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"Nike cares most about the category influencers and tastemakers -- nearly all of whom will embrace their decision," said Howe Burch, the former head of U.S. marketing for Reebok. "They know they will lose some customers short-term but not the kind of customers that really drive their business." Supporting disruptive athletes has long been a part of Nike's marketing, dating to the early 1970s and runner Steve Prefontaine, the company's first athlete endorser.

To plan a more complete response to the new world, marketing needs to reorganize around its unifying principle: utility. Above all, utility is a response to, and a requirement of, the inevitable time crunch in a tech-sped world. That's why Nike Fuel Band wasn't just the innovation of the year; it's the first full-utility footprint. Utility also requires replacing the chain of faith with a chain of actions. We need to plan and monitor how our messaging bounces along the stream of consumer interaction, and through the path of commerce. For example, retargeting extends utility to display advertising, and smartphone point-and-shop apps (e.g. WiO and Shazam) start to fulfill on the commercial potential of interactive TV. Your content needs to let me activate on my terms. Utility also means we need to understand consumer behavior after seeing ads, not just before. The weight of marketing research has been on targeting. Now we need to create the lens for the complete activation spectrum.