THE BRAND IN THE HAND Arsalan Ahmed Ansari Asad Ali Zohaib Akram

adidas Founded in 1920 by Adolf Dassler in Germany. Post WWII: German soccer team’s official sponsor. Moved into “fringe sports” High-jumping Weight-lifting 1974: Germany won World Cup soccer championship. 1998: Focus grew in the US market – basketball. Impossible is Nothing…

Fun Fact The creators of Adidas and Puma were brothers!!!

Competition – 2003 Nike 60% share in the US basketball segment. Collaboration with Michael Jordan. Sponsoring Manchester United. Spent $1.4 billion in advertising. Reebok 15% share in the US basketball segment.

Media Adidas continued to use TV marketing to a great extent. Shift in the market: television  digital media. Foreseen by the Global Media Group. By 2005, adidas spent 15-25% of its marketing budget on new media. Not “walking away” from the TV; testing new media.

Breaking through the clutter 2002: Special billboard for soccer World Cup in Japan. 2003: Living billboard in Japan. 2004: Yahoo! Homepage takeover featuring Laila Ali (daughter of boxer Muhammad Ali) in a campaign titled “Impossible is Nothing”.

Impossible is Nothing Visitors redirected to online retail front “Finishline.com” crashed halfway during the day due to overwhelming traffic. Average user viewed 22 seconds of the 30-second clip. Sold several 1000s of pair of shoes. 5 million downloads.

Moving beyond text messages Sweden. Campaign: Colours Used simple banners and wallpapers, users could click on an icon to download to their phones adidas logo wallpapers. Advertised the ringtones on TV for 10 days. 600,000 downloads! The beginning of a long mobile marketing advertising chain!

...into video games Java game applet designed: arcade-style soccer. Trick Play Free kicks Penalties Download fee: €1.99 Vodafone Live subscribers could post/exchange scores.

Learning from the market Adidas experimented with SMS marketing in Korea. They learnt that spamming is perceived negatively. Came out with “opt-in” policy. “Mobinil Ads”: driving football to new flagship adidas Originals store. 5 million downloads.

adidas ® Originals “Mobinil Ads”: driving football to new flagship adidas Originals store. Campaign started Wednesday mid-day: expected to drive the buzz during Thursday & Friday – and drive up weekend purchases. Targeted early adopters in Cairo: 35% response rate year olds had 98% better response rate than >30. Females responded 23% higher than males.

Personal Mobile Gateway Adidas divided content into three tiers: Free Cost-plus Fee-based Nike charged users for all content. “Should marketing content be sold?”

Global brands v. regional preferences Europe: the test bed for launching into N. America. Americans: targeted basketball. Canadians: targeted hockey. Adidas partnered with MTV integrating with music.

Road to Lisbon UEFA 2004: Largest sporting event held in Portugal. 1 million event tickets sold in 100 nations. Adidas-licensed sale of jerseys surpassed 2.5 million units! R2L campaign: featuring 13 greatest football players traveling to Lisbon on motorized scooters. Greece, sponsored by adidas, won the Championship in a major upset in European football history.

R2L Mobile An interactive Java ticker applet was designed. Could be downloaded to 2.5G enabled handsets. Fee: €5.00 for 2 months of use, billed to the operator. Connected with 3 rd party information provided to feed scores and other information. Revenue went to IS provider. 30,000 subscribers expected v. 63,000 subscribers actual

Match Centre! Provided up-to-date regional league scored for Italian, French, German, Spanish and English leagues. By clicking on banner ads, users were taken to a page where they would enter a text code in their phone. Then a download link was sent to the phone. Associated fees charged to the user’s bill. Popular amongst the youth.

The Road Ahead... Urban Cool Basketball Hip-Hop Music Respect M.E.: The Missy Elliott Campaign Adidas-branded wallpapers were sold. Initial price: $1.99 a piece True tones: $2.99 a piece Nick Drake: “People generally like to show their friends what’s coming and what’s new.”

Yahoo! Takeover

Nike Mobile Downloads

Europe: mobile penetration

“Flaschenpost”by Coca Cola

adidas Match Centre

U.K. Soccer Website with Adidas Match Centre Advertisement

Respect M.E.

Adidas will have to keep moving if they want to reach younger people who wait at the corner, playing with the keypads on their mobile phones.