E-Marketing Case Study #2 (Adidas) -- Question 2

2. What evidence does Adidas have that suggests the importance and potential success of digital interactive and mobile marketing?

Ans:

In this question, we try to answer this problem from two points of view.

The first point of view mainly provides evidences in the case. Adidas’s media campaign were designed to follow 3 steps: impact, involvement and activation, it tried hard to keep the track on the advantages of the fad of Internet, cell phone, 3G cellular telephony, Hip-pop etc, so that it can provide brand image beyond text messages, like ring-tones, wallpaper, video games, new products, sports news, living sport match scores…..

 

Event No.	Evidences from the case
1	In 2002, Adidas’s first attempt to interactive mobile marketing was in Sweden, with a campaign called “Colours”, using very simple banners and wallpapers for downloading phone wallpaper with Adidas logo.    This campaign leaded to huge access.
2	Another pilot involved a ring tone program in UK, with a small fee, which resulted in 6,000,000 downloads.
3	Adidas envisioned its own broadband channel that could be accessed through an Adidas icon.  Users could then enter a virtual “Adidas World”.
4	Adidas hired a software development firm to create an arcade-style soccer game applet that could be downloaded for a fee of ￡1.99.
5	In early 2004, Adidas took over the Yahoo portal to promote “Impossible is Nothing” campaign with famous boxing star, Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali.
6	Adidas adopted an “Opt-in” policy, users had to request, for all Internet and mobile advertising.
7	Adidas envisioned a platform that would allow users to manage a variety of fitness and sports programs through PMG.
8	Adidas divided the mobile contents into 3 tiers, based on production cost and user value, which were free content, cost-plus content charged small fee and fee-based content.
9	Adidas announced its mobile marketing initiative to regional subsidiaries, America Adidas.
10	Because technology varied from region to region and regional tastes were different, Adidas partnered with MTV.
11	Adidas sought methods that gave customers a “hook”, and then relied on viral marketing to convince others to use the service or product.
12	Adidas sponsored European Cup in 2004 with “Road to Lisbon” (R2L) campaign, featuring 13 of European greatest soccer stars by a short film.  The company also invested heavily in TV ads, complemented by an Internet site from the mobile component.  Adidas sent out “scooter squads” to other areas of Lisbon to remind people of the campaign. As a result: i.               Sold the relevant products 2.5million units. ii.              In the first month, 10,000 ring-tones were downloaded. iii.            Adidas created its Euro 2004 Java ticker applet, which could be downloaded to cellular phones and offered real-time score for the championship matches.  The applet could be downloaded to 2.5G phones at of ￡5.0 for 2 month.  The company had more than 63,000 subscribers. iv.            With R2L, Adidas was testing the waters to see what could be achieved on mobile devices.
13	A second-generation program called “Match Centre” provided up-to-date regional league scores for 5 countries leagues.  It appeared to be very popular among soccer fans.
14	Adidas worked with cellular phone manufacturers to include features important to its target market, and had to develop appealing add on content, such as sport tickers, games and ring-tones.
15	Adidas incorporated with Missy Elliot to created “Respect M.E.” and successfully attracted consumers to advertise it on various blogging sites.

 

 

The second point of view is mainly about some implications about the importance and potential of the digital interactive and mobile marketing.

 

No.	Implications
1	Very low cost.
2	Inefficiency in magazine ads and TV ads because of video recorder.
3	Adidas can make use of “Viral Marketing” which is very efficient.
4	Mobile became a common and private stuff, so people keep online on its marketing channel 24 hours/day and 7days/week.
5	Its target audience in the range of 12~24-year-old have great potential in involving in the mobile market 2.5G or 3G generation. It can reach most of those people comparing with the traditional one in the future.
6	Many manipulations can be done to achieve interactive marketing. So, Adidas can get the consumers more involved in the marketing process.    e.g. Adidas QR tagging (Reference)
7	Adidas can take advantage of “time” and “place” because shopping is a certain extent of impulsive buying behavior.   e.g. According to the classic ads method such as TV ads, people are normally at home when they saw an ad. By mobile, people maybe right at the street. So they may be triggered to do the consumption.

 

** Reference:

Adidas QR Tagging. QR codes, which turn your phone into a bar code scanner, are everywhere in Japan and Korea. Adidas used these codes on retail merchandise tags and clothing imprints. Potential customers could take a photo of the color code on a sleeve, and the handset would then load up the manufacturer's WAP site. Over the course of the test run, 60,000 people participated in the Korean Adidas program, and Adidas had over 2,000,000 page views. (Note: It's up to carriers as to when this technology becomes available in the US.)