the Nike system.”
When GMG gave feedback to the U.S sports brand about the need for a specially designed head covering for women when playing sports it came up with the Nike Pro hijab.
“From the research we did, none of the brands were really focusing on how you address the needs of a modest consumer. We know in this region we have many women who wear hijabs and these women want to be active.”
So GMG approached Nike and proposed a lightweight and breathable hijab, which is known as the Nike Pro Hijab.
Global impact
“These insights we took back to Nike. It took probably about a year to bring this project to life because it takes a lot of research themselves around finding the right fabrics and technology that were going to address the needs of the Middle East.”
The Nike Pro Hijab was launched at the end of 2017 for the region, but then Nike decided to roll the product range out globally.
“This was a proud moment for us as an organisation in that we were really able to influence Nike at that level with product design that has been adopted by consumers around the world.
“I think we’re doing a lot of campaigns regionally that are actually being adopted globally. Certainly they are listening more and more to us as a result of that.”
But as a multi-brand retailer SSS has to balance the needs of all of the sports labels it works with, and manage all their different product launches and campaigns throughout the year.
Balancing brands
“Brands have certain moments in the year where they want to be louder. You know the brands give us guidance on which products we should focus on or sometimes they want to help us in terms of just really getting that message out further through more digital activations.”
SSS recently collaborated with New Balance on its Grey Day campaign, which celebrates its rich heritage as an urban running brand.
“It’s fun working with them now because the brands are definitely listening more than they ever have.”
Be it Nike, Adidas, ASICS or New Balance, SSS feels its position as the region’s largest sporting goods retailer “automatically means that we become a strong player and a strong partner to any of the other brands that we work closely with” says Bodiat.
Alongside brand launches and campaigns, GMG also has its own events diary for campaign and promotions. This year SSS worked with music superstar DJ Khaled for its own marketing campaign.
“We definitely make sure that while we drive our own initiatives, we work very, very closely with our brands because we see them all very importantly as strategic enablers for us to have a successful business.”
