Adidas Positioning

1.0 Introduction Adidas is the second largest sportswear and apparels manufacturer (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker, 2009). By far, Adidas holds a market share of 22% (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker, 2009). Adidas had also registered the infamous ‘3 stripes’ as its trademark (Berntson, Jarnemo & Philipson, 2006). The founders of Adidas, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler had the vision of providing athletes with the best suited pair of shoes for their respective sports (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker, 2009). In efforts of achieving that, Adidas is had used the strategy of collaborating with important athletes to gain their insights on the products offered (Berntson, Jarnemo & Philipson, 2006). This contributes to the fact that Adidas had earned the reputation of being innovative and creative at an early stage (Berntson, Jarnemo & Philipson, 2006). Also, the pursue of Adidas to gain greater market share and penetration in the US market, Adidas had acquired Reebok International Ltd. under its empire (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker, 2009). Today, Adidas continues its rich heritage of harnessing technology to make some of the best shoes (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker, 2009). The issue that is discussed later in this paper would be of how Adidas had positioned its product in the market.

2.0 Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning The process of segmentation, targeting and positioning is shown figure 1 below. Segmentation is defined as dividing the market into distinct group of buyers that possess different needs, characteristics or behaviour that might need separate products or marketing mixes to satisfy their needs and wants (Kotler, Brown, Adam, Burton & Armstrong, 2007). Consequently, the major variables that are used to segment consumer markets are geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioural variables (Kotler et. al, 2007). Adidas had segment their sports shoes into football, running, basketball, tennis and training (Berntson, Jarnemo & Philipson,