Student Marketing Research Project: The Nike StrideSense Smart Insole is a hypothetical product concept created for an SNHU marketing research assignment. It is not an existing Nike product.

For my marketing research project, I selected Nike. Nike is one of the most recognizable athletic brands in the world and is known for athletic footwear, apparel, performance, and innovation. I chose Nike because consumers already expect the company to introduce products that combine sports, technology, and performance. Nike has continued to place a strong focus on athlete-centered innovation, including newer technologies designed to improve athletic performance and the consumer experience Nike, Inc., 2025. Nike also reported $46.4 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2026, showing that the company continues to have a significant presence in the global athletic market (Nike, Inc., 2026.

New Product Concept

The new consumer product I would propose is the Nike StrideSense Smart Insole. This would be a removable insole containing small pressure and motion sensors that could be placed inside a consumer’s athletic shoes. The insole would connect to a smartphone and the Nike Run Club app to provide information such as foot pressure, stride patterns, balance, foot strike, and movement during walking or running.

The main benefit would be giving everyday consumers access to information that could help them better understand their movement and training habits. Research has shown that smart insoles can collect real-time information about foot pressure and gait while allowing the information to be viewed through a mobile device (Wang et al., 2025).

I would target active adults between approximately 18 and 44 years old, including runners, walkers, gym users, and consumers who already use fitness apps or wearable technology. An important part of the research would be determining whether consumers actually want this level of information and whether they would trust Nike to provide it.

Research Objectives and Design

My first research objective would be to determine the level of consumer interest in the Nike StrideSense Smart Insole. I would want to learn which features consumers value most, how much they would be willing to pay, how often they would use the product, and what concerns they may have about comfort, accuracy, battery life, and data privacy. I would also research whether consumers would prefer the product as a separate insole or expect this technology to already be built into their shoes.

Another objective would be to study the competition. I would research existing smart insoles, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and other wearable devices that provide similar performance information. I would compare their features, pricing, target customers, distribution, promotion, strengths, and weaknesses. This would help determine how Nike could position StrideSense differently from existing products.

External factors would also need to be considered. Technology will be especially important because the sensors must be accurate, comfortable, durable, and easy to connect to a mobile device. Privacy concerns involving consumer fitness data could also affect purchase decisions. Economic conditions may influence how much consumers are willing to spend on an additional fitness product.

I would use a mixed research approach. Secondary research would include scholarly articles, industry reports, Nike financial information, competitor websites, and research about wearable technology. For primary qualitative research, I would conduct focus groups with runners and fitness consumers to learn what they like or dislike about the concept. I would then use a quantitative online survey to measure purchase interest, preferred features, price expectations, and overall attitudes among a larger group of U.S. consumers.

By combining secondary, qualitative, and quantitative research, Nike would have stronger information to determine whether StrideSense meets a real consumer need before investing in a national product launch.

References

Nike, Inc. (2025, October 23). Nike creates new innovation engine to power athletes faster.

Nike, Inc. (2026, June 30). NIKE, Inc. reports fiscal 2026 fourth quarter and full year results.

Wang, Q., Guan, H., Wang, C., et al. (2025). A wireless, self-powered smart insole for gait monitoring and recognition via nonlinear synergistic pressure sensing. Science Advances, 11(16), eadu1598. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adu1598