Marketing Segmentation of Adidas Essay

| According to the text, market segmentation is defined as identifying groups of consumers based on their common needs.Answer

There are many sport apparel companies that exist throughout the world such as but not limited to Nike, Reebok, Under Armour and Puma. Adidas is a prime example of a famous global company that is continuously growing. Athletes endorse in these sporting apparel companies because these companies resemble fitness and a lifestyle of sport. Adidas products can be most department stores such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, Academy Sports, and Champs. The target audience is for athletes in high performance. The adidas company is very successful in their financial status and this report will analyze the company’s overall financial and performance status.

There is intense competition faced by Nike. Their competitors are Adidas, Reebok, Puma, and so forth, whilst competition is tighter with the coming of Adidas. More, the product line is slightly different between Nike and Adidas.

At Adidas “impossible is nothing”. Their mission to be the best sports company in the world along with their ability to embrace breakthrough technologies and deliver superior innovative products is a testament to that fact. This paper will focus on how Adidas is leading the disruption in the field of sports apparel and will continue doing so in the years to come. “Creating the new” is the motto of their new strategic business plan until 2020. Adidas believes that through sports they have the power to change and impact lives. To achieve this Adidas has successfully orchestrated the process of automating shoe manufacturing by establishing Speedfactories. Innovation is the essence of the company which has been demonstrated by the creation of concept sneakers like the Futurecraft 4D. Their phenomenal study and understanding of the current market and strategic technology trends can be substantiated from their collaboration with Silicon Valley based 3D printing startup, Carbon. Adidas is so deeply committed to innovation to provide their customers a fulfilling experience that they are light years ahead of their competitors. They have been successful in leveraging AI, data analytics, big data and machine learning to add value to their products. This establishes the fact as to why Adidas features in the smartest 50 companies list of 2017. Their proclivity towards innovation and consumer centric products directly aligns with Vijay Govindarajan’s 3 box principle thus

Companies like Under Armour, Nike and Adidas/Reebok have high threats of substitute´s products. These companies share the sport apparel industry and are vulnerable to competitive pressure from the actions of buyers whenever they view that their products can be substituted for others. The availability of substitutes invites the costumer to compare performance, features, and ease of use as well as price. Under Armour’s major competitors are Nike and Adidas/Reebok because they have a similar or competing product offerings. The top sport apparel brands offer similar products and that is why each one of them needs to keep a high standard and produce good quality products in order for customers to keep buying their product.

According to Horner and Swarbrooke (2005: 39), Segmentation may be defined as the process of dividing a whole market into subgroups or segments for marketing management purposes. Market segmentation is the division of the overall market for a service into various categories with common characteristics. In response to different segments, organisations facilitate the available resources to achieve greater efficiency, in order to satisfy specific needs of customers.

Market segmentation: The process of dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who might require separate production or marketing mixes (Wells, Burnett, & Moriarty, 2006).

Market segmentation is a marketing strategy that involves dividing a broad target market into subsets of consumers who have common needs and applications

One of these techniques includes name dropping. Just like Nike, Adidas uses many different celebrities when advertising their products. Adidas uses a whole range of celebrities from Kendall Jenner to David Beckham. This technique is called name dropping. This persuades the buyer to buy this product because many new and famous celebrities use it too. Also, Adidas uses an advertising technique called covert advertising. This is when they portray their product on media. Such as, movies, tv shows, and social media. And example is the movie Beverly Hills Cop and many different Adidas instagram accounts that they keep in touch with Adidas fans all around the world. However, when Nike uses their advertising techniques, they use an exaggeration technique to make people think that just by wearing their shoes that it will make them run faster than before. This makes people fall for it because they makes it seem like it is the best shoe out there for running. Also, another difference is that Nike uses emotional branding, which is when they use emotion to advertise their product. For example, they do this by playing a hero that overcomes challenges and adversity. This makes people feel sentimental to buy their product because Nike makes it look like the outcome of buying their product will be victorious. After all, both Nike and Adidas use a few similar

Adidas, the brand with the three stripes, has to be a brand that is well sought after by consumers. The company has been established since 1949 in Herzogenaurach, Germany (Adidas-Group), however, the brand has soared in the past couple of months. This is because Adidas has recently paired up to collaborate with well known western musicians, like Kanye West and Pharell Williams. That is not to say that Adidas has never collaborated in the past, in fact the brand is known to be one of the biggest companies to collaborate with artists (Adidas-Group). These artists includes Rick Owens, Yohji Yamamoto, Raf Simons, etc. However, Adidas has climbed up to the top as a result of their collaboration and marketing strategy with hip-hop rapper Kanye West. It is the brand’s encoding of the music/rap culture and idolizing West, which is the very reason their profit has skyrocketed. Adidas has encoded their products to shape its consumers to become, or to feel as if they are Kanye West himself with their newest sneaker called the “Yeezys.”

Adidas have an objective of being the world’s best sports brand which shows great ambitions. They have maintained a great image therefore they have a lot of popularity and brand recognition. Adidas have a strong market

Adidas has a range workforce over 160 countries and has increasing sales of € 14.5 billion in 2014. The vision is to become the first in sporting goods industry. Successful striving toward a strategic vision requires a broader definition of an organization’s goal than pure monetary reward for shareholders and employees (Donald R. Domm, 2001). This essay focuses on Adidas sustainability (Adidas, 2014), and Porter Five Forces of Adidas; organizational strategy, cultural, external environment, workforce and technology (Baron & Kreps, 1999).

3. What is the Brand in the Hand concept? What does this mean to adidas and its branding efforts? It is one way to do the marketing communications. It means that company and product information can be easily delivered to people in their hands whenever and wherever possible. The media can be mobile devices, video games and the Internet. In such a way, brand awareness can be raised faster than traditional marketing communications. In the past, advertising and branding models were based primarily on 30-second commercials and magazine ads. Adidas traditionally advertised on TV and magazines as well as at sporting events and sponsor sports teams and players. But these events attract few new customers. On the other hand, increased advertisements intruding in the people’s lives made them hostile to ads and therefore more difficult for adidas to make effective advertising through the traditional way. Without moving

The strategic positioning statement of Adidas Group states that the company identifies as its strongest consumer market the 20- to 29-year-old age group, who are involved with sports somehow; either athletes or people that just enjoy doing sports. Also, Adidas is focused on targeting and strengthening its brand with the next generation of athletes in the 14- to 19-year-old age group because this group may be considered as one of

Adidas is also targeting a certain class of people, that is women by launching under the idea that the “collection is for women who take their sport and their style seriously” and that