ADI Gave Up Sponsorship NBA Looking Forward To Big Changes.

Two years later, the US and Canadian professional basketball leagues (hereinafter referred to as NBA) in the 2017~2018 season, no longer see Howard wearing Adidas LOGO's 12 jerseys flying dunk, because Adidas has decided to abandon cooperation with NBA after the expiration of the 2016~2017 season's contract.

The news of giving up cooperation with NBA coincides. Adidas After the group's 2014 earnings report was released. In addition to the North American market, Adidas has achieved almost two digit growth in all major markets around the world, maintaining its annual sales growth of 6%. The net profit in the whole fiscal year continued to decline from 773 million euros in 2013 to 564 million euros, and net profit fell 22%.

Based on this seemingly not bright report, the external interpretation. Adidas discard Because of financial difficulties, things may not be so simple.

　　 Changing the "arena" to start "star tactics"

Time should go back to 10 years ago.

In 2005, Adidas bought the NBA official Jersey partner Reebok at the time of up to 3 billion 100 million euros, and "attacked the basketball market". In second years, it signed a 11 year extension of the NBA official Jersey partner contract, which was signed as a Adidas contract with the NBA.

So in the next 11 years, every NBA game, regardless of home and away, is flying the figure of the players in the Adidas brand jerseys. The NBA basketball fan Chen Xi, who is far from the United States, told reporters that sponsoring NBA jerseys is a lot of Adidas's intentions. "Even if a player forgot to wear a Jersey, he would get a jersey with his name and ball number after arriving at the locker room of the stadium, and the supply chain was very efficient. Even if the player transfers, he will immediately make a New Jersey."

Adidas CEO Herbert Heiner once said: "this cooperation can help us immediately increase Adidas. Sports brand In the United States, 11 years of cooperation will make NBA and Adidas synonymous in basketball. "

Time flies, and it's time to renew the contract. But this time, Adidas's enthusiasm for NBA is far behind that. When Adidas renounced the event, the explanation was that the price of the new contract exceeded expectations. 11 years ago, the sponsorship price was about $36 million per year, and the new NBA negotiations were quoted at $50 million per season. Chris Grancio, general manager of Adidas global basketball business, has consistently stressed that basketball is one of Adidas's core businesses. However, the long-term cooperation with NBA did not improve brand influence and sales volume as expected.

In the sporting goods world, the competition between the two giants of Adidas and Nike has never stopped. In the early years, Adidas was longer than football, Nike focused on basketball, but both sides wanted to make up for the short version. All along, Adidas's patronage in major sporting events around the world is no mercy. Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, Champions League, and NBA... The biggest difference between Nike and its old rival in brand marketing is Adidas sponsorship, and Nike often sponsors sports stars.

These two ways have their advantages and disadvantages. Comparing their input and output in sports sponsorship may be the first clue. Statistics show that in the 2012 London Olympics, Adidas spent about $100 million on marketing expenses, sponsoring 11 national delegations, and the sales revenue in the quarter was about $4 billion 423 million. Rival Nike spent $891 million on marketing expenses, sponsoring 1000 individual athletes from 87 generations of teams, including Chinese sports stars such as Liu Xiang and Yi Jianlian, with a sales income of 6 billion 669 million dollars during the quarter. By the time of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the situation reversed. Adidas sold $4 billion 373 million in sales for the season with $1 billion 530 million in marketing expenses, while Nike sold $8 billion in sales for the 897 million US dollars in marketing expenses.

This may make Adidas start to make a careful decision, whether to sponsor the team or to build a star individual. The key to marketing sports consulting companies is CEO Zhang Qing believes that the most important thing is to create stars in the field of professional sports. In the past, Adidas attached much importance to the sponsorship of the alliance and team, and the overall efficiency was not high. This is not as good as Nike's sponsorship of individual stars, and it is more affordable to bloom.

Adidas also revealed that the number of NBA stars will increase in the North American market, which is one of the worst performing markets in the last fiscal year. From the beginning of this market transformation, Adidas has delivered a signal: "Star Game Tactics" will be launched in the future.

　　 Change is hard to get rid of "national characteristics"

Whether it is sponsorship team or individual, Adidas's purpose is to enhance brand image and popularity, and then achieve rapid growth in sales.

Adidas explained in its 2014 earnings report that the main reason for the decline in gross profit margin in the year is "the negative impact of exchange rate and the increase in input costs. In addition, the increase in customs clearance in Russia and CIS countries and the decline in profit margins of Taylor Adidas golf products also led to a decline in gross margins.

Compared with the global market, the financial performance of Greater China is outstanding. According to the exchange rate unchanged, the sales volume of the Greater China region increased by 10% in 2014. In the fourth quarter, sales in Greater China increased by 11% thanks to the promotion of Adidas sports performance series and sports fashion series.

In 2010, Gao Jiali began to serve as the managing director of Adidas group Greater China. He told reporters frankly that at that time Adidas ranked only fourth in the Chinese market. "Shortening the distance from Nike is the goal of the whole team." At present, Gao Jia Li has made a statement: "in 2014, we were already close to Nike, and our brand had never been so strong."

Looking back on the four years of this experience, the most important thing is Adidas's restructuring of its sales system. The most important point is that from the past wholesale link to order, we turn to the retail sales rate of distributors and set up a number of capability upgrading modules to improve internal strength, especially to distributors.

Zhang Qing told reporters that in recent years, Adidas's channel sink has been commendable, even spreading to the six line city. However, despite the initial results, new challenges are coming. Therefore, in view of the general plight of China's retail industry, which is currently facing the impact of electricity supplier and department stores and shopping center bags, Adidas will focus on its professional sports service brand and further segment its retail outlets. For example, the brand center of Sanlitun in Beijing and Huaihailu Road in Shanghai is the two direct shops of Adidas, which are characterized by complete category, brand display and experience, but this mode is not suitable for spreading in the whole country.

Franchised stores are another competitive weapon for Adidas. In 2014, Adidas also launched a new store form HomeCourt, which provides a better product experience for sports enthusiasts. There are also women's exclusive stores, outdoor franchised stores and more than 1200 children's wear exclusive shops. Abandoning the traditional big and wide category and turning to single category stores, Gao Jiali believes that this can better meet the needs of the Chinese market.

In contrast, the focus of Nike's retail transformation is on the technology experience of the product. With the help of data, consumers can better understand their physical condition, posture and help them find better shoes. In the promotion of category and new store form, Adidas just "did", but made little noise to make consumers more involved, while Nike was high-profile in WeChat's circle of friends to test women's products advertising.

Zhang Qing said the two sports Brand Company have branded their "national characteristics". The Adidas brand from Germany, from the company strategy to the specific level of marketing execution, is characterized by "steady" and has a unique and reserved Germany. By contrast, the Nike brand has developed the most innovative, radical and open American spirit.

This also deeply affects the marketing mode of both, such as Adidas's preference for the product itself, whether it is using athletes or acting stars to endorse the brand, they all focus on conveying the feeling of wearing to consumers and establishing the traditional fashion image. By contrast, Nike is more like a sports resource marketing company rather than a sporting goods company. It roots the spirit of sports in every consumer, tells its brand story, and achieves the ultimate goal of light assets. Even the most prosperous part of China's electricity supplier is completely outsourced, rather than at least a part of its business, like most enterprises.

Moreover, in the retail transformation, Adidas's competitors are not only Nike, but also many Chinese sports brands. When the two giants are sinking to the two or three tier cities, China's sports brands have been there for many years. For example, in order to better understand the needs of consumers, in the past two years, PEAK has made a series of optimization from sales channels to terminal services. The sales network has implemented the flat strategy of the channel, increasing the number of distributors and the number of retail outlets directly operated by distributors, so as to reduce the intermediate links and speed up the understanding of market demand changes and product circulation speed.

"PEAK hopes that through this series of measures, consumers can not only see products that satisfy their needs while shopping, but also have more choices and get the product with the fastest speed," PEAK said. PEAK sports CEO Xu Zhihua said.

　　 Colin Currie This is also a great pressure on the position of managing director of Adidas Greater China for nearly 5 years. He clearly realized that the biggest challenge facing the Chinese region is that Chinese consumers are becoming more and more mature, and their geographical boundaries are vast and their consumption differences are obvious. "The consumers in the first tier, second tier and three tier cities in China are at different stages, and their consumption maturity and individual preferences will affect their consumption behavior, so they can not use the research results of one size fits all to target the whole Chinese market."

Therefore, we hope that Marketing techniques Adidas, which is completely new to the retail market, is still being judged by its effectiveness.