Adidas

Strengths

Weaknesses

· Took advantage of the trend in mobile media advertising early, before many competitors

· The Respect M.E. ad campaign reached out to America's youth

· Ahead of the curve on innovative advertising, due to limited budget

· Partnership with MTV further enhanced its image of cool

· Attained consumer confidence and comfortability with the Adidas logo on their cell phones

· The Adidas arcade-style soccer game applet creates a complete brand experience for users

· Breaking into the large, urban basketball market (U.S.)

· Consumers on average receive no more than 8 minutes of Adidas advertising per year through all forms of broadcast media

· Many of its ad campaigns in Europe focused on older consumers, and not the key 12-24 demographic

· Rigid pricing structure

· Many Adidas shoes are low quality and over-priced

· Limited product line

· A line of shoes targeted towards athletes (many Adidas are) should not be so heavy

·

Opportunities

Threats

· Video games can provide a brand experience specifically aimed at the 12-24 year old demographic

· Digital media offers richer, more personal, transactional experiences than television or print

· Advertising through mobile media can be delivered directly to a targeted audience

· While having the portability of print, mobile media devices are more time-sensitive, providing continuous on-time delivery content

· 3G-equipped cell phones allow users to browse the web, watch movie clips and sporting events, download music and play games; this opens new doors for Adidas

· Lag in technology adoption in the U.S. cell phone market enables Adidas to test new products in Europe before launching them in the U.S.

· Target the achievers psychographic

· Trends in North America tend to have enormous impact on consumer preferences around the world

· Consumers may be annoyed by advertisements intruding into their personal lives (mobile media)

· Pop-up blockers and digital video recorders provide customers with ways to avoid unwarranted messages

· Scarcity of time available to directly address consumers

· The dot-com-induced stock market decline of 2000 lost the confidence of many would-be advocates of digital media

· Hard to measure the effectiveness of mobile marketing in a rapidly changing technological environment

· Advertising must be tailored to regional tastes in different countries

· Out of Adidas, Reebok, and Nike, Adidas is the least preferred brand among consumers

· Failure to expand in North America could hamper Adidas's prospects in Asia and threaten its leadership in Europe, where Nike is growing

adidas EMERGING MARKETS

Ellen Peacock

Al-Gurg Tower

Baniyas Road

Dubai - UAE

Tel: +971 4227 3033

Email: ellen.peacock@adidas.com Source : http://www.press.adidas.com/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-116/194_read-2269/

Adidas was founded in 1924 by Adolf Dassler.

The business was registered in 1949.

Adidas is a combination of "Adi," a nickname for Adolf, and "Das," the first 3 letters in Dassler's surname.

Some people think it's a clever acronym for "All Day I Dream About Soccer." This is untrue.

This leading global producer of sports footwear, equipment, and leisure wear is widely recognized by its trefoil logo, launched in 1972, the more geometric performance logo introduced in 1991, as well as the three stripes that run across many of its products.

However the company's origins were modest, with the first handmade training shoe being made by the company's German founder Adolf ('Adi') Dassler in the family home in 1920.

The company's first shoemaking factory was established in 1927 and Adidas shoes were seen at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in the following year. Tennis shoes were added to the range in the early 1930s and a second factory opened in 1938.

However, it was confiscated by the Nazis in the following year and taken over by the US army after the end of the Second World War. Although Adi Dassler quarrelled with his brother Rudolf, who went on to create the Puma brand in 1948, the Adidas company developed a strong presence in the post-war years with effective publicity campaigns. Its products were successfully promoted at succeeding football World Cup competitions and Olympic Games, including those at Melbourne in 1956, Rome in 1960, and Tokyo in 1964, where a significant percentage of athletes wore Adidas shoes.

The company began manufacturing in France and, in the early 1960s, began to diversify into the production of footballs (1961) and tracksuits (1962), the first tracksuits with the characteristic three stripes being marketed in 1964. The company was also concerned to innovate, producing a number of key designs such as the Achille jogging shoe (1968), the revolutionary Torsion sole system (1998), and the Predator(1995).

Association of the company's products with leading sporting figures continued to be a key part of its marketing strategy. Both Mohamed Ali and Joe Frazier wore Adidas boots for their world heavyweight boxing bout in 1971, the German World Cup football champions all wore Adidas products in 1990, and the French World Cup winning team of 1998 was also sponsored by the company.

In the early 1990s the company was radically restructured, in 1997 taking over the French Salomon Group, a leading manufacturer of winter sports equipment. The company's success is highly visible today in the large number of people around the world who carry its logo on leisure wear, sporting goods, and equipment, whether or not they are highly active participants in such activities.

Adolf "ADI" Dassler, he was a GERMAN. If he was going to write it, it'd be in GERMAN.

His name ADI added to DASSLER made ADI-DAS. ADIDAS. It's simple.
Adidas was founded by Adolph Dassler in 1949. The adi comes from Adolph. The das comes from dassler. And you get adidas.