How is Adidas different from its competitors | Adidas Marketing Strategy

Pratyusha Srivastava Pratyusha Srivastava
Oct 23, 2021 7 min read
How is Adidas different from its competitors | Adidas Marketing Strategy

Adidas, the second-largest sportswear manufacturer in the world, is a German Multinational corporation founded by Adoft Dassler. Adidas is mainly a sportswear manufacturer with the categories of clothing, shoes and other accessories.

Looking at some beginning of Adidas, it was started in a house owned by Adolf's mother in 1924. Later, Adolf's elder brother, Rudolf also joined him and they named it "Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik" which simply means Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory.

A few years later, because of some major conflict between the brothers, the company split and Adolf created Adidas, while his brother created the biggest rival of Adidas- Puma. Sounds interesting, right?

Adidas is widely known as the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe but on a global basis, it is beaten by Nike. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, Adidas has its chairman as Thomas Rabe and current CEO as Kasper Rørsted. The brand manufactures the product category of footwear, sportswear, Apparel, equipment, and toiletries.

We all have heard a lot of things about Adidas, but the marketing strategies of the brand are known by very few. Adidas is brilliant when it comes to marketing and no doubt, the company has established one of the strongest positions in the global market. Moving forward, let's get started with the marketing strategies of Adidas.

Marketing strategy of Adidas
Key takeaways from Adidas Marketing Strategy
STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) of Adidas
Major Marketing Campaigns of Adidas
Covid-19 Marketing Strategy
FAQ

Marketing strategy of Adidas

Adidas's marketing strategy is what makes it the best among all. Adidas is known to have the strongest establishment in the global market of Sportswear manufacturing, other than its American rival- Nike.

We have briefly discussed all the aspects of the marketing strategy of Adidas, which are mentioned right below. Adidas has built up such great competition for the companies in the market which has left them with the only choice to stand out of the race.

Before we get started with the key marketing strategies of Adidas, let us brief you about the brand portfolio of Adidas which contains Reebok, Rockport, Adidas and Taylor. The main reason for such distribution is to target different segments of the audience more efficiently.

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SEO Strategy of Adidas

Adidas follows a very straightforward and encompassing approach towards the implementation of SEO. The head of global SEO and social media manager of Adidas, Mattia Santin, said in an interview that Adidas SEO team focuses more on flexibility, especially when it comes to analytical, alongside various white-hat SEO principles.

The team mainly focuses on data and targeting personas that help in guaranteeing the expected results and ensuring that the changes are profitable.

Social media strategy

Adidas Instagram
Adidas Instagram

When it comes to social media, Adidas and groups are pretty active, especially on Facebook and YouTube channels. On these platforms, the brand posts promotional videos of its latest products and services.

Apart from this, the brand has various active accounts on Twitter as well, such as Adidas football, Adidas original and Adidas US. Through these, the brand connects with its fans and followers more efficiently.

Adidas works on building strong energy in the audience towards Sports and athletes.

Email Marketing

Adidas uses the technology of ECS for the email marketing program, which started in October 2020.

With ESC, Adidas optimises its email features in order to reach millions of subscribers across the globe.

Adidas Strategy of Limited Supply

One of the most incredible marketing strategies of Adidas is a limited supply. Basically, the brand limits the availability of its most famous shoes like Stan Smith and Superstar, in order to increase the demand among the audience. This benefits the brand with great numbers and prices.

Adidas Superstar and Stan Smith
Adidas Superstar and Stan Smith

We all know that when there is a limited supply, its price automatically goes up and Adidas masters this economic rule. This also helps Adidas' merchandise margins which have grown significantly.

Meme Marketing

Adidas is not behind in meme marketing as well. In fact, the brand has developed its very own riff on the famous "Thug Life" meme. This has become a social-driven campaign for Adidas.

Adidas leaves nothing when it comes to charming the football fans and with its incredible campaigns and meme ideas, the brand always proves its superiority.

Adidas has been known to create one of the most viral memes of the moment for showing off the Ace PureControl football boots which are absolutely laceless.

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Key Takeaway from Adidas Marketing Strategy

With its incredible marketing strategies, Adidas results in great numbers and sales. The most distinctive strategy that Adidas opt for is user & benefits based positioning. Through this, it builds a strong and distinct image of its products among the minds of consumers.

The unique selling point of Adidas is developing such light-weighted and comfortable sports apparel that the other competitors could not manufacture. Based on this, Adidas customers put deep trust and value to its products and services, hence the brand expands on a wider scale.

STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) of Adidas

STP stands for Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning. We have briefly described these right below:

Segmentation

Segmentation is basically the process of dividing the mass market of the company into various groups of similar categories. This helps in knowing the customers more effectively and to obtain a competitive advantage in the market.

Adidas uses various levels of tactics of Segmentation marketing that helps the brand to distribute the large market into small customers groups and focus separately.

Targeting

Targeting is the next step of Segmentation, where the brand distinguishes the market segment that they want to focus on and build their strategy according to that.

Adidas mainly selects the segment based on size & growth, structural attractiveness and objectives and resources, to drive its marketing strategy, activities and sales.

Positioning

The last step in the process is Positioning, where the company designs the marketing program to resound the target market. Adidas in this case portrays itself as a Creator Sports Brand.

Major Marketing Campaigns of Adidas

Adidas develops some very distinct and amazing campaigns for all sports lovers. Its most recent one is the "Impossible is Nothing" campaign. The brand stands with a very comprehensive marketing perspective with this campaign.

Adidas features tons of prominent athletes and honourable personalities from all around the world in its campaign. The brand uses these in a very documented form of manner where they basically show the journeys of these individuals from nothing to everything.

Covid-19 Marketing Strategy

At the very beginning of Covid-19, brands like Adidas and Nike reduced the hiring of people across landscapes. Adidas reduced it by around 40% by March 2020. But soon after one month, in May, Adidas started hiring again as the brand received great data and analytics numbers.

Adidas enhanced its direct-to-consumer abilities by repositioning 700 jobs around different segments of E-commerce. This basically showed how Adidas raced to drive more sales through very successful digital shopping.

Apart from this, Adidas collaborated with many prominent artists such as Kanye West and Beyonce for launching its newest models.

Adidas and Kanye West Collaboration
Adidas and Kanye West Collaboration

Adidas opted for a very distinct yet profitable strategy to deal with the Covid-19 situation.

Conclusion

Adidas is working with great efficiency to build its company the best sports brand across the world, regardless of how competitive the environment gets around it. The brand is using various strategies and tactics such as vigorous manufacturing, digital platforms, technology, innovation, collaboration and many others. Through these, Adidas is moving towards a greater height.

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FAQ

What is the brand strategy of Adidas?

Adidas focuses on three main strategy pillars: speed, urbanization, and creative innovation.

What is Adidas pricing strategy?

Adidas employs high low pricing strategy. They generally keep prices higher than the competitors but the company uses promotional discounts to offer lower prices and attract consumers.

Who are Adidas main customers?

Adidas targets customers of upper middle class/ high end customers.

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