Adidas Holdings and Sportswear Manufacturing

Adidas is sports apparel and accessories headquartered in Germany. Adidas is Europe’s largest sportswear manufacturer and ranks second after Nike. Adidas holdings comprised of many groups- Reebok sportswear company, Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology company, TaylorMade golf company and Bayern Munich, the football club (Adidas 2018). Ryan (2016) stated that digital marketing refers to the term of selling and marketing of products through a digital platform. Moreover, digital marketing activities illustrate the action of making promotion and selling of products through search engines, websites, social media, mobile application and e-mails (Adidas 2018). Digital marketing can be social media marketing, content marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), e-mail marketing, radio marketing and Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) (Adidas 2018). Adidas utilizes the approaches for social media marketing, content marketing and email marketing.

Adidas implements reach their users mainly through social media marketing. The social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube channel that is utilized by Adidas. The organization broadcasted their recent activities in terms of videos and pictures through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The twitter page of the Adidas contains the re-tweets of other Adidas brand accounts which allows all other Adidas companies to form altogether (Adidas 2018). Their twitter marketing and trending hashtags allow different athletes to come tether and share their stories with each other, which furthermore resulted in a strong customer base for the company.

In terms of their Facebook page, Adidas have a lot of brand channels each for their different sectors for their company that are- Adidas Originals, Adidas Football, Adidas Rugby, Adidas NEO Label, Adidas Basketball and Adidas Football US (Facebook 2018).

Through content marketing, Adidas always intends to represent their culture and content for advertising their brands. Adidas focuses on the how the athletic wear their company’s products define their culture in front of their potential audience (Facebook 2018). Digital media is volatile and thus in order to make the message of the company more convincible, company add values, ideas, convictions and behaviours for developing the most effective content. Adidas align internal and external messaging, utilizing the user’s most preferable perception for choosing words for the content of their advertising. Moreover, the online marketing department of the company focuses on the visual to share the accurate outcome from the companies to the users. Videos, blogs, and social media posts are highly utilized by Adidas so that more people get aware of their brands. Moreover, Adidas opted for the concept of story-asking rather than story telling and invite audiences to contribute the story of their experience that can provide relevance and authenticity to the stories that their advertisement has broadcasted till now. 

Overview of Digital Marketing

Adidas sent e-mails or formulated posts that are attractive that are easy to understand. The e-mail contained images and sent to all the users so that they can get ware of the recent offers and discounts currently going in their company. Addidas also provide multiple signup options like ‘newsletter signup’ and ‘email-only’. The signup also offers 15% off coupon and newsfeed of the exclusive promotions (Chaffey and Smith 2013). Once signed up, an automated welcome email is generated says “The Journey Starts Here” that triggers the sense of commitment of the brand with the user. There is a barcode or the subscribers that can be utilized by the users when they purchase from nay Adidas physical store. The prime benefits that the organization get from this approach is to identify all of their consumer’s shopping habits.

Adidas engage their audience through promotional events that help people to remember their activities and also allow them to build a strong relationship with the users. In the year 2017, Adidas invests financial resources to promote their brands by celebrity endorsements. Rising Star Josh Prenot, who is latest leading swimmer wear the adizero XVI, which is the fastest swimsuit ever (adidas NEWS STREAM 2018). Racing car driver, Carmen Jorda become the face to motivate women to push boundaries and seek out new challenges (adidas NEWS STREAM 2018). Adidas also collaborates with Amazon in order to reach people from all over the world. This will help people to remain engage with Adidas.

As mentioned earlier, Nike is the leading sports shoe manufacturer which is followed by Nike. This can be witnessed through the respective annual revenue for both of the organization and it shows that for the year 2016, Nike gained $19.87 U.S. million; while, Adidas incurred $10.68 U.S. million (Statista 2018). Moreover, for the year 2017, Nike and Adidas incurred $21.08 U.S. million and $10.36 U.S. million respectively (Statista 2018).

Furthermore, Adidas is preferred by 9 of the 24 teams, which make the count of 37% and they use their manufactured products (Nielsen Sports 2018). 25% of the team preferred Nike, 21% for Puma and 17% for other sports shoe manufacturer (Nielsen Sports 2018). Both of the brands catalogued superstars for endorsing their brand’s products (Nielsen Sports 2018).

One of the reasons for the high sale of the Nike shows than the Adidas is their great marketing contents, digital marketing of the sports shoes and updates alternatives for targeting the users through a digital platform (Nielsen Sports 2018).

Social Media Marketing Strategies

Nike utilizes the mobile marketing concepts and displays customised message for the people in order to attract them more. In this advertisement campaign, Nike showed their advertisement on the digital billboards that contain a number, which on dialled by the users, they get the opportunity to phone’s keypad to customize the on-screen shoe (Nielsen Sports 2018). Users can also get the opportunity to purchase the shoes that are designed by them.  

Nike also utilizes the concept of the merging real-world sports performance with the social marketing and digital marketing (Nielsen Sports 2018). This can be witnessed through their approach of giving runners the challenge to reach different checkpoints in the citywide to claim virtual badges for their stamina, endurance and speed.

Moreover, compared to Adidas, Nike wasn’t an official sponsor for the Olympics 2012 yet bought up hundreds of billboards and tube featuring for celebrating everyday athletes; however, Adidas spent tens of millions pounds for getting the official sponsorship of the Olympics 2012 (Nielsen Sports 2018). As a result, they got more noticeable during the time in Twitter. The tweets in the Twitter were 16,000 which is greater than the tweets received for Adidas that is only 9,295 (Nielsen Sports 2018).

 Furthermore, Nike leads the organization Adidas in the social media marketing activities and this can be witnessed through their Facebook analytics that represents that Nike has 42.2 million followers in Facebook while Adidas only has 21.8 million followers (Nielsen Sports 2018). The number of posts made by these two organization is similar that shows that Nike broadcasts 3 public posts per week which are 4 in case of Adidas (Nielsen Sports 2018). Adidas focuses both on the still photographs and videos that show their recent activities and represents that the company is associated 67% in posting videos and remaining 33% are videos (Nielsen Sports 2018). On the other hand Nike, focuses more on less time-consuming media which is the photograph and their post has 93% of photos and remaining 7% are the videos (Nielsen Sports 2018).

The user engagement per week for the Adidas post is 11,800; while it is 2,900 of the company Nike (Nielsen Sports 2018). The average engagement rate per Facebook post for Nike is 1,000; whereas, the number illustrates 2,900 in case of Adidas’ public Facebook posts (Nielsen Sports 2018). On the other hand, the twitter engagement also shows that Nike has more followers that are 4.6 million than Adidas which is 2.9 million (Nielsen Sports 2018). The changes in the followers are also greater in Nike compared to the Adidas which is 14,300 and 6,600 for the former and later respectively (Nielsen Sports 2018).

Content Marketing Strategies

Digital marketing activities also comprised of content marketing which refers to the fact how interesting and close to the user’s perception the post posted by the company (Holliman and Rowley 2014). Nike has greater followers as they continuously make aware of their recent activities and initiatives regarding their new launching, social activities and advertisements. Nike makes 28 tweets per week; while Adidas make 18 posts per week (Nielsen Sports 2018). The average engagement per tweet is 1700 which is greater than the count of 635 which is the average engagement per tweet (Nielsen Sports 2018).

Hansen and Sia (2015) stated that if an organization needs to become more successful they have to consider all the ways through which their customers are connected to them. Taken for instance, customers can connect with the organization through physical stores, online websites, mobile application, virtual catalogues and social media. Thus, marketing products through all the media through which the company can set connection with their users are known as Omni-channel marketing. Moreover, the Omni channel campaign refers to the case, when consumers can engage with the company and get seamless experience through different modes (Verhoef, Kannan and Inman 2015).

The concerned organization should develop a mobile application through which users can filter their choice and make a purchase for their desired items.

Adidas does not have any individual mobile application that allows their user to search for Adidas products easily. However, Adidas products are available in other application like “Top Sportswear Shopping” application present in Google Play Store. Thus, the organization needs to identify the products that are always high in demands from users. The options for filtering the choices, like gender, color, materials of the shoes and features should also be incorporated.

The target user of this application is the athletes and especially the younger generation people, who focus more on brands and style. The age group apart from the athletes in this case will be 16 years to 45-year group. This will help Adidas to work on the background color of the application and developing categorized page view. Adidas need to look for coverage, device support, hardware performance, space required to store in the mobile phones, battery life and ruggedness.

Adidas should emphasize on keeping the initial costs of development down. This can be obtained by removing all the add-on features like the 360º view, 3D view and animation of the texts related to the promotions for the brands. This can be added later as an update to the application developed by the team. Initially, the filtering feature and information about the availability of the products should be present.

Email Marketing Strategies

Taking consultancy from a company that has great design talent is beneficial for Adidas as it allows them to identify the recent trends that customers like in a mobile application. Moreover, initially, the project for developing the application can be given to a third party provider as they can utilize their best knowledge base to develop an application.

Analytics helps an organization to identify the ongoing demands and search options that users often search. Adidas can also formulate a team that can prepare the report from Google Analytics results. This will help the developers to identify crucial aspects that need to be included in the mobile application.

Adidas should focus on UI design, multi-touch gestures and platform design standards while developing a mobile application. The application contains automated update options and pop-up recent and on-going offers and discounts on the notification tab of the users, who download the mobile application. Once the mobile application gets launched, ask for feedback for making improvements in the developed application and then include them as later update for the application.

Access new customers through e-mails- Some people do not open e-mails that are related to market promotion or purchasing a product. Thus, Adidas can target those, who failed to open the e-mail and sent them to email with completely new email subject to identify in which mail content they respond.

Update the content in all the digital platform- Users always rely on the new recent news as it gives then the assurance that the organizations are also concerned about their brand presence and validity of the data they published. Updation of the information when searched by users, they give more time to read the ongoing process and offers. Thus, Adidas can broadcast Facebook and Twitter posts regularly, write blog feed pages like 300 blogs per month so that the company details can remain on the first page of the Google search.

Aligning search intent to content upgrades- Adidas can list down those pages where the user traffic is more. This allows the organization to identify the things that people prefer more and like more so that the company can develop more content related to those products.

Products innovation- Adidas can innovate new products like smart shoes for the athletes that can count the steps of the person and count the calories burnt. These innovations help the users to remain associated with the organization.

Promotional Events and Collaborations

Offer them gift coupons and discount- People like offers and discount to purchase from the shops and they will also promote the brand through word of mouth if they find authenticity in the offers. Thus, happy customers promote the brand effectively.

Effective communications calendar- Adidas can send “thank you’s”, cards or notes with a personal message on it so that people can sense being valued by the company which will help the company to retain their users.  

Option for giving feedback- Adidas should incorporate feedback section to all the digital platforms that are utilized by the company. Even the mobile applications should also have an option to report the problem to the customer care support team. This will help the organization to identify the exact concern regarding the products and services.  

Options for sharing public posts to the digital channel- Users should also allow uploading videos and images as in recent times; people focus more on visuals. The other people also get the ideas regarding the products from the experienced users. Adidas on the other hand can develop a chat support system where one user can chat with other users and ask about the products details and quality in details.

Utilize analytic tool- Google Analytics can be utilized by Adidas so that more accurate details about the user’s requirement can be obtained. A separate team can be formulated for highlighting the mostly searched item of the company and features available in the products.

Promoting the offline event online- Events like sports events, charity events and press conferences cannot be occurred through online media. Thus, the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube can be used as a medium through which the videos and images of the events and posters can be shared. In this way, people will know what are the upcoming activities that the organization is planning to conduct.

Provide offline sale online- Apart from promoting the activities through online media, offer exact or more sales and discount online will allow Adidas to engage more people and users. Adidas can also create events like share pictures and feedback regarding the new purchase they have bought so that the user can get personalized treatment from the company.

Detailed knowledge of the Audience- In some case, marketers develop products that they feel to be included in the new production unit (Kaufman and Horton 2014). Thus the ethics of knowing audiences preferences, interests and choices by having complete psychographic and demographic perspective is required by the concerned organization.

Comparison with Competitor Nike

Avoidance of biasness- Adidas need to focus on the aspects that are related to politics, sensitive community issues and highlight disability of people as they are associated with sports. Thus, the concerned organization need to avoid these aspects otherwise the company have to face issues regarding brand reputations.

Avoiding comprising on piracy issues- Adidas need to formulate each content of their campaign from new and can also hire team to write content so that piracy can be avoided related to the content.

Maintaining user privacy- People buy products through online and also make payments through online sites. In some cases, they also sign in to their social media through their website. Thus, maintaining the database of the users is crucial.

Maintaining Transparency- Adidas need to speak the truth related to their annual revenue, endorsement of the product, number of new users and the positive and negative response related to the business operations.

Reference List and Bibliography 

Adidas NEWS STREAM., 2018. Carmen Jorda Unveiled as latest Face of adidas by Stella McCartney. [online] Available at: https://news.adidas.com/us/Athletes-And-Ambassadors/ALL/carmen-jorda-unveiled-as-latest-face-of-adidas-by-stella-mccartney/s/5ef37e2b-4dc8-4ecb-a72a-828a3b7bc205 [Accessed 15 May 2018].

Adidas NEWS STREAM., 2018. Rising Star Josh Prenot joins Team adidas. [online] Available at: https://news.adidas.com/us/Athletes-And-Ambassadors/ALL/rising-star-josh-prenot-joins-team-adidas/s/2992602b-ac90-4333-8645-63e2539ed44a [Accessed 15 May 2018].

Adidas., 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.adidas.com/us [Accessed 15 May 2018].

Baltes, L.P., 2015. Content marketing-the fundamental tool of digital marketing. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov. Economic Sciences. Series V, 8(2), p.111.

Chaffey, D. and Patron, M., 2012. From web analytics to digital marketing optimization: Increasing the commercial value of digital analytics. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 14(1), pp.30-45.

Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R., 2013. eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. Routledge.

Daj, A., Samoil?, C. and Ursu?iu, D., 2012, July. Digital marketing and regulatory challenges of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Communications. In Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation (REV), 2012 9th International Conference on(pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Facebook., 2018. adidas. [online] Available at: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/success/adidas [Accessed 15 May 2018].

Frazer, M. and Stiehler, B.E., 2014, January. Omnichannel retailing: The merging of the online and off-line environment. In Global Conference on Business & Finance Proceedings(Vol. 9, No. 1, p. 655). Institute for Business & Finance Research.

Frick, T., 2013. Return on engagement: content, strategy and design techniques for digital marketing. Focal Press.

Hansen, R. and Sia, S.K., 2015. Hummel’s Digital Transformation Toward Omnichannel Retailing: Key Lessons Learned. MIS Quarterly Executive, 14(2).

Holliman, G. and Rowley, J., 2014. Business to business digital content marketing: marketers’ perceptions of best practice. Journal of research in interactive marketing, 8(4), pp.269-293.

Järvinen, J., Tollinen, A., Karjaluoto, H. and Jayawardhena, C., 2012. DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING USAGE IN B2B INDUSTRIAL SECTION. Marketing Management Journal, 22(2).

Kannan, P.K., 2017. Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), pp.22-45.

Kaufman, I. and Horton, C., 2014. Digital marketing: Integrating strategy and tactics with values, a guidebook for executives, managers, and students. Routledge.

Kelly, B., Vandevijvere, S., Freeman, B. and Jenkin, G., 2015. New media but same old tricks: food marketing to children in the digital age. Current obesity reports, 4(1), pp.37-45.

Lamberton, C. and Stephen, A.T., 2016. A thematic exploration of digital, social media, and mobile marketing: Research evolution from 2000 to 2015 and an agenda for future inquiry. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), pp.146-172.

Montgomery, K.C., Chester, J., Grier, S.A. and Dorfman, L., 2012. The new threat of digital marketing. Pediatric Clinics, 59(3), pp.659-675.

Nielsen Sports., 2018. Battle of the Brands: Nike vs. adidas | Nielsen Sports. [online] Available at: https://nielsensports.com/nike-vs-adidas/ [Accessed 15 May 2018].

Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.

Salehi, M., Mirzaei, H., Aghaei, M. and Abyari, M., 2012. Dissimilarity of E-marketing VS traditional marketing. International journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 2(1), p.510.

Statista., 2018. Footwear / shoe revenue Nike, Adidas & Puma 2010-2017 | Statistic. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278834/revenue-nike-adidas-puma-footwear-segment/ [Accessed 15 May 2018].

Stone, M.D. and Woodcock, N.D., 2014. Interactive, direct and digital marketing: A future that depends on better use of business intelligence. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 8(1), pp.4-17.

Twitter.com., 2018. adidas (@adidas) | Twitter. [online] Available at: https://twitter.com/adidas [Accessed 15 May 2018].

Verhoef, P.C., Kannan, P.K. and Inman, J.J., 2015. From multi-channel retailing to omni-channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of retailing, 91(2), pp.174-181.