Adidas new promotional campaign
Adidas and Reebok, two of the most respectable and recognized sporting goods brands worldwide merged in the year 2006 in order to compete with the giant of the industry Nike. This merger took place in order to give Adidas better bargaining power, better positioning, promotion, wider range of products and a stronger presence in the market. However the two brands needed to complement each other in order to make this takeover successful and challenge for Nike because separately they had a smaller market niche.
Adidas is popular in running and basket ball whereas Reebok is preferred more on the fashion side. The takeover was expected to give Adidas 28% market share in the world sporting goods market somewhat close to the 31% of the market leader Nike (Adidas, n. d. ). Adidas wanted to strengthen in the US market but its decision of talking over Reebok did not prove to be fruitful because the sales for Reebok saw a decline after the takeover which brought Adidas back to from where it started. Adidas is therefore planning to reposition the brand in order to bring the lost consumers back.
THE 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS Adidas wanted a turnover and repositioning for its brand and the summer Olympics provided it with a platform to do so. It became one of the major sponsors for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. However this required the brand to create thorough brand awareness along with effective promotional strategies and communication across China. This was going to be Adidas largest marketing effort on a single country. They launched their official campaign on 1 Dec 2007 in China (Adidas, n. d. ).
It launched its new “In 2008 impossible is nothing” promotional campaign before the Beijing summer Olympics. This campaign was done with beautiful print ads and a spot “together” which focused more on Chinese athletes. The campaign promoted the cultural sincerity compared to the typical Olympic advertising. Adidas came up with the official suit design for the Chinese team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This was for all the Chinese winners who would wear the adidas suit and go up there on the platform to receive their medals .
Adidas wanted to be part of the proudest moment of these winners. The launching of this suit design was another phase of Adidas promotional campaign; the brand had already made a market presence before the eight months of the Olympics (Hisrich, 2000). It was reinforcing its image as the key sports brand which was linked with the 2008 summer Olympics. Adidas was using above the line advertising to promote its campaign. Wider media coverage was used by the company in order to display the presentation suit.
There were print ads, displays, building wraps and prints on the newspapers around the cities. The goal for this campaign was to engage customers in activities that reinforce the adidas image and values as a brand that is of high quality and at the same time fun. It wanted to reposition and make it memorable for the customers. Therefore Adidas invested in the street experience Zone for this reason with the help of SYMA Innovation which designed the experience Zone along with TBWA. This included outdoor sports games and activities, photos with popular sports celebrities and so on.
This project was a success because it got over whelming response from the people who had to wait in long queues to access the booth where these activities were taking place (Kotler, 1997). Moreover SYMA did its work well it also provided Adidas with added information about its customers who visited the booth and carried out a survey for Adidas which is beneficial for the future marketing and strategy formulation of the brand. With the success of this campaign it was carried out in other major cities of China too apart from Beijing. Adidas took an active involvement in the campaigning as the official partner for the Olympics.
Through the website it invited people who were photographed with their heroes and celebrities. These pictures were formed in a flipbook and mounted in the stadium background on a magazine. This conveyed their brand idea that people support is what makes a great athlete. The Adidas group also responded to the dream to Darfur campaign which worked for the humanitarian and civilian rights pertaining to the Chinese government (Kaynak, 1993). CONCLUSION Considering the success of the campaign and the over all response that it got from the people, it shows that it will bring success to Adidas.
The brand has shown its active involvement and had come up with consistent strategies through out which are effective and have been helpful in promoting the brand and making its presence felt in the Olympic Games. It will create public attention and increase the awareness and reposition the brand because Olympic Games are one of the most awaited sporting events and are watched worldwide. However the brand should not limit its positional strategy only to China but should have a wider scope this could be through other means such as television ads or print media at other places across the world too.
But hopefully the over all work, marketing effort and dedication of Adidas group will bring success to the brand in the long run. References: Adidas. (n. d. )About Adidas. Retrived on March 16, 2009 from http://www. press. adidas. com/en/DesktopDefault. aspx/tabid-28/41_read-113/ Hisrich, R D. (2000), Marketing. Barron’s Educational Series Kaynak, E (1993). The Global Business: Four Key Marketing Strategies. Haworth Press Kotler, P (1997). Marketing Management: analysis, planning, implementation and control. Prentice Hall
