Zara has just passed up Nike on a ranking of the most valuable global brands, becoming the most valuable apparel brand in the world, according to a Kantar BrandZ report. What is interesting is not the ranking, but the difference in strategy between these two companies.
According to Kantar’s ranking, Zara has reached a brand value of US$44 billion, surpassing Nike’s $41 billion. While Nike continues to rely heavily on traditional advertising, sponsorship, and global sports marketing, Zara has positioned its brand with a completely different logic, less traditional advertising investment, and more focus on physical experience, strategic store locations, and constant product rotation.
In the case of Nike, the company maintains a large marketing budget. In the 2025 fiscal year alone, the company’s spending on “demand and brand generation” reached US$4.7 billion, driven mainly by sports campaigns and global marketing. The brand continues to build visibility through athletes, sporting events, and cultural collaborations. Meanwhile, Zara, the main brand of the textile giant Inditex, has historically avoided revealing large numbers of traditional advertising investment and has prioritized another type of strategy such as stores located in premium areas, highly maintained shop windows, distribution speed and trend updates.
More than investing in bulk ads, Inditex devotes much of its resources to expansion, technology optimization and omnichannel experience. For 2026 alone, the group projected investments of close to €2.3 billion, dedicated mainly to stores, technology integration, and online platforms.
The result reflects a major shift in current brand construction. While marketing once seemed to depend on giant campaigns and permanent visibility, today, some companies are demonstrating that each has its strategy and market niche, and that they can build value from experience, speed, and cultural relevance.
Kantar even points out that, in an environment dominated by AI, fragmentation, and digital saturation, the brands that manage to remain “significantly different” are the ones that manage to grow. And that is where Zara seems to have found a competitive advantage.
Sources:
Inditex
Nike Investor Relations
Kantar BrandZ 2026
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