Adidas shifts focus with campaign to woo females

MORGAN Brill wears a three-year-old pair of Adidas cross-trainers – for her work as a nurse. When it comes to preparing for her first half-marathon, she probably wouldn’t buy the brand, even though she wore Adidas as a college soccer player.

“They don’t have enough options, and they aren’t well-known for long-distance running,” said Brill. In addition, “Their three-striped symbol just isn’t as as prestigious as Nike’s. I feel like their marketing just isn’t as big.”

Adidas, which traces its history back to 1920s Germany, aims to change the mind of female customers such as Brill and catch up to Nike – which, like Puma, is also targeting women. Nike’s 5.7 percent share of the $176 billion (R2.75 trillion) global market for women’s shoes is more than double that of Adidas, with Puma farther down the list, according to Euromonitor International.

Adidas, which ushers in a new chief executive in October, last month appointed company veteran Nicole Vollebregt as its first global head of women’s products. It is marketing women’s garments that can serve double duty for exercise or work, bringing out new women’s shoe models and aired womenfocused commercials during the Academy Awards telecast, about 60 percent of whose viewers are female. The goal is to win over post-collegiate athletes, recreational runners and women who want to look good at the gym. To that end, Adidas has also hired former Lululemon Athletica chef executive Christine Day as an adviser.

“If you look at where the growth in the industry in years to come is going to come from, it’s going to come from women,” said Vollebregt, adding that she was focusing on young women who played sports in school and then tailed off without the help of teammates and coaches. “This is a woman who sweats.”

Adidas is designing more sneakers, jackets and other garments specifically for women’s sports as part of a turnaround attempt after several years of mixed performance.

The company expects revenue and profit will rise at a double-digit rate this year after three years of uneven growth and scrapped profit targets.

One challenge: Puma and Nike are going after the same market. Top sports brand Nike aims to double sales to women to $11bn by 2020 from $5.7 billion last year, and produces six sneaker models for women that it says generate more than $100 million each in annual sales. – Bloomberg