Adidas Market Segmentation

Adidas Adidas AG (German pronunciation: [ˈadiˌdas]) (stylized as ɑdidɑs) is a German multinational corporation that designs and manufactures sports shoes, clothing and accessories headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe and the second biggest in the world. It is the holding company for the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company (including Ashworth), 9.1% of FC Bayern Munich and Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology company. Adidas revenue for 2012 was listed at €14.88 billion.[2] Adidas was registered on 18 August 1949 by Adolf Dassler, following a family feud at the Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik company between him and his older brother Rudolf. Rudolf had earlier established Puma, which quickly became the business rival of Adidas and is also headquartered in Herzogenaurach. The company's clothing and shoe designs typically feature three parallel bars, and the same motif is incorporated into Adidas's current official logo. The brand name is appropriately uncapitalized, with a lower case "a".

Marketing strategy of Adidas Adidas employs more than 53,731 people in over 160 countries produce more than 660 million product units every year and generate sales of € 14.5 billion (all figures relate to 2014). These numbers alone can easily suggest that Adidas Group is quite a complex organisation. True. But they keep things simple, lean and fast.

Segmentation, targeting, positioning in the Marketing strategy of Adidas – Biggest sportswear manufacturer of Europe & one of the biggest in the world, Adidas is segmented based on demographic, psychographic & behavioural factors. The Adidas group has four brands in its strong portfolio – Reebok, Adidas, Rockport & taylor made meant for different segment customer groups. Adidas uses differentiated targeting

strategy to target young adults, adults as well as children who have passion for fitness & sports. Although it targets customers in the age group of 13-40 years but majority of its customers are of 15-30 years of age who hail from upper middle class or the luxury class of customers. User & benefit based positioning are the strategies Adidas uses to create distinctive image in the mind of the prospective consumer. By emphasizing the value of quality products from a trusted brand Adidas is able to maintain its brand essence. The portfolio is divided as follows.  They have Adidas-performance in Competitive sports,  Reebok & Reebok classics in Active sports & casual sports, &  Adidas originals, Adidas Fun, Rockport in Sports fashion.

Mission in the Marketing strategy of Adidas – “The Adidas Group strives to be the global leader in the sporting goods industry with brands built on a passion for sports and a sporting lifestyle. We are committed to continuously strengthening our brands and products to improve our competitive position”.

Competitive advantage in the Marketing strategy of Adidas – One of the few competitive advantages that Adidas has is its distribution network, its product quality and its brand equity. Globally it has 2400 stores accounting $4.3 billion business (2014 data). In order to associate itself with the community it has sponsored many world sport events such as FIFA, UEFA, NBA, Cricket & Olympics. At the same time, over the years Adidas has been known to give the best products in the market which are always comfortable, beyond normal and long lasting. Strong relationship with the organizations such as International Labour organization, International Finance Corporation has given the company edge over competitors for a sustainable business.

Distribution strategy in the Marketing strategy of Adidas – As the consumer environment becomes even more dynamic with trends quickly changing, Adidas is also increasing its focus on anticipating these changes and responding with speed. They had aligned their sales with distribution strategy to enable and propel a heightened consumer-centric

Omni-channel mind-set. After analysing the purchase process of their customers, they came to conclusion that the interactive experience and the availability, convenience and the size of the product offerings plays a major role in a successful distribution strategy. In order to expand their distribution system they made the products available through Exclusive stores (franchise model), Co-branded stores who source it from C & N and distributors.

Branding Adidas is the closest company to Nike in terms of marketing strategy. The company focuses heavily on soccer and has a wide variety of apparel and accessories. They have struggled in the basketball space. Their top two sponsored players, Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard, have seen drastic decrease in performance over the past few years. When they were initially signed, both of these players were arguably in the top 5 best players in the NBA. After many injuries and disappointing seasons, people in the basketball community do not look fondly on adidas basketball shoes as they correlate the injuries of these two superstars to the footwear and accessories they wear. It seems that adidas has pulled back much of their marketing efforts in the sport of basketball. Adidas has moved outside of the sports market with the development of a new shoe that is made almost entirely from ocean plastic. They hope to attract a new target market with this product – “green” consumers. They also have discussed plans of opening a new factory in Detroit to bring new jobs to the city. They hope to use the projects to win hearts and minds of the people in that part of the country and hopefully influence them to buy from them.

C0nsumer Segmentation Standing as one of the most versatile companies in the world Adidas is not subjected to limited markets of any kind. Big enough to have a web of readily available products eagerly anticipating the attack of our marketing mix. Adidas has its hand on almost every person on the planet as far as potential consumers; producing products that fit almost every demographic possible. Adidas takes a very cerebral approach to who their target market is and how it is marketed to them.

Adidas uses common strategies for segmenting various markets. From a geographical standpoint Adidas uses a tactic referred to as geographic marketing. Geographic marketing allows Adidas to market specific products to certain places throughout the world. For example Adidas soccer cleat commercials and ads are seen more in europe as opposed to america because soccer isn't as popular or as publicized in The United States as european and other external countries. The most successful and most applied segmentation strategy used has been psychographic segmentation, which appeals to our personalities, attitudes, motives, and even our lifestyles. For Adidas to aim is to not only appeal to the younger generation but even to baby boomers as well. With the use of demographic variables such as age and loaction Adidas is able to segment their approach to different target markets with ease. Age segmentation is crucially important as it allows Adidas to market products to people of the right age group. Like most active and performance gear brands emphasis is mainly placed on marketing to the younger generation as individuals who are younger tend to be more increasingly active then people of older age. Adidas seems to have gender somewhat evenly marketed, the only thing that may tip the scale is that adidas' mainstream sporting products are made and marketed for a male dominated crowd, I wonder what made them believe that women dont like football,baseball and basketball too.