Adidas Case Study

Adidas is the second largest sports apparel and footwear brand in the World behind Nike. While Adidas was officially founded in 1949, Adidas really began in the mid 1920s following the end of World War 1, when Adolf “Adi” Dassler began making athletic spike shoes out of his mother’s washroom in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Adidas is what it is today because of the vision Adi Dassler had “to provide athletes with the best possible equipment.” Adolf made a name for Adidas by first sponsoring Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he won 4 gold medals running with Adidas made spike shoes. After that, everyone around the world wanted a pair of the shoes the fastest man in the world was running in. Adolf Dassler’s success is owed to his ability

In general, “sponsorship involves a business paying to be associated with another organization, event or TV program.” Enabling the sponsoring company to capitalize on the added exposure they receive from what it is they pay to sponsor. Adidas’s most effective sponsorship yet, will come from the opportunity to capitalize on the global exposure the company and brand will procure from paying to be the sole proprietary sponsor with all licensing rights to Team GB, Paralympics GB, and most importantly London 2012 Olympic sportswear. “London is a key focus for the sportswear market”4 for Adidas, and London 2012 and the GB teams give Adidas a platform to target both their local and global audiences with the wide array of events, TV broadcasts, apparel, and athletes at the Games that will showcase the Adidas sponsored Olympic sportswear. It is brilliant marketing on behalf of Adidas to make a lucrative return on their investment, because there is no better or larger place in sports to promote a sports brand, like Adidas, and sell athletic

Heading into London 2012, the ‘Take the Stage’ campaign is Adidas’s promotion to find 32 young, English, and undiscovered talents in sports and music via the sharing network of social media, and specifically “excite the 14-19 year old audience to drive brand preference.” Adidas targets their audience with #takethestage, giving Adidas the groundwork to make their brands campaign a trending topic on social media outlets like Twitter and YouTube. Social media helps to find talent for ‘Project 32’#takethestage, and use its massive network of users to help to create buzz, making the selected 32 truly feel what it’s like to be globally recognized English talents. Social media is unquestionably the most effective way to market the #takethestage campaign and Adidas brand as it resulted in more than “8 million views of their content on YouTube with 2.5 million views from 12-24 year-olds”7, “128 million Twitter impressions ”7, and an increase of Adidas “Twitter followers by 25%” . Adidas success as a brand at the London 2012 Olympic Games was not easily attained. Any product is worthless without the right marketing mix, but Adidas had the right mix to give their brand and product value. Adidas had a skillful marketing strategy— build a global promotion for their athletic products amongst the world and its youth while simultaneously creating sentiment