Interrupt marketing isn’t dead. It’s just receiving fewer marketing dollars, and the trend away from traditional media channels is picking up steam — and fast.

Marketers want to engage customers, and Nike — the one-time interrupt marketing monster in the sports world — is betting on social media and engagement marketing (where brands engage with the passions and values of their customers).

In an excellent New York Times article, the extent to which Nike’s channeling its marketing budget into engagement marketing becomes apparent:

Last year, Nike spent just 33 percent of its $678 million United States advertising budget on ads with television networks and other traditional media companies. That’s down from 55 percent 10 years ago, according to the trade publication Advertising Age.

”We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive,” Mr. Edwards says he tells many media executives. ”We’re in the business of connecting with consumers.” (emphasis added)

A shining example of the success of Nike’s strategy was a fifty-something runner, who uploads his training information to the Nike+ social media site:

Since April, Mr. Saenz, 53, has been running with a Nike+, a small sensor in his running shoes that tracks his progress on an Apple iPod he carries. After each run near his home in Louisville, Ky., he docks the iPod into his computer and posts details of his run on the Nike+ Web site. There, he has made friends with other runners around the world who post running routes, meet up in the real world and encourage one another on the site.

Nike’s famous swoosh is there all along.

For Nike, this is advertising. ”It’s a very different way to connect with consumers,” says Trevor Edwards, Nike’s corporate vice president for global brand and category management. ”People are coming into it on average three times a week. So we’re not having to go to them.”

It’s similar to Nike’s sponsorship of the Joga soccer site, where Nike’s trademark “swoosh” logo is everpresent, yet — unlike interrupt marketing techniques — the brand isn’t being forced down anyone’s throat.

Instead, Nike’s becoming a partner in Saenz’s running endeavor — instead of a brand looking to make a profit from it. Nike’s cleverly leveraging Saenz’s own training tools, extending his running experience, and providing a ready-made community of like-minded individuals — one that just happens to bear the Nike logo.

In simplest terms, they’re creating an allegiance to the brand that extends far beyond the shoes — tapping into (and extending) his passion for running.

It’s classic engagement marketing.

Follow the Money

Media types would like you to think they’re holding their own, but traditional media budgets continue to shrink at an accelerating rate. From the same New York Times article:

Add it up, and the money flowing out of the traditional media is huge — even at a time when ad budgets in general are growing, advertising research shows. The 25 companies that spent the most on advertising over the last five years cut their spending last year in traditional media by about $767 million, according to Advertising Age and TNS Media Intelligence.

And in the first half of this year, those companies decreased their media spending an additional 3 percent, or $446 million, to $14.53 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

Soon, companies won’t be scrambling for the hottest “interrupt” ad creative. Instead, they’ll be looking for innovative engagement marketing methods — channels through which they can connect with the passions and values of their customers.

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