Mktg1417 a2 _ Assignment 1B Reflection 2

ROYAL MELBOURNE INSTITUTION TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY (SEMESTER C-2022)

Lecturer: Huong B
Group: 07

Course Name: Global Branding
Course Code: MKTG1417
Campus: SGS Campus

Due date: 21 November 2022
Word Count: 700

REFLECTION PRACTICE-BASED

ADIDAS STANDARDIZATION AND ADAPTATION
MARKETING STRATEGIES ANLYSIS

I. INTRODUCTION
Adidas is a German multinational sportswear corporation, founded by Adolf Dassler

(“Adi”), and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria (Germany) that designs and manufacture
athletic and lifestyle shoes, apparel, and sporting accessories (Adidas n.d). Adidas was
considered the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, behind only Nike (Walters 2021).
Adidas is well-known for selling a different range of items for both men's and women’s clothes
and shoes and satisfying a variety of market segmentations worldwide. In 1924, Adidas started
its business story in its home-country, Germany with many challenges and the mid-1990s,
Adidas shoes won the worldwide market, mainly in Greater China, EMEA (Europe, Middle East,
and Africa), and North America that brought Adidas to become the largest athletic shoe suppliers
in the globe (Paz 2021). Adidas continuously strengthens its brand to maintain its
competitiveness by consistently improving quality, looks, and designs to exceed customers’

expectations.

II. STANDARDIZATION & ADAPTATION
1. Standardization
Firstly, the same iconic logo design for all market segmentations, are "Trefoil Logo"

for Adidas Originals products and the " 3-Stripes Logo" for tech or sports-focused products.
Iconic Adidas logos with “3-Stripes” and “Trefoil” can be easily recognized in over 150
countries around America, Europe, and Asia due to their consistency (Adidas 2022). Adidas
logos are preserved in shape, size, and design, with dominant colors of black and white across
host countries. Their standardized marketing endeavors focus on global values such as “brand
credibility, consumer experience, and pushing the boundaries in sustainability” (Adidas n.d).
Adidas' standardized mission, regardless of nation or culture, is to become the leading sports
brand worldwide, provide the best innovative sports products and cherish consumer experience
(Adidas n.d).

Next, Adidas’s Brand Essence is standardized in all its global geographical market
segments, which is “Impossible Is Nothing” tagline effectively communicating the same
marketing message on a global scale: “it is possible to change lives through sport positively”,
“Never stopping, never giving up”, promoting athletes and consumers to surpass their limits
(Adidas 2021).

Adidas put its efforts to conduct its global campaign “Own the Game” (2021),
concentrating this strategy on markets in Asia, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, Africa), and the
United States (Herzogenaurach 2021) to animate sport spirits, mainly football. Implementing a
“Run for the Oceans” global campaign to help the globe end the plastic waste (Green 2022).
For same targeting across nations, Adidas focuses on athletes, teens (15-20 years of age group),
and Adults (30-65 years), which is middle- or upper-income class. Adidas runs standardized

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marketing communication approaches that Adidas promotes to reach targeted customers and
advertise products mainly through viral Social-media. For example, Facebook or Instagram in
Vietnam, Weibo or WeChat in China, Twitter in the U.S, etc (Adidas n.d).

2. Adaptation
a. STDP marketing

Segmentation
Adidas adapts many different global segments of the consumer by introducing different

product segments including Performance, Originals, Style, and Neo (Bakar 2016). Asian
customers prefer Original Adidas styles because it provides casual, heritage, and street-styled
clothing and shoes, which is appropriate with the minimalist style of Asian cultures. While,
Adidas' Performance styles, designed mainly focusing on football characteristics, and athletics,
collaborated with Europe sports groups like Chelsea FC, to encourage people’s soccer loyalty
(Diane n.d). This style was created to satisfy the football idolatry in Western cultures.
Positioning & Differentiation

Adidas in Vietnam, Cambodia, and China can be considered a high-end brand because of
Adidas’s high level of price (average price from $60-$20,000), and Adidas stores are located at
centers of big cities (HCM, Shanghai, Seoul). While, in U.S and Europe, Adidas is an affordable
brand, compared to other luxury brands like Chanel, Gucci (Europe), or Burberry (U.S).

b. Marketing Mix (4Ps)
Product

The design of Adidas sportswear and shoes in the United States and Europe as Germany,
UK, or Italy focused more on sporty-styles, more colorful, vibrant colors (red, orange, yellow,
neon, etc.) with unique and strange-looking patterns because the Western people relatively

encourage dynamism, brilliance, eccentricity, and extraordinariness in styles (Figure 1). Due to
cultural differences, Asian consumers prefer "minimalist fashion", emphasizing sophistication,
elegance, and moderation in styles, to adapt to the consumers' preferences and needs, Asian
Adidas brands in Japan, China, Vietnam, and Korea primarily develop lifestyle-items with
simple and basic designs with elegant colors such as black, white, grey, dark blue (Karg 2015,
Figure 2).

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Figure 1: The Adidas products (shoes, apparel, clothing) designed for U.S and European market
segmentations (Adidas 2022)

Figure 2: Asian Adidas sportswear and shoes (mainly in Vietnam, Japan, and China) (Facebook
2022, Adidas 2020).

Besides, Adidas applies localization approaches to create special versions based on
different cultural preferences to help Adidas adapt to cater better to different market
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segmentations. Adidas China launched limited-edition sneakers inspired by traditional Chinese
New Year designs, to commemorate the Lunar New Year including NMD R2, EQT Support
ADV, Superstar, and Campus, with simple color schemes_ white and red accents representing
“Good Luck” in Chinese culture. The Chinese character “Blessing” is marked on the back of
each shoe in the collection, with a special meaning of bringing blessings of peace and success to
the Chinese in the new year (Figure 3).

Adidas U.S uses adaptation by introducing special, one-of-a-kind Adidas Ultraboost X
sneakers with iconic state imageries of U.S such as Wisconsin’s cheese, Georgia’s peaches,
Vermont’s green mountains, the Statue of Liberty, representing each U.S state (Business Insider
Africa 2017, Figure 4).

In the German market (Adidas-home-country), Adidas launched Adidas ZX9000 shoes
as a gift made for Berlin, with the main color scheme being dark color (black and grey), which is
inspired by gloomy weather, the antiquity of architecture, retro-futuristic atmosphere,
monochromatic and neutral mood of the Berlin city (Herr n.d).

Figure 3: Originals Adidas sneaker collection (2018- Chinese New Year edition) (Kiot 2018).

Figure 4: Adidas commissioned 12 women artists to create one-of-a-kind Ultraboost X sneaker
representing for each US state (Business Insider Africa 2017)

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Figure 5: Adidas sneakers Price
ZX9000 (Made for Adidas chooses to apply adaptation strategies on price,

Berline_10th anniversary which will be different in host-countries, depending on the

of Originals in Germany’s consumer-average-income. For example, Adidas focuses on

capital) (Her n.d). selling lower-cost basic, affordable products such as Adidas

Samba, Adidas Superstar, and Adidas Coast Star shoes ($60-

$100) for African or low-income Asian markets (Cambodia, or India), where the purchasing

power, averagely, is low, whereas, Adidas promotes higher-priced shoes like Adidas 4D

versions, Adidas Yeezy Boost ($1,500-$20,000) in America, Europe, high-income Asian nations

(China, Japan, S.Korea) (Adidas n.d).

Place

Adidas adapts with 2,500 own-retail stores and own e-commerce channels over 50

countries (Adidas 2020). In Vietnam, Adidas' official stores frequently are located in high-end

shopping malls (Aeon Mall, Vincom Centres, Crescent Mall, etc.) in centers of HCM city.

Besides, VN Adidas products are primarily presented in all of Vietnam's popular e-commerce

channels like Shopee, Tiki, and Lazada. Adidas China promotes selling products on e-commerce

platforms: Taobao, Alibaba, and TMall because modern Chinese prefer to purchase products

online to save time and avoid queuing (Adidas 2019). In U.S, Adidas has more than 177 retail

stores and outlets nationwide, products are also sold through U.S Adidas official website, and are

rarely sold on E-commerce channels.

Promotion

Adidas adapts different markets by localizing advertising contents to maximize the power

of promotion. South Korea achieves the most Olympic gold medals in archery, therefore, to win

the nation's hearts to increase brand awareness, Adidas Korea decided to become the official

sponsor for the Korean Archery team. In UK, Adidas UK features London Olympics as the

major theme in most of its advertising campaigns; discounts its sportswear products during the

Olympics to catch customers’ attention (Adidas n.d). In United States, football is considered the

most popular and king sport, so Adidas US chooses football theme for US-focused promotion.

While, in Italy, Italian highly encourage national football-team, thus, Adidas Italy mainly

highlighted its official websites with Milan soccer-team image (Adidas n.d).

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Figure 6: Adidas websites
across different nations
(Adidas n.d)

To drive promotion effectively, Adidas adapts to collaborate with local social-influencers,
celebrities or athletes to advertise. For example, in South Korea, Adidas collaborate to
Blackpink, LeBron James (U.S), Messi and Ronaldo (Europe) (Badenhausen 2018).

Figure 7: Adidas collaborate with Blackpink (Korea), Messi and Ronald for promotion
campaigns (Badenhausen 2018)

III. CONCLUSION
After analysis, I believe that Adidas is more in applying adaptation strategies because

adaptation strategies are utilized in abundant marketing aspects (through 4Ps) with many specific
marketing strategies to serve separated geographical market segmentation. However, Adidas

highly strives to balance standardization and adaptation. Standardization will encourage Adidas
shape its brand in the globe, clearly describe brand personality and values in general, at the same
time applying adaptation to satisfy various cultures and local markets’ requirements, increase
Adidas brand awareness to elevate profits. Adidas success in brand internationalization with high

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extent when its brand name and iconic logo are rapidly recognized in over 150 countries and still
be one of leading sportswear and shoes suppliers in the earth.

IV. REFERENCES
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Walters M (2021) The History of Adidas: A background of Collaboration and Innovation,
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Paz R (2022) The History of Adidas, Sole Supplier, accessed 21 November 2022,
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Karg C (2015) New Fashion Minimalism in an Affluent society: A paradigm shift?, The Swedish
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