Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Prepared
As a course
Requirement of
(Advertising
and Public
Relation-mkt 424)
M. Atiqur Rahman
Patuakhali science and Technology University
Bangladesh
atik.bdpalo@yahoo.com
www.pstu.ac.bd
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Adidas Inc. is a marketer of sports apparel and athletic shoes. The German manufacturer,
through its marketing strategy which rests on a favorable brand image, has evolved into a
large multinational enterprise. In keeping with the
brand image is its association with the distinctive logo
and its advertising slogan, "Impossible is Nothing." In
order to maintain and sustain this image, the company
makes huge investments in advertising and brand
promotion. At the critical time of global economic
crisis, Adidas will react to the consumers’ pessimistic
attitude and stressful emotion during this period. It may
become a good chance for Adidas because it can take
advantage of its previous advertising way of
“Impossible is Nothing” campaign by sponsoring
sports stars to express the corporate philosophy of grit,
determination, passion and humor, giving people more courage and psychological comfort in
face of economic crisis. But besides that, we also focus more about family function
especially in Asian countries which emphasize a lot on family, which can provide caring
emotional communication. Therefore, from both strong-willed hero worship and water-like
fork environment, customers can easily link Adidas image with not only strength, but also
warmth. The preferred media we choose are TV, specific magazines, outdoor and internet.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Adidas was formed by German sports apparel by the founder Adi Dassler during the 1920’s.
While Dassler was in his mother’s wash room he decided to begin an athletic shoe. After he
made the shoe he had help from his brother and
twelve other people to produce around 50
handmade shoes per day. These athletic shoes
were made for running and training.
Recently Adidas and the NBA joined forces and made “The Brotherhood”. “The
Brotherhood” consists of Tracy McGRady of The Houston Rockets, Dwyane Wade of The
Miami Heat, Tim Duncan of The San Antonio Spurs, Chauncey
Billups of the Detroit Pistons and Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards. When it came
down to it Adidas and the NBA came up with the slogan called “Basketball is a
Brotherhood.”
The main focus of “The Brotherhood was Adidas to sponsor the NBA. The way these six
players were selected was by their athletic ability which is why they are also known as all
stars. Then these six players decided to form a series that would help kids to discover their
dream by playing with NBA Stars.
A strong advertising and public Relation events makes adidas as a worldwide recognized
brand and it would be more sustainable in the world market.
Activities: manufacture and distribution of textiles, shoes and appliances for sport and related
products. Adidas has 107 subsidiaries in 20 countries, and exports to 160 countries.
Exploitation of the registered trademark “Adidas” is made where ever it is an opportunity.
Activities of the company and its subsidiaries are directed from Adidas-Salomon AG's
headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany.
2. SITUATION ANALYSIS
Adidas AG (pronounced [AH-dee-'dahs]; often in English, FWB: ADS) is a German sports
apparel manufacturer and part of the Adidas Group, which consists of Reebok sportswear
company, Taylor Made-adidas golf company, and Rockport. Besides sports footwear, the
company also produces other products such as bags, shirts, and other sports and clothing
related goods. The company is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe and the second
biggest sportswear manufacturer in the world, to its US rival Nike. The company's clothing
and shoe designs typically feature three parallel bars, and the same motif is incorporated into
Adidas's current official logo. The company revenue for 2008 was listed at €10.799 billion
and the 2007 figure was listed at €10.299 billion, or about US$15.6 billion. The situation
analysis consists of the market trend analysis and competitor analysis.
SOWT Analysis:
A SWOT analysis comprise of strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats. This four trends
are analyze below.
STRENGTHS
• Largest International portfolio of sport ambassadors.
• Sponsors football teams with maximum fan following in India and USA.
• Highest brand image in India according to our survey.
WEAKNESSES
• Rigid pricing structure.
• Our survey shows Nike behind Reebok & Adidas in market share in India.
• Has not do well in Indian subcontinent market.
OPPORTUNITIES
• Has a great opportunity to expand international market.
• Increasing demand on the sportswear.
• Positive and increasing market trends can increase through the effective advertising.
THREATS
• Adidas larger competitor Nike has a grater market share and having a big budget in
marketing activity.
• The newly born several brands like CAT, GAP has increase their advertising budget in
recent years.
Brand
Brand equity can be defined as the brand assets linked to a brand’s name and symbol that
add to a product or service. This asset can be created and analysed trough the four
dimensions, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, and brand loyalty.
Brand awareness is the base to affect the consumer perception and even taste. People like
the familiar and are prepared to ascribe all sorts of good attitudes to the items that are familiar
to them. According to D. Aaker perceived quality is a special type of association, partly
because it influences brand associations in many contexts and partly because it has been
empirically shown to affect profitability as measured by ROI (Return On Investment) and
stock return. Perceive quality, is basically how the customer perceive the brands quality
status. Brand associations can be anything that connects the customer to the brand. It can
include user imaginary, product attribute, use situations, organizational associations, brand
associations, and symbols. Brand loyalty is at the hart of any brand’s value. The concept is
to strengthen the size and intensity of each loyalty segment.
Comparative analysis
Nike centred their brand equity model on the platforms, the endorsement focus strategy,
creating a dominant media presence, development of Flagship stores, NikeTown and sub-
branding. The Adidas strategies were based on, endorsement focus strategy, advertising,
sponsorship programs focusing on major global events, sports associations, and teams, and
sub-brands.
To create brand awareness both companies have been using endorsement strategies in their
brand-building programs. What differs is that Adidas focuses on sponsorship of teams and
events e.g. national teams and big sport events like the Olympic Games and different World
Championship events. This will help them to create awareness with help from different types
of media. In contrast Nike has their focus on individuals like M. Jordan and T. Woods and
their success stories.
About the second strategy, advertising. Nike’s advertising strategy was to create dominant
presence in media. Nike created media presence in several trend setting United States cities.
TV ads linking Nike to a city were used, but real drivers were huge oversized billboards and
murals on buildings that blanketed cities with messages featuring key Nike-sponsored
athletes, not products. Adidas took up the competition with Nike through raising their
advertising budget to a level that made it possible to compete with Nike on the same
The Nike customer associated the Nike brand with words like sports, attitudes and life style.
Reasons for that is one can relate to or identify one self to Nike’s marketing campaigns like
“Just do it” and the companies front athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. For
Adidas one image study of consumers found the brand very trendy, modern and cool. The
survey was made in late 1990s.
All marketing actions that both companies are implementing will hopefully result in loyal
customers. Adidas introduced a subbrand in 1990 to serve the high-end products for all
categories of shoes and apparel. The “Equipment” subbrand would represent the best,
whatever the product was. The low-end products, for the “normal consumer” still have a high
technology and level of innovation because of their inheritance of the older innovations and
technology from the Equipment line. This strategy made the Adidas brand take on a different
meaning; it still meant participation, emotion and performance. This was a success strategy
for Adidas so successful that Nike copied their idea and introduced their own line, the Alpha
line, based on the same idea.
Nike advanced from $1 billion dollars in 1986 to $ 9.9 billion in 2002, Adidas advanced from
$1.7 billion in 1992 to $4.8 billion in 1998. According to sales figures for the both
companies, it seems that both Nike and Adidas companies have succeeded to create a brand
loyal customer who perceives the Nike and Adidas products as top quality.
3.1.3 Seasonality:
Since “The Brotherhood” is made up of The NBA the seasonality will be during the fourth
quarter. The reason for this is that the basketball season begins in October which is in the
fourth quarter. The time of day in which “The Brotherhood” would be run on television is
during the evening while the NBA is holding their regular games. When it comes to the
Internet “The Brotherhood” is advertise daily and at all times.
3.2.3 Infomercials
There are two types of infomercials, described as long form and short form. Long form
infomercials have a time length of 30 minutes. Short
form infomercials are 30 seconds to 2 minutes long.
Infomercials are also known as direct response
television (DRTV) commercials or direct response
marketing.
The main objective in an infomercial is to create an
impulse purchase, so that the consumer sees the
presentation and then immediately buys the product
through the advertised toll-free telephone number or
website. Infomercials describe, display, and often
demonstrate products and their features, and
commonly have testimonials from consumers and
industry professionals. Adidas arrange several infomercials in the sports based program.
3.2.4 Celebrities
This type of advertising focuses upon using celebrity power, fame, money,
popularity to gain recognition for their products and promote specific
stores or products. Advertisers often advertise their products, for example,
when celebrities share their favorite products or wear clothes by specific
brands or designers. Celebrities are often involved in advertising
campaigns such as television or print adverts to advertise specific or
general products. Adidas use David Bekham as their brand ambassador
and many more celebrities in every region to promote their product.
CONCLUSION
Both Adidas and Nike have used the same theoretical systems to create their brand building
programs. The companies are benchmarking each other, using the techniques from each
others successes, when Nike launched their subbrand product Alpha line which was
benchmarked on Adidas already launched subbrand of the Equipment product line for the
elite of sports men. We can find many similarities like endorsements strategies and the
companies advertising strategies. What differs in the endorsement strategies is that Adidas
focuses in sponsoring teams and global events, while Nike have their center of attention on
stars in specific sport like basketball and Michael Jordan or in golf and Tiger Woods.
About advertising do both companies have about the same scale and scoop of advertising but
they try to communicate different messages. These messages from Adidas is; the only one
you compete with is your self whereas Nike communicate a provocative, aggressive winner
attitude which can be related the American sports attitude “You don’t win silver, you lose
gold”. As we can understand the two companies are aiming at nearly the same targeted
customer group but with a slightly differentiation of attitude. Adidas stand for a competing
and winning over your self-attitude, and Nike stands for a winning over everyone attitude.
We in the group think this differentiation is based on the differences in culture between the
two companies and between Europe and USA.
As an overall reflection one can see that Adidas had to overcome, that the both companies
had the same target group. Adidas choose a brand-building strategy that built on the same
theoretical criteria’s as Nike. But they created a differentiation in identity of the brand (see
comparing analysis in the Kapferer Prism Model above) compared to Nike.
Adidas had the same strategy within creating equity value to their brand. They challenged
Nike in endorsement strategy, and in advertising, but with a slight difference in
communicated message, by doing it trough the same medias. To differentiate them self and
make totally own awareness activities, events like Adidas Streetball Challenge was created.
Events like those communicated the Adidas brand around the world.
According to the results and positions the brand-building programs have given both Adidas
and Nike in the sport industry, one can say that branding have been a totally determining
factor. On top of that they made it so good that they are used as models in higher education.
REFERENCES
http://www.press.adidas.com/en/ Retrieved 7th June 2008
http://www.press.adidas.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-4/79_read-8621/ Retrieved
7th June 2008
http://www.fashiontrendsetter.com/content/fashion_events/2008/Adidas-Denim-by-Diesel-
in-store-event-p1.html Retrieved 7th June 2008
http://www.champion.ie/
`http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/originalsss2009/content/#/lifestyle/full-length-film.
Retrieved on 2009-03-20.