About Heidi O'neill
Heidi O'Neill, President of Consumer, Product & Brand at Nike, has overseen the company's direct-to-consumer operations, including Nike.com and Nike retail stores. In 2021, she stated that Nike's digital business was "on fire," reporting 83 percent growth in Q1 and noting that the company had achieved its 2023 digital penetration goal of 30 percent three years early. During the COVID-19 pandemic, O'Neill described the company's global reopening playbook, which included contactless services such as self-checkout and a "click to try or click to buy" feature using the Nike app. She also highlighted that Nike had launched its first maternity collection, the Nike M Collection, and was investing in extended sizing for women.
O'Neill has been with Nike since 1998, when she wrote a white paper advocating for a greater focus on women consumers, leading to her role as the first general manager of North America apparel. She noted that the team created the first Swoosh bra, worn by Brandi Chastain at the 1999 Women's World Cup. In 2017, O'Neill discussed Nike's reorganization to prioritize consumer relationships, stating that members were worth three times the value of anonymous consumers. She also addressed Nike's stance on social issues, saying the company "takes stands outside the arena of sport" and has always stood for equality.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Heidi O'neill's recent appearances.
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Transcript (8 segments)
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Robin Roberts0:10
Home to tell us about the apps, a new tech at their playbook for helping shoppers feel safe. Good morning Heidi, good to have you with us. Hope all is going well there on the west coast. I know you're very excited about the Nike stores all across the country reopening. You all were one of the first to close your doors. What was the decision in reopening and how are you going to keep your employees and customers safe, Heidi?
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Heidi O'Neill0:35
Good morning Robin, it's so nice to be here with you. Yes, we were one of the first retailers to close our stores to protect public health, and we're going to great lengths to make sure we keep everyone safe as we start to open our stores in a rolling manner around the world. That means first and foremost, we have a number of our stores open in both South Korea and China, so that's given us a great model to know how to build a playbook to open our stores safely. We have great cleaning procedures. We disinfect every day, we clean every two hours and more on other surfaces. All of our employees are provided with masks, and we have great social distancing signage in our stores. And we've been able to keep our employees and all of our shoppers safe in the doors that we've started to open around the world.
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Robin Roberts1:52
So what tech are you using? What about this contactless app or something?
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Heidi O'Neill2:11
A few ways. We're providing some great services that allow contactless experiences at retail. So we've launched our self-checkout where you can check out in the store with all of your Nike gear completely in a contactless manner. And my favorite one is we call it click to try or click to buy. If you see one of our mannequins in the stores, you can just use our Nike app and scan a barcode. First of all, it'll give you all the information on the vehicle display, everything you're seeing on all of the mannequins, but then it'll allow you to buy it right there in your size, or it'll also allow you to have it sent straight to you. Stuck at home, we need to find some outlets to stay fit, so we ramped up our services from our Nike Training Club and our Nike Running Club as well to make sure everyone has great experiences to work out at home. And we're seeing a real increase in workouts. I'm sure people really do appreciate that.
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Robin Roberts3:32
One last question. The Last Dance. Okay, now Air Jordans were just as popular as Michael Jordan in The Last Dance. I know that you all put out a special during the premiere. You had some special Air Jordans that sold out just like that. There were a pair of Air Jordans that he wore that just went to auction for more than half a million dollars.
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Heidi O'Neill4:11
Around the brand, the man, and basketball. For us, it's just great to see while sport is paused around the world that we've got a place to connect with them in basketball. And our sneakers app is our app where you can shop, explore, or score some of our greatest Jordans, Converse, and Nike as well. And we've never seen more engagement on the sneakers app than we're seeing right now. And we've even launched this great new service on the Nike app called Chit Chat. So what we've seen happen is as everyone's watching The Last Dance, we can't be together to watch it, but everyone wants to know what sneakers you're wearing. So it's another Last Dance.
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Robin Roberts5:11
Yeah, yeah, show those kicks. That's right. Well Heidi, thank you very very much. And I know that you're concerned and want to make sure that your employees as well as customers are safe going forward and doing all that you can to do that. Appreciate it very much. You take care.
Well hey there GMA fans, Robin Roberts here. Thanks for checking out our YouTube channel. Lots of great stuff here, so go on, click the subscribe button right over here to get more awesome videos and content from GMA every day, anytime. We thank you for watching and we'll see you in the morning on GMA.
