Pricing in the marketing mix of Adidas.
Adidas, because of its style, design and promotions uses skimming prices as well as competitive pricing. For run of the mill products, Adidas uses competitive pricing keeping in mind competitors like Nike, Reebok and Puma. But for products which are newly introduced in the market and are uniquely designed, Adidas uses skimming price.
Apparel’s of Adidas constantly use skimming price and are higher priced due to brand equity of Adidas in the apparel’s market. The target customer for Adidas is the upper middle class as well as high end customers. Adidas never uses penetrative pricing because that will affect the brand equity of Adidas. In fact, the higher price point helps in the price quality approach and psychologically, customers think that a higher price will mean better quality as well. Thus, Adidas rarely drops its prices.
Place in the marketing mix of Adidas –
The major areas in which Adidas is sold is through retail outlets. Adidas has its own exclusive stores in which the material is provided directly from the company. On the other hand, many multi brand showrooms will also have Adidas apparel’s and footwear on display. These multi brand showrooms get the products from a distributor. The third and last mode of distribution is online. The products are sold through online medium via fashion stores lie myntra.com as well as the online website of Adidas. Thus the distribution channel of Adidas is as follows
1) Manufacturing > Adidas outlets > End customer
2) Manufacturing > Distributor > Multi brand showrooms
3) Manufacturing > Online fashion websites / Adidas website > End customer
Due to the excellent brand equity of Adidas, the operating margins are fairly high thereby keeping the distribution channel motivated. A happy distribution channel means better promotion for the company.
Promotions in the marketing mix of Adidas
Adidas markets through various marketing vehicles but the majority of marketing is concentrated on television and product placements. The creative team of Adidas is known to pump adrenaline in their customers through ads which are well made, very creative and filled with energy. These ads attract the customers towards the brand by sending the right marketing message to the customer. The tagline of Adidas “Impossible is nothing” is in itself a very powerful statement for the brand.
After television, product placement is the second line of promotion for Adidas. The popularity of the brand is because it ties up with the top players across the world such as Lionel messi, Ronaldinho, Sachin tendulkar and various others. At the same time, Adidas also sponsors teams and some of the top teams include Real Madrid, France, Great Britain (in football), England and South Africa (in cricket) and several others. Here is a list of all the sponsorships done by Adidas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Adidas_sponsorships
Below the line marketing of Adidas includes some very creative outdoor campaigns as well as events marketing. Sales promotions and trade promotions are also regularly offered by Adidas to their channel partners to promote the sales of the brand. This concludes the marketing mix of Adidas.