E-Marketing Case Study #2 (Adidas) -- Question 1

1. What is Adidas’ position in the athletic shoe market? How does the brand seem to be doing in this market?

Ans:

While Nike is the global leader in athletic shoe market, Adidas is nothing more than the second place in that market because it started its business in the field of soccer shoe market. So, Adidas could not handle the whole athletic shoe market. Later on, Adidas wanted to expand its capability on the shoe market. In order to satisfy the market’s need in depth, Adidas also went for the basketball market.

However, Adidas found that marketing is much more important because shoe is in the “shopping goods” category. It means that products from different brands have high homogeneity. Adidas must have a good marketing strategy if they don’t want to be in a price war. So, Adidas outsources its production and focus on marketing in the 1990s.

In the marketing process, Adidas launched several campaigns and we are going to show you briefly in the following table:

Timeframe	Adidas’ major turning points
1995	Campaign for soccer footwear leader
1998	Focus on U.S. market
2002	“Colours” campaign in Sweden
2003	“Living Billboard” in Japan
2003	“Vertical Soccer Field” campaign
2004	T-MAC4: The first laceless basketball shoes
2004	“Impossible is Nothing” campaign “R2L”campaign
2005	15~25% of total marketing budget on new media
Others	Partnered with MTV
--	“Match Centre” campaign
--	“Respect M.E.” campaign

On the other hand, we want to give Adidas some suggestions in the future.

First of all, Nike is the strongest competitor to Adidas as we know. Second, Nike’s capital capability is also huge. So, it’s certainly foolish for Adidas to compete with Nike in a price war. We concluded a few differences of the characteristics between Adidas and Nike in the following table.

	Adidas	Nike
Involved Area	Focus	Broader
Style	Fashion & Casual Exercise Type	Comfortable Sport Type

According to the above analysis, Adidas can try to differentiate itself from Nike with different aspects:

· Cooperate with reference groups: Adidas can sponsor some sport stars and launch some limited edition products related to those sport stars.

· Cooperate with famous designers: Adidas can cooperate with famous designers to establish new product-line which can magnify its fashion and casual style.

· Change the traditional image of sport: Traditional image of sport is sweatiness and smell. Adidas need to establish a positive or even beautiful image for exercise, to attract youth and female in particular.