Nike Executive Davide Grasso: Connecting With the Savvy Consumer Through Creative Marketing

As a lead advertising executive at Nike, Inc. for the past 20 years, Davide Grasso has helped the multinational corporation develop and implement some of its most effective and provocative campaigns including the 2008 Beijing Olympics “Just Do It” tribute, the more recent action sports effort “The Chosen,” and Nike’s 2012 sponsorship of the Chinese Olympic Team featuring star hurdler Liu Xiang. After joining the company in the early 1990s as a Europe-based Product Line Manager, Grasso moved on to gain comprehensive experience at the helm of every major global division and brand category, a feat he accomplished in part due to his extensive understanding of business management and fashion merchandising. Having set the stage for his career as an M.B.A student at SDA Bocconi University Graduate School of Management in Milan, Grasso subsequently leveraged his academic background to promote Nike’s diverse product line with a clear eye for aesthetics, but also with the knowledge that consumers ultimately respond when they feel engaged, valued, and proactively challenged.

Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, Nike consistently sets the standard for brand promotion in an industry where competition is fierce and mediocrity is not an option. Far more than an athletic gear manufacturer at its current pinnacle, the distributing outfit that Founder Phil Knight launched in his garage has grown to become a global lifestyle enterprise unmatched in power and distinction. Thanks to the vision of individuals like Davide Grasso, Nike is able to continually innovate a simple foundational mindset - the idea that an athlete’s performance, drive, and focus matter more than anything else.

Davide Grasso maintains responsibility for the complete breadth of Nike’s international advertising endeavors in his present role as Vice President of Global Brand Marketing. Targeting a vast demographic swath, Grasso mines the tried and true “Just Do It” motto that built an empire while concurrently positioning Nike as a forward thinking fitness culture leader, a proven formula that can also be re-imagined to achieve even greater creative heights.