Marketing Management: Adidas Marketing Plan

This report discusses the marketing plan of Adidas, including current market situations, objectives and issues, marketing strategy, action plan, budget, and control.

Marketing Management

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY.......................................................................................................................................4
Current market situations ................................................................................................................4
Objectives and Issues.......................................................................................................................6
Marketing strategy...........................................................................................................................6
Action Plan......................................................................................................................................8
Budget..............................................................................................................................................9
Control.............................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................11

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is about the company Adidas which is operating in the sportswear and clothing industry
which has shown the marketing plan of the company. The company is performing excellently and is
expected to do so in the future.

INTRODUCTION
Marketing management is basically the method and an overall discipline which mainly deals
with all the activities of marketing, and its applications and thus helps the organization to promote
their products and services.
Adidas is primarily the multinational corporation being established in 1924 by Adolf Dassler
and headquartered in Germany. It predominately covers a wide range of products like sportswear,
apparels, accessories, footwear etc. It has its presence across the world and is currently present in
more than 40 countries. It is considered as the one of the largest manufacturer of sportswear within
Europe and occupies second position after Nike in whole world.
This report gives a brief about marketing plan which consists of the executive summary, the
current situation of company in market, aims and objectives, marketing strategy used by company,
appropriate action programmes and its implementation, budgeting and the monitoring and
evaluation.

MAIN BODY
Current market situations
The current market situations of Adidas is being analysed with the help of SWOT and PEST
analysis. These two analysis are given below:
SWOT analysis of Adidas
Strengths
One of the biggest strength of Adidas is that
they have a long established youthful brand
image, which has lead to Adidas charging
premium for their product.(Kerin and Hartley,
2015) Also, the company has a wide portfolio in
footwear, school bags, T-shirts, winter wear etc.
so with this large diversified portfolio the
company has a strong standing in the
marketplace.
Weaknesses
Adidas is seemed to have been overdependent
upon outsourcing with 93% of the production
being outsourced. The brand is only affordable
to the luxurious range people only. There is still
scope for the expansion in different product line
for Adidas.
Opportunities
With the change in the modern lifestyle the
customer are now demanding premium product
as provided Adidas. The company also have an
opportunity to expand in the new untapped
market. The company has started using the
strategy of backward integration to patent there
products in order so that they are not copied by
their competitors.
Threats
Although Adidas have a strong brand but they
face a tough competition from other well
established brand like Nike, Puma etc., the
suppliers have more power due to majority of
the work outsourced.

PEST Analysis
Political factors
These are the factors which will affect the long term working of the company. These factors include
Adidas supplies all over the world, so Adidas have to keep in mind the political stability of the
country, taxation system etc. as these factors will affect the company in the longer term.
Economic factors
The company operating in the sport industry is affected by the economic factors like inflation rates,
interest rates, exchange rates etc. the change in these will reduce the profit of Adidas so the
company must form strategies to deal with them.
Social factors
These factors include the change in the taste and preferences of the customers and this is one of the
most important factor affecting Adidas. These also include the values and culture of the people of
the company.
Technological factors
Adidas is now growing into new market with the help of the new technologies like selling there
product online through their websites and different applications. Adidas can use these technological
advancements to dive into new industries.
Objectives and Issues
The following are the objectives of Adidas:
To be the global leader of the sport industry in the coming two years
Adidas is trying to become the leader in the sporting industry by understanding the needs and
demand of the customers and provide them with customize product. The company is investing more
and more in the innovation and development of new types of product so that they can create product
differentiation in the market and stand out to be the global leader. They have a wide range of sport
shoes namely Adidas men's Alphabounce Instinct, Adidas Hellion Z M etc. which provide a wide
variety to the customer to choose from.
To achieve quality and sustainable growth
The other objective that Adidas is planning to achieve in the coming two years is that they want to
create constant stream of qualitative product for their customers, they are trying to achieve this
object by focusing their operation on their speed and consistency. Also, they need to operate in a
sustainable way so that they do not sacrifice the future generation needs.

Now we are considering some of the issues which Adidas is currently facing:
Slow growth in North America
One of the major issue faced by the compact is that there sales have been slow in the North America
in the first half of 2019, due to this the company has no plan to increase there sale price and so
Adidas expects the problems will mean the loss of between €200m and €400m of sales. Though
they have hit their target of 2019, but to full fill there objective of global leader they must solve this
issue.(Moutinho and Vargas-Sanchez, 2018)
Supply chain shortage
According to Adidas Annual report the company is expecting supply shortage in 2019 and this has
resulted into the sales growth being reduced by 3 – 4% in the first half of 2019. The company is
trying to regain its supply so that the sale growth is recovered in the second half of 2019 and attain
their lost market share.
Marketing strategy
The marketing strategies are being evaluated by 4 P's of marketing
Product mix
Adidas have a wide range of product mix which includes footwear, apparels and accessories,
clothing etc., with this diverse range of product the company has a strong standing in the
marketplace. The main aim of the company is to provide the best quality product in every segment
of the product they are providing especially footwear. The target of Adidas product is mainly the
youngsters who want the stylish and comfortable shoes. The product mix of Adidas is considered to
be excellent for their customer who are ready to pay the premium price.(Wierenga and Van der
Lans, 2017)
Price mix
Adidas due to its strong brand image and competitive position in the market they use strategies like
price skimming and competitive pricing for their products. The type of pricing strategy being used
by Adidas depend upon whether their product is new old. If there product is just being launched
then they will use the skimming price strategy for there product and if the product is a mill product
then they will use competitive pricing where they set their price by looking at there competitor's
price. Irrespective of the pricing technique used the company price are generally for the premium
customers only.

Place mix
The majority of the product is being sold by the company through their retail stores available all
over the world. They have around 2400 retail stores operating and through other multi brand. These
multi brand showroom get there products from different distributors. They have an excellent
distribution channel to supply there product all over the world. A happy distribution channel means
better promotion for the company.
Promotion mix
The promotional activities of the company to make their product marketable include majorly the
television marketing and the product placement. Adidas uses aggressive marketing techniques to
advertise there product and they have to do this in order to face the intense competition in the
market from companies like Puma, Nike etc., these ads helps in gaining the customer's attention to
the product of the company and thus increases their market share. Adidas also sponsors teams and
some top teams include Real Madrid, France, Great Britain in football, England and South Africa in
cricket. (Chernev, 2018)
Action Plan
OBJECTIVES TASKS SUCCESS
CRITERIA
TIME FRAME RESOURCES
To maximize the
operational and
financial
performance all
over the world.
They need to
devise a flexible
supply chain, and
multi brand
strategies.
The company
should encourage
there employee to
work together to
achieve the
organisational
goals.
The company is
trying to achieve
this in the coming
1 – 2 years.
They need to
improvise their
infrastructure in
order to improve
their efficiency
and effectiveness.
To maximize their
profit in the
wholesale market
and become the
top seller in the
retail market.
They are trying to
build strong
relationship with
the retailers and
achieve
sustainability in
the wholesale
market to gain
Adidas is trying to
build up a highly
skilled team to
reach to their
goals and provide
retailers with best
services.
This is a long term
objective and will
require a time
frame between 4 -
5 years.
They need to
display a large
range of product
to develop there
retail and
wholesale market.

good return on
investment.
To ensure cost
competitiveness
by devising
strategies which
reduce the cost
incurred by them
to minimum.
Try to remove the
middle man and
remove the
unnecessary cost
being incurred in
day to day
operations.
Train their staff to
achieve their goals
more effectively
and efficiently.
Use cost efficient
but qualitative raw
material.
This is a short
term objective and
should be formed
every quarter.
They need to find
cheap suppliers
who can supply
them at low rates
and build good
relation to gain
volume discount.
To gain the market
of the E-
commerce and
maximize there
online sale to
become the global
leader.(Haider,
2019)
They need to
maintain there
websites and also
need to provide
there product on
apps like amazon,
flipkart etc.
Promote their
product on the
social media sites
like Facebook,
Instagram etc., so
that their customer
know that they
can order their
product online.
These are again
short term strategy
and should be
updated every
month.
The main resource
to achieve this
objective is an IT
team who can
keep these sites
updated with the
product of Adidas.
Budget
Budget of Adidas company € €
2018 2019 % Increase
Sales by product category
Footwear 12783 13294.32 4.00%
Apparel 8223 8880.84 8.00%
Hardware 910 1046.5 15.00%
21916 23221.66
Cost of sales 10552 11079.6 5.00%
Profits 11364 12142.06 6.80%
This is an extract of the budget and in this budget the 2018 figures are the actual figures whereas the
2019 year figures are expected, the analysis of this budget is shown below:
From the above budget we can say that the budget shows increase in the sales. Adidas is expecting

the highest growth in the hardware category and the least in footwear. The company should try to
devise some strategies to boost up their footwear sales as this is one of the most important category
for the company. The reason for the reduced sales is because of the reduction in the north American
division sales. The apparels sales are expecting a good growth of 8% which is quite satisfying for
Adidas.(Deepak and Jeyakumar, 2019) The overall rise in the profit is 6.80%. Though the sales rise
is of 27% of all the 3 categories, the profit has risen by 6.80% only because the majority of rise in
the sale is in apparels and hardware which accounts very less amount of sales of the whole
company. Therefore, in order to increase there share the company need to shift there focus on
footwear so that there profits are increased.
Control
Controlling is the process of assessing and regulation ongoing activities to ensure that goal are
achieved. There are various ways to control the activities of Adidas so that the company can find
out the variances and work on it to achieve there goals effectively and efficiently and the same
mistakes are not regularly repeated.
Monitoring
In order to maintain the quality of their products, Adidas will use various strategies which
will help them to monitor the product quality and hence serve the customers better.
Using the real-time data
This is the most important strategy which the company can use for monitoring and thus
reviewing the quality of their products. This will help manufacturers to improve the quality.
Company can make use of real time data which will assist them to solve the complex production
problems. By having the real time data, manufacturers will be aware of the quantity which is to be
produced and how much raw material will be use for this manufacturing.(Keegan, 2017) When they
will know the exact quantity then there will be no production of the excessive amount and hence
company will be able to deliver high quality products.
Quality audits
Quality audits is basically the method of investigating and determining the areas where the
quality is not up to grade. Quality audit helps the organizations to make the necessary improvement
where there is need. Adidas can through the support of quality audits monitor the quality of their
products and thus can take the appropriate action for making improvements. For example through
the help of quality audit, company finds out that the quality of their footwear items are not as per
the customer requirements and thus is not able to meet the needs of customers.(Shaw, 2016)

Therefore, the management of company will take the necessary actions for improving the quality of
their product like lean manufacturing, total quality management.
Sales per customer
This is one of the most important tool and indicator which the company can use for
monitoring their monthly sales. This indicator will help them to know how much sales has been
achieved per customer. For example around 450 units of the shoes has been sold among the target
customer of 1000 then this will be the sales per customer. This assist the Adidas to gain an insight of
the sales of their products and thus make them aware of the success or the failure of a particular
product or service. (Kotler, 2018)
CONCLUSION
From this report we have come to a conclusion that the performance of Adidas is excellent in all the
sectors. The profit are growing at a good rate and the sales are also growing. This report shows two
analysis in the first section which are SWOT and PESTLE, then there is the marketing strategy in
which the 4 P's are explained. Then the report shows the action plan followed by the budget of the
company for the year 2019 and at last there is the different type of activities which help in
controlling the work of the organisation. Comprehensively the report shows that the company has
good future perspectives and will be profitable in the long term.
REFERENCES
Books and journals
Wierenga, B. and Van der Lans, R. eds., 2017. Handbook of marketing decision models (Vol. 254).
Springer.
Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
Deepak, R.K.A. and Jeyakumar, S., 2019. Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Haider, A.A., and et.al., 2019. Marketing Management.
Keegan, W.J., 2017. Global marketing management. Pearson India.
Kerin, R. and Hartley, S., 2015. Marketing: the core. McGraw-Hill.
Kotler, P., and et.al., 2018. Marketing management: an Asian perspective. Pearson.
Moutinho, L. and Vargas-Sanchez, A. eds., 2018. Strategic Management in Tourism, CABI Tourism
Texts. Cabi.
Shaw, S., 2016. Airline marketing and management. Routledge.