Adidas positioning team sports brand Nike latest design advance

Adidas is enjoying the enormous benefits of being the official sponsor of the World Cup. It has never been a successful host country sponsor. “Our three bar logos are everywhere,” said Herbert Heiner, CEO of the brand. “Over the past two years we have more than 100 people working in different positions for the World Cup... We have set an ambitious aims."

This is of course the financial goal. It is estimated that the company’s profit so far this year has exceeded 1.2 billion euros, and it has easily completed the target of 1 billion euro this year. Now Adidas has a clearer and more realistic goal: to overwhelm Nike, especially in the European football supplies market that should have been Adidas' home court.

The competition between the two companies in sportswear is so fierce that it is still unclear who is currently the market leader. "I don't believe they are the first place. This is definitely wrong," said Hainer. The attitude of Charles Dunson, president of Nike, is: “Everyone is controversial about the market share, I tend to pay attention to the views of consumers, this is our motivation. From (football sales in 1994) 40 million Sterling to 1.5 billion pounds, we let the facts speak."

From a certain perspective, Nike sponsors European football giants, such as this year's Champions League finals Arsenal and Barcelona (although the official sponsor of the Champions League is Adidas), making this US company overwhelmed its European opponents. But the current reality is that Nike's "checkmark" has become more prominent in football, given that their true interest in football only started in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, and even then, the home game of Nike to get involved Football supplies are too cautious.

"We did not have enough persuasive power at the time, as we all know, because football is not yet an important sport in the United States. But we made decisions and plans. Since 1994, football products have developed very well, especially. We are very excited about the World Cup," said Dunson.

Given the attitude of the two major brands, we will see the most expensive business war in the history of the World Cup, of which Adidas will invest 120 million pounds, and Nike's investment will also reach the former more than half.

Nike has launched "Joga Bonito" ("Portuguese "beautiful football"), an advertisement for a series of stars. More than 12 million people have already been impressed with this series of TV commercials. In addition, Nike has also signed a commercial contract with Google, a search engine, to promote the fans' website joga.com and three pairs of three football matches organized by Nike.

Adidas's practice is basically the same. The company has built two temporary stadiums dedicated to fans near the Reichstag building in Berlin and its Argentine National Team training camp near Herzgow Wah. However, Heiner's ambition is not limited to this. He still hopes to formulate a market strategy with "oppressive advantages" - to occupy the entire World Cup as an official sponsor.

"FIFA is trying to control everything. The situation was terrible in 1998. When Japan and South Korea were in the World Cup, the situation wasn't much better. Can you eliminate the opponent 100%? I don't think so, but it must be much better than in the past." .

From Nike's latest football apparel, it can be seen that their design is based on the characteristics of each team, from the shirt printing to the player number are trying to have different, it seems that this is obviously for Adidas's three bar logo, deliberately Totally different.

"We are very strong in the European and Asian markets, but we are at a disadvantage in the United States. There is a Nike site. Fortunately, Reebok has helped us a lot," Heiner said. In the face of Nike’s design offensive, Adidas positioned itself as a “team sports” brand, and they plan to progressively

The Reebok logo on the Liverpool and NBA teams’ jerseys was replaced with their own three bars, and Reebok was repositioned as a brand emphasizing individual sports, with particular emphasis on individuality (just as its brand new slogan “I am mine”). Haina believes that the brand's new integration will help it overwhelm Nike.

How did Nike respond to this earthquake? “We will only concentrate on doing our job well. We have competed with both brands for many years and achieved some major victories...I expect we will continue to compete in the same way in the future.” Dunson said, Ronaldinho grinned and laughed.

Heiner acknowledged that the two companies "are fighting like two teams." One of his great wishes was to host the World Cup on his company's land, just as Nike did in 1994. Now that the wish has been achieved, the German national team will be equipped with Adidas from head to toe, although it is obviously unwilling to do so – such as Arsenal Gateman Lehmann, who has a personal contract with Nike.

"We will provide our team with the best football shoes," Heiner said. "I hope that will work just as it did in 1954. Did the German team win in Berlin? I hope not to win the penalty, even if Nike can do that." ”