Introduction
The firm’s current marketing goals are to meet the needs of the target audience and improve products through innovation and technology to improve competitive advantages. In order to implement these tasks, Adidas needs to perform such objectives as the introduction of the best production and storage strategies, the development of feedback quality, and maintaining a leading position in the market. The set goals and objectives are achieved through innovative technologies, attracting talented people to the team, and creating creative freedom. The business actively explores its relationship with its customers and encourages them to engage proactively in ensuring that it meets its objective (Denger et al., 2019). Furthermore, these aspects are entirely consistent with its values, as Adidas strives for excellence, uniqueness, and uniqueness in its activities.
Marketing Strategy and Performance
Adidas’s marketing strategy aims to increase consumer satisfaction by creating a new sustainability program. Creating the new plan embraces the innovativeness of the employees and empowers them to keep creating unique items that suit clients and improve their satisfaction (Denger et al., 2019). The current marketing strategy for Adidas widens its sales margins, helps the business attain its objectives, and promotes the brand name, attracting new customers while maintaining old ones.
Current and Anticipated Organizational Resources
Adidas enjoys a wide range of resources, including human resources, technological equipment, proper management, financial resources, and the engineering and projects department. High employee ratio and advancement in the technology level create a sustainable environment for the business’ progress since it attains high production (Denger et al., 2019). Similarly, financial resources equip the company with a higher bargaining power that avails high-skilled labor and an increased number of resources at their availability, thus enhancing ease in production (Ang & Rusli, 2018). Natural and human resources availability develop the company by promoting its effective operations.
Current and Anticipated Cultural and Structural Issues
Adidas’ culture revolves around rebellious optimism where the management believes that it may achieve anything that it plans to follow. Such a culture encourages employees to stick to the objectives and increases their morale by creating more innovative products and developing ideas (Ang & Rusli, 2018). Sustainability is a cultural issue that emerges in the day-to-day operations of Adidas company. The company targets to maintain an excellent relationship with its stakeholders by encouraging the protection of the environment and any other emerging stories during its operations. This creates sustainability within the organization (Ang & Rusli, 2018). Conversely, the structural issue in Adidas is the allocation of resources and the assignment of duties. The organization works tirelessly to ensure that only qualified people receive the responsibilities. The management’s selection of tasks for the most talented employees ensures efficiency among all the agents, and customers get satisfied with the quality of their products.
The Customer Environment: Current and Potential Customers
Identifying customers ensures that the company critically evaluates its marketing strategies to meet its target audience. Adidas enjoys a massive following from sporting audiences like participants and their fans. Although Adidas targets people between 13 and 40 years, most of its customers are between 15 and 30 years (Muhamad, 2021). Critical players in the purchasing process include initiators, influencers, deciders, buyers, end-users, and storekeepers who control the flow of information.
Adidas’ Products
Customers use the products from Adidas as attire for attending sporting functions or for other casual events where they have the freedom to wear the clothes of their choice. The customers may purchase these items from the retail, wholesale stores or acquire them through Adidas’ website. Adidas supplies consumer goods to their customers, some of which they use as complementary goods such as tracksuits and shoes.
Purchases
The main avenues for obtaining the Adidas brand products are physical purchases from the stores, wholesalers, and retail that mandate distributing sporting products. Alternatively, people may purchase the commodities from the electronic avenues such as Adidas’ website, where they obtain the valuables directly from the leading company. Ecommerce has significantly influenced the brand’s growth by creating marketing avenues where the company may freely display their products for the customers to view and give views.
When, Why and How Customers Select or Reject Adidas’ Products
Most people prefer wearing the clothes when going outside or staying inside the house during the summer season—the sales and purchasing hike when international sporting events such as the Olympics and international football leagues. People engage more with the products during such seasons since they are the most appropriate for such activities (Muhamad, 2021). People select products from Adidas because they are of high quality. Additionally, they prefer the effects due to the products’ strong brand image. However, most potential customers do not purchase from Adidas due to pricing, personal reasons, and dissatisfaction with the product dissemination processes.
The External Environment
Adidas faces competition from other existent and emerging firms in sporting-related attire selling. Nike and Puma are the most relatable brands that compete with Adidas for similar markets. The two companies have been in existence in the market for a long time and control a massive section of the market. The two firms rival immensely since their founders are siblings who worked together before hence possessing similar ideas.
Economic Growth and Stability
It is no secret that Adidas mainly operates in the sportswear, footwear, and accessories industry. Consequently, the economy of this niche concerns aspects of the cost and quality of the material from which the products are made. Moreover, the organization actively monitors trends in sales, as well as consumer demand and supply. Indeed, studying these issues can allow Adidas leaders to build trusting and loyal relationships with customers.
Political Trends
Understanding the potential political trends helps the business predict the market structure and stability prospects. A current case of political interference with Adidas’ operations was the Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs and restrictions that affected the relationship between Adidas and the Chinese market. Adidas has had to shift its focus to deal with such political outcomes to control the adversity in its operations. Adidas is affected by politics since political stability affects its decision-making.
Legal and Regulatory Issues
The most recent regulation that has affected Adidas production in Germany is the new logistics law. Thus, Germany’s supply chain law requires all companies to comply with ethical practices that protect human rights (Kliem, 2021). The legal and regulatory factors influence the industry to decide what line of products to produce while ensuring consumer safety (Brown, 2021). Adidas has to protect consumers by providing them with desirable quality goods.
Technological Advancements
Technological advancement interferes with production by increasing the speed of production and the variety of goods that the business may offer. Adidas uses a high technological approach in its operations by selling its products through websites. Customers have embraced technology in Adidas and make their purchases from the online platforms without necessarily physically visiting the outlets. Online selling has increased sales since even people with tight schedules make orders through their electronic gadgets. High technology reduces the production cost because it requires less human labor to manage and saves time since the machines produce many units of commodities within a specific timeline.
Social Cultural Trends
Society is changing today, and the distribution of the population mainly comprises millennials, which increases the demand for clothing for the younger people. With the rising amount of inorganic foodstuffs, the culture and lifestyle have contributed significantly to an increase in the demand for healthy lifestyles, more excellent working out, and increased demand for sportswear. These changes directly affect the company’s products, prices, supply chain, promotion, and human resource. Firstly, Adidas adapts to fashion trends and promotes completely new ideas concerning fashionable, comfortable, and high-quality sports products. Secondly, the company considers the development of market trends and sets the most acceptable, reasonable prices for the buyer, taking into account payback. Thirdly, the brand actively modernizes ways and means of promoting products, mainly through Internet technologies. Fourth, the company establishes a supply chain and strives to provide the buyer with goods as quickly as possible. Fifth, Adidas recognizes environmental problems and tries to manufacture shoes, clothing, and accessories from environmentally friendly materials. Adidas has repeatedly faced ethical and social responsibility issues about product quality, human rights, and social justice for employees and continues to work to eradicate this problem..
SWOT Analysis
Competitive Advantage
Adidas may gain a competitive advantage by engaging in more cost-efficient activities. It may use cost control strategies to minimize the production price and earn more profits than its opponents. For example, the firm may decline to outsource some of its resources and use the insourcing strategy to reduce the external direction of funds. Hence, the business will then get a competitive advantage through cost control.
Strategic Focus
Based on the SWOT analysis data, it should be extrapolated that the central focus of Adidas is aimed at product development, improving the quality of service, and brand credibility. Using only the most vital sides, the firm has the opportunity to ensure its success and prosperity, taking into account further prospects for the future. Adidas continues to work on product improvement, feedback, and clarification of consumer preferences to eliminate such disadvantages as the risk of counterfeit goods and high competition.
Marketing Goals and Objectives
The primary target market for Adidas comprises young children, teenagers, and adults whose interest is in sporting and workout activities. These buyers have embraced the technological approach and have demanded their products through Adidas’ main website page, a form of technological progress from the company. Indeed, every customer has the right to worry about their security and data confidentiality within the framework of providing personal information about themselves and the payment system. Nevertheless, it should be assured that user data is in safe hands; at least, this is confirmed by the company’s rules, values, norms, and standards.
Adidas may use social media, radio, and television to attract these people, among other electronic communication channels. Moreover, future technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Big Data, increased computing power, automating the assembly process, and many others open up significant opportunities for the organization. However, the organization’s marketing efforts may also be threatened by innovations such as autonomy in product development and design and replacing live consultants with robots. In particular, these phenomena could contradict the principles and concepts of Adidas – the desire for creativity and mutual understanding with clients.
Product, Pricing, Distribution, and IMC Strategies
The product strategy seeks to improve the quality and quantity of products that a business creates. Adidas may use the strategy by maximizing resources and waste management approaches. Adidas must appropriately select its prices to maintain all kinds of customers from various economic classes. Price differentiation is the most appropriate strategy for price determination and customer maintenance. Adidas may use free delivery to its customers to ease the purchasing process. It should consider extending its warehouses globally to widen its market base and make its products more accessible. The distribution and supply chain strategy attracts customers since they can quickly obtain the products. The company also runs many campaigns to influence new audiences to consume its products. The business’s sales promotion activities convert many non-customers into customers by influencing their beliefs about the products (Brown, 2021). The communication department is responsible for integrating the various methods of communication and advertisements to affirm that the firm meets its practical communication objective.
Marketing Implementation
Implementation of the marketing strategy will take a strategical approach by assigning different roles to different people and departments based on their qualifications. Proper assignment of the duties creates sustainability and ensures that the events run as planned. For instance, cost control strategies through production management are assignable to the production team. The strategical approach also determines how the business runs its operations.
Tactical Marketing Strategies
Conversely, the tactical approach is how the activity planned by the management is run. The approach seeks to find the solution by changing how various activities run through the market take over plans. Adidas may employ the strategy by determining to use a social media marketing approach to run more advertisements that will facilitate it in reaching its target audience.
Evaluation and Control
Some of the inputs that the business must consider before implementing the marketing plan includes financial resource control, capital expenditures, and additional research. These inputs determine the amount of money that the business uses in the long run to manage the marketing plan. The business should foresee any outcome relatable to the marketing plan (Denger et al., 2019). Understanding the value of the input aids in predetermining the profits that the business may expect from the plans hence evaluating the effectiveness of the marketing idea. The formal evaluation and control strategies focus on the organizational output and behavioral aspects.
Informal Control
Employee confidence, satisfaction, and commitment toward the firm’s success display the informal control systems that the company may work on to improve the strategy’s efficiency (Denger et al., 2019). These factors affect the employees’ self-control hence influencing the success of the marketing plan. When employees are under high motivation, they work hard to complete the marketing plan and ensure its success. These factors affect the employees’ behavior and attitude toward the business’ success. The continuous articulation of these activities influences the organizational culture.
Marketing Audits
The marketing audit evaluates the various strategies that the business executes in sales promotion. Marketing audits will help Adidas identify the most effective strategy hence having more plans to accommodate it fully. If the social media advertising strategy does not succeed Adidas may use a physical approach to customers through sales promotion activities such as personal selling as corrective actions to improve its performance. This will extend customer satisfaction. However, if the strategy indicates a slight chance of meeting the marketing objectives, Adidas may abandon the project and implement other sales promotion strategies that work best for it.
Implementation Schedule and Timeline
Conclusions
The report analyses the specific factors that may influence Adidas’ business growth and provides a SWOT analysis to help identify its strengths, weaknesses, and other essential programs that it may conduct to improve its resilience and eliminate its defects. It identifies internal and external factors that affect the business’ progress, such as business structure, technology, politics, and the legal environment. Adidas is a company that enjoys a good brand image and reputation. Running social media platforms advertisements will significantly boost the company’s goal of ensuring that it supplies to people aged 13-40 years.
References
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Brown, G. (2021). The marketing strategies used in super bowl advertisements. Journal of Student Research, 10(1).
Denger, A., DeVita, A., Graves, G., & Hulburt, L. (2019). All about Adidas-company research by non-business students. Digital Commons IC.
Kliem, F. (2021). Germany’s supply chain law will further complicate China relations. Nikkei Inc.
Muhamad, F., N. (2021). Technology entrepreneurship (ENT600): Adidas group / Nursyamimi Muhamad Fauzi. Universiti Teknologi MARA Institutional Repository (UiTM IR).
Saatchian, V., Azizi, B., & Talebpour, M. (2021). ADIDAS Sportswear brand popularity model in Iranian consumers. Sports Business Journal, 1(1).