Then-senior brand director Massimo Giunco, who left the company after 22 years in June 2022, lamented the changes that resulted in Nike’s culture.

Giunco told Kiefer and Stewart, “There was this shift in attention to any digital player while neglecting the great things we were doing. Nike became a machine to produce content to feed this digital ecosystem. It was all resources that took away from brand-building. The main objective was to drive people to Nike.com, not to resonate with or inspire people to play sport.”

Nike’s fourth-quarter and fiscal-year earnings report in June came with some more bad news, as the company reported declines of 2% in total revenue (to $12.6 billion), 7% in its direct business, and 10% in digital, causing its share price to drop on the news and resulting in a cost-cutting initiative that has claimed roughly 740 jobs to date this year.

The company would not specify how many marketing roles were impacted, but in early August, Kiefer and Stewart were able to confirm several changes as part of a major strategy shift, which began with Nicole Hubbard Graham’s return to Nike last November as chief marketing officer.

After combining its brand design and storytelling units in 2020, they are now two distinct teams again, marking the company’s renewed focus on telling the story of its brand.

Enrico Balleri, a 20-year Nike veteran who was shifted to a regional role in Milan, Italy, in 2021, returned to corporate headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., as vice president and creative director of global brand voice, with the mandate of elevating storytelling across the brand.

And another longtime Nike executive and 2020 retiree, Tom Peddle, returned to the fold in July as vp of marketplace partners, seeking to rekindle the retail relationships that were severed.