DIGITAL MARKETING

ASSIGNMENT 1

MARKETING MIX OF ADIDAS,

WEBSITE FEATURES AND
SUGGESTIONS

Submitted By – Submitted To –
SUSHEEL KUMAR S S Dr. SWATI BASU GHOSE
Reg No.: 201286 Head of the Department
Section: D Dept. of Marketing & IB
Batch: 2020-2022
About Adidas
Adidas is a German Multinational corporation founded in 1959 by Adolf Dassler,
headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany. It is one of the oldest footwear brands that is still
considered a major style statement by youngsters worldwide. Even after facing intense
competition from the traditionally competitive US sportswear market, Adidas through its
creative and appealing marketing campaigns has managed to remain one of the leading brands
in the world.
Having operations in over 100 different countries, Adidas is a large and multifaceted
organization that employs 62000 people all over the world. Since its establishment, Adidas has
opened its successful brand subsidiaries including Reebok, TaylorMade, and Runtastic.
Now that we have a brief about the company, let us dive straight into Adidas’ Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix of Adidas

Marketing Mix refers to the foundation model of any business which is centred around mainly
the 7Ps which are product, price, promotion, place & distribution, people, process and physical
evidence. Companies lay out strategies and marketing techniques around these to reach out to
their target audience to achieve their marketing objectives.
Let us understand the following 7 Ps of Adidas-

1. Product Strategy of Adidas

Adidas deals in various product lines including footwear, apparel, accessories, football kit, golf
equipment, etc. The range of Adidas products is also divided according to different sport games
for which Adidas provides kits and equipment. Some of the sports games where the company
majors in supplying the team kits globally are: Association football, Baseball, Basketball,
Cricket, Gymnastics, Ice hockey, Lacrosse, Running, Skateboarding, Tennis, Kabaddi, and
Golf.
Adidas has gained huge popularity by opening its subsidiaries including Reebok, Runtastic,
TaylorMade, and Rockport. Though there are around 110 subsidiaries of Adidas Worldwide,
the subsidiary that overtaken Adidas itself is Reebok footwear and apparel. Whereas Runtastic
is a digital health and Fitness app, TaylorMade is centred on golfing clothes and Rockport
offers outdoor footwear, apparel and accessories.
Though this company offers various products, its major product line is Footwear. Given that
Adidas’ foundation was built on footwear itself, its footwear is still deemed the most robust
and athletic in the market, followed by its apparel and accessories

2. Price strategy of Adidas

Adidas includes Skimming Pricing and Competitive pricing in its marketing mix. Competitive
prices are used for its mill products to compete with brands like Nike and Puma and skimming
prices are used for the newly introduced products in the market.
Under Skimming pricing, high prices are kept for newly launched products to maintain the
exclusivity and gradually the prices are reduced with time until it reaches market average.
When it comes to Apparel, Adidas mostly uses a skimming price strategy because of its brand
equity. Thus, the Target audience of Adidas includes the upper-middle class as well as high-
end customers.
Matter of fact, the High-price strategy of Adidas makes it a luxury brand among people. Folks
go for Adidas even when the prices are high because psychologically, they think that high
prices mean high quality and confirmation of authenticity.

3. Place & Distribution Strategy of Adidas

Adidas has its production houses in around 55 countries and has 800 factories pinned across
different continents. The major source through which its products are sold is Retail Stores i.e.,
Adidas outlets. It has more than 2800 retail outlets globally.
The second major way of distributing Adidas products is through multi-brand showrooms. The
showrooms get the products from the distributor. These showrooms put on display the brands’
products. In today’s world, no major brand is complete without an Online Store. Thus, Adidas
has an online website too and some of the products like apparel are sold through various famous
fashion stores like Myntra and Amazon too.

4. Promotion Strategy of Adidas

It is a well-known fact that the TV ads of Adidas are Adrenaline pumping. Knowing that
Adidas’ strength is derived from sports, their ads are robust and passionate. The major source
of promotion for Adidas is marketing through television.
Another major promotion method of Adidas is product placement. Product placement means
where references to brands are made by featuring them in other work like movies and television
programs. The popularity of Adidas is also because of all its tie-ups with sports icons such as
Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho.
Along with tying up with major sports celebrities, Adidas also sponsors some popular sports
teams such as Real Madrid and in football, Great Britain which helps the company in building
its brand image.
Apart from this, Adidas has been known for its creative marketing campaign and event
marketing. Social Media is another way through which this company keeps up with the folks
across the world. There are millions of followers of Adidas on both Facebook and Instagram.
The sports angle in their social media handle makes it more magnetic and appealing.
The most recent campaign by Adidas “Own the Game” was introduced in virtual investor and
media day. The campaign is to strengthen and uplift the authenticity of the brand and proliferate
the company’s activity in sustainability. This campaign has been created with the expectations
of sales and profitability until 2025.

5. People Strategy of Adidas

There are 4 main departments under Adidas which are contributing to its smooth and systematic
working-
1. The first one is Mediator; these people work with the suppliers to obtain the raw
materials and have a significant role in improving the quality of the final product.
2. The Sales Team is the key element for the sales and marketing of the company. They
are trained with convincing and marketing techniques to help customers find their
relevant choice.
3. People working at retail stores, these people directly help the customers on-site by
answering their questions and giving them a good experience at the store.
4. The customer support department helps customers when there is an issue with the
product and communicate with the consumer to resolve the problem.

6. Process Strategy of Adidas

Adidas has an intensive process from ordering a product to delivering it. They have a system
installed in retail stores wherein retailers can inform whenever the inventory is low, they do
this to keep the stores full and products available. For the website, they have a computer-based
system where the order is received and the relevant product is shipped to the delivery chain.
The company is also extensively involved in market research and customer feedback to
understand consumer choices and problems, to bring changes accordingly.

7. Physical Evidence Strategy of Adidas

Adidas has a website that is user-friendly and helps customers view their products in high-
quality images. They also have a customer service department that helps consumers with all
their issues.
For their retail stores, the company has separate specially designed shelves to make it easier to
locate products. The products are also packed in different colourful packaging, again to make
them unique and easily identifiable.
So, these were the 7P’s of Adidas, we can see how the company has used everything perfectly
in their favour which has led to its strong brand identity. Let’s sum up the above marketing
strategy of Adidas.

Analysis of Adidas Website

Findability
The findability of a website is both outside the website and also in the website, how to navigate
to and around the website. Making sure the findability of your website is better than
competitors is what is important for success or failure (Hendron, M. 2014). With Adidas being
such a well-known fitness brand around the world its intuitive URL is a great help to the
website’s findability. This is done by typing the name (adidas) straight into the URL bar or into
google and you reach the website straight away or find the link at the top of google results.

Another factor of findability is advertising, whether it be by friends telling you to visit the page,
or if you saw it on an add on the television, radio or magazine. Also the high possibility of
finding a link to the webpage via Facebook or other sites. The external findability of the adidas
site is fantastic as it is easy to remember and also so easy to come across in a range of different
ways.

The internal findability of this site is really easy with the use of the many tabs to direct you
where you want to go. The overall findability of the website Adidas can't get much better than
it is as the effectiveness of finding what you want (the website itself or something within the
website) is quick and easy.
Content
The site content is rather informative. Information is extremely easy to garner and hyperlinks
and menus are easy to follow. The site itself is consistently updated and from observations of
the pages information it seems to be daily which comes as no surprise as this is a site offering
services. Content is clearly defined under headings categorized by each gender and brand.
Navigation is simple and ensures that customers have as easy a time as plausible. Being a sport
brand there isn’t a clear bias towards much else other than their own profits.

Functionality
The function of the Adidas website is online shopping and the functionality is whether it serves
its purpose or not. The functionality is great because the site not only allows you to place orders
to purchase the many products available, but it informs you greatly about the products you are
looking at. This site caters for a wide audience from different age groups and genders creating
an incredible shopping experience for all. Therefore, Adidas serves it's intended purpose to
allow people to shop, with the use of this informative, easily accessible site to give the best
experience to the users.

Introduction
The overall design can be explained as exciting visuals that encourage the user to discover
more information about the products and brand, paired with the resolution of that visual
prompting which is the clear display of the product information and pricing. This is done by
using the features tiles which stand out due to their contrast of bold shape and colour and which
offer minimal information about the product, instead utilising buzz words and short sentences
in a bold font.

It offers enough visual information to interest the user however and only offers further
information through user interaction. By clicking on the links featured on the tiles the user is
then taken to a less visually stimulating page that clearly displays the price and full product
range. The use of tiles is still in effect keeping in theme with the rest of the site however there
is more white space and text in order to bring greater emphasis to information and purchasing.
The Adidas website is a great example of form working in harmony with function.

Knowledge of Users
Design wise the site is extremely appealing and the graphics are rather on topic. They have a
nice flair to them and the colour creates a sense of vibrancy alongside the way it portrays the
practicality of the products sold. There is very little animation aside form a simple wiping
motion to liven up what would otherwise be a rather static still image. There is no pages of
consistent text bulk loaded upon the user to ensure everything is appealing.
The site I reviewed is not in multiple languages however I reviewed the Australian version.
The site itself whilst colourful it doesn’t rely upon to ensure the viewer is able to navigate even
if they had a disability and there is no sound required. Purchases can only be made if the user
has an account and the list of payment options can be found on the site and are rather
straightforward.

When you buy a product or a service over the internet, instead of going to a traditional brick-
and-mortar store, it is called online shopping. Globally, an increasing number of people are
buying over the Internet because it is more convenient in today’s technologically advanced
world. The online shopping website Adidas.com caters to many consumers around the world
and is a practical and convenient way to shop for your sporting needs.

The following findings of the website Adidas.com has found how well its practical
functionality is as well as how informative it is about Adidas’ products and how relevant its
content is. We will also be discussing whether the website is visually appealing, how well you
can navigate through the website and the ease in which you are able to locate the website
through search engines such as Google.

This criteria judges how well the Adidas website adapts to the user’s needs and wants. The
Adidas website uses a log in system which will remember the buying preferences after the first
transaction has been made. With the log in system in use, Adidas is made into an adaptive
website. If the user decides not to create an account on the Adidas website, then his or her
information will not be saved for faster transactions at a later period.

Adidas create personal offers from previously viewed items to try and create more sales
showing similar items. This is well used and is consistently updated after every item viewed to
show a variety of items. Another window is also shown to show what other buyers brought
whilst purchasing this item. This is well placed with the ‘you may also like’ to show as many
similar items without becoming an annoyance blocking the page.

Visual Analysis
The Adidas website is the perfect example of what a high-class website is laid out. The
simplistic nature of the design allows users to navigate with ease. Every section is displayed
clearly using different tabs used to enter different sections of the store, this makes it hard to
lose yourself trying to find a particular item.

If there is a certain item that is needed to be found Adidas have use of an internal search engine
which is quick and efficient, from personal use of the website I never found any issues using
their search engine looking for many different items. Adidas has made this website flawless
when it comes to navigation. All of the website’s links are clearly visible and are also regularly
updated leaving no broken links or disgruntled customers.

Conclusion and Suggestions

With the above-mentioned 7Ps, it can be concluded that the 71-year-old Adidas is still a robust
and successful company out there. It has come up with some of the most creative campaigns
and its creative team has never failed to boost the confidence of sports lovers and youngsters
in the company worldwide. Adidas has maintained its authenticity and credibility by always
catering to its target market by providing quality products. Their thousands of outlets all over
the world have made the brand easily accessible. With their signature branding, Adidas has
created for itself a distinguished position in the market.
Adidas contact information is extremely easy to find and this should come as no surprise seeing
as the success of their site is directly correlated to an increase in profits. The site itself has the
majority of its contact details easily found within the customer support section which is also
able to be accessed from the home page. The company itself doesn’t have an email address that
can be contacted as it is strictly a “No reply” address, used only to communicate with the
customers whom have created an account on the site itself. There is however a form that can
be filled out for customer service. All details are accessible from the customer service page
easily found on the home-page.