Adidas is one of the top and most famous brands in footwear and sports market. It has seen major rise and fall in its market share. It was established in 1936, and considered as the oldest brand of footwear in the world. Even though, it is old but always try to bring new things and reflect to its new heart. It has faced tough competition from Nike in 1980s but very soon, it overcame and grab the market, by focusing on its marketing mix, and target youngsters and athletes (Adidas, 2018).
This article will laid great attention on marketing mix of Adidas, rather than focusing the subsidiary groups of Adidas.
Products in Marketing Mix of Adidas
Adidas owns four major subsidiary groups. The very first is started with its own name “Adidas”, which present footwear and clothes. The second one is “Reebok” that now has overtaken the Adidas, and currently the leading subsidiary among the whole group. The third is “Rockpot” that specialized and deals in outdoor footwear, accessories and apparels. The last is “Taylor”, and it deals in golfing equipment, clothes etc. Among all four, Reebok is the well-known, strongest and famous followed by Adidas (Bhasin, 2017).
Adidas has several products, and the main product is obviously footwear. Adidas make sure to introduce most comfortable footwear range with new style and designs, athletic and robust. However, Adidas’s secondary products are accessories and apparels. Apparels as jackets, T-shirts, shorts, sweatshirts etc., which are highly demanded by people. Adidas is powerful in the apparel category (Adidas, 2018).
The Adidas’s major aim is to provide the best and most comfortable footwear to its consumers, with the combination of design, technology and innovation. All these products are luxurious and not considered as need. In fact, customers buy Adidas, only to satisfy their desires and wants. In the same way, apparels reflect towards comfort with the heavy activities. However, its main target is towards sports, apparels are used for the style statement and some comfy clothes by youngsters (Business case studies, 2018).
Pricing in Marketing Mix of Adidas
Adidas is famous because of its designs, promotions and styles, and use price skimming along with the competitive pricing. To run the mill items and products, competitive pricing is used, by focusing on the competitors like Reebok, Puma and Nike. But, products that are newly launched in market with new and unique designs, skimming pricing strategy is used (Pratap, 2017).
Adidas apparels use the skimming pricing strategy constantly and process are relatively high because of brand equity in the market of apparels. The target consumers of Adidas are mostly upper-middle class, and also customers who can afford high end products. In fact, high prices helps in pointing towards the high quality approach psychologically, and consumer thinks that the high prices means the good quality. Hence, Adidas never drops its high prices (Business case studies, 2018).
Place in Marketing Mix of Adidas
The main way of Adidas selling its products are through their retail outlets. It has its personal exclusive stores, where all materials are provided by the company directly to the outlets. Adidas has many several brand showrooms, where all footwear and apparels are on display. Such showrooms collect the products form the distributors. Adidas also use the online mode of distribution. It sells products through the online medium like fashion stores, Myntra.com and its own website. Hence, distribution channel followed by Adidas are;
• Manufacturing-Adidas outlets- final consumer
• Manufacturing-distributor-multi-brand showrooms
• Manufacturing-online websites- final consumers
Because of the excellent and strong brand equity, operating margins of Adidas are high and keep the distribution channels satisfied and motivated. Satisfied distribution channels reflects to the good promotion (Pratap, 2017; Bhasin, 2017).
Promotion in Marketing Mix of Adidas
Adidas has the wide range of market to serve with different marketing vehicles, however, majority concentrates on the product placement and television advertisement. The creative staff of Adidas are famous for pumping the adrenaline in their consumers through advertisements, which are creative, well made and full of energy. Such ads attract consumers towards Adidas and communicate the right message (Business case studies, 2018).
Tagline of the Adidas is “Impossible is nothing”, as it is one of the powerful statement, reflecting the image of the brand. Product placement for Adidas is the later promotional line after television. Adidas is famous because of tying and collaborating with top players and athletes of the world like Lionel Messi, Sachin Tendulkar, Ronaldinho, David Beckham, etc. Adidas also engaged in other promotional activities like sponsoring teams, like France, Real Madrid, Britain in football, South Africa and England in cricket etc. It also conducted some outdoor activities and creative campaigns along with events for the marketing purpose. Trade promotions and sales promotions are regularly offered to its channel partners for promoting the brand across the globe (Bhasin, 2017). Hence, it concludes the Adidas’ marketing mix.
References
Adidas, 2018. About us. [Online], Available at: https://www.adidas.com/us, [Accessed on: 29th May, 2018].
Bhasi, H. 2017. Marketing Mix of Adidas. [Online], Available at: https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-adidas/, [Accessed on: 29th May, 2018].
Business case studies, 2018. Planning effective marketing strategies for a target audience
An adidas case study. [Online], Available at: https://businesscasestudies.co.uk/adidas/planning-effective-marketing-strategies-for-a-target-audience/the-marketing-mix.html, [Accessed on: 29th May, 2018].
Pratap, A. 2017. Adidas Marketing Mic. [Online], Available at: https://www.cheshnotes.com/2017/07/adidas-marketing-mix/, [Accessed on: 29th May, 2018].