NUR FARISSA KYAISSAH BINTI ARIFFIN

2020967779 (BA2404A)
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT MKT558

Adidas or in full Adidas AG is the second-largest sportswear of athletic shoes

and apparel and sporting goods company from Germany with a logo marked
with a three-stripe trademark, representing the elements of the company’s
newer “trefoil” and “mountain”. Adidas provided websites that function as an
online store that enables consumers to surf through their merchandise
which allows consumers to get their latest sports and activewear easily via
online transactions or cash on delivery.

V A N T O N LINE
RELE R I ABLES
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CONSUM

Demographic
Adidas brand their product into a wide range of ages and gender as
they appeal to male, female, and kids clothing, eyewear, and body-
care. Through the usage of the brand websites, the consumers are
able to fit the products according to their most suitable analytic. Since
the targeted market of the brand was between 13 to 40 years of age
of all genders, Adidas is focusing on the image of the company where
the brand aims to showcase its youthful side as well appropriately
acceptable to the millennials. Most of the brand-loyal consumers of
Adidas came from various educational backgrounds and occupations
with a distinct income. For instance, the invention of the Adidas Neo
label is to match with the image-driven teens who are committed in
life be it through gender, family, or age.

Geographic
To sustain their loyal consumers, Adidas has segmented their
product in urban and urban cities where it contains a large size of the
population to achieve their target successfully. Therefore, various
types and designs of their products had been advertised on the
websites specifically based on the country to suit the locals’ desire
and inclination. Hence, creating the idea of authenticity in consumers’
minds on certain products that are not available in their country. For
example, since Adidas is more popular in Europe, their soccer cleats
commercials and ads are frequently seen on Adidas’ websites as
opposed to other countries such as America where football is not as
favored or publicized as much.

Psychographic
It is thought that consumers within a given social class tend to
have akin buying behavior, thus, Adidas had to focus on many
levels of social classes to maintain sales. The way consumers
think and are interested in certain products is affected by
their lifestyle and perception towards a product which
represents a way of consumers’ buying expression. For
example, those who live an active and sporty lifestyle are
prone to purchasing Adidas performance products that cater
to their specific lifestyle and social class. Moreover, the design
of the brand shoes Y-3 fits the consumer who is likely in the
higher social class as they engage in the high fashion industry.
 Behavioural
To know their consumers’ actions better, Adidas can access
the information data of their consumers from the website
by tracking the types of products mostly purchased from
the Adidas’ websites. At once, manage to identify their
consumers’ spending habits and allow the company to
utilize the data to focus on improving the products so it
can suit their targeted consumers. For example, Adidas
mainly targets athletes, gym regulars, sports enthusiasts,
brand freaks, and image seekers.

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POLITICAL FORCES
Due to the spike in sales from websites, Adidas had to abide by the
laws enforced to supply, ship, and also distribute their products
globally. This requires them to follow the political procedures when
selling products online and extend the international supply chains in
order to retain their financial performance as well as global
performance. The brand also uses political forces as a method to
intervene with counterfeit products. Since Adidas ships its products
worldwide, the brand has to deal with various forms of government
and taxation systems as each country is abiding by its own taxation
system.
To illustrate, export and import tariff restrictions imposed by Trump
Administration can act as a major impediment when Germany acts as
Adidas’ major exporter. So, the restrictions will cost Germany a penalty
of up to 20 billion euros. To avoid this issue constantly impacting their
sales, the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 should be applied so
that such offenses could be taken into action. Therefore, the
authenticity of Adidas’ products could be guaranteed to their
consumers especially when it is bought from Adidas' main website.

ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES
Adidas decreases environmental impact as it is their responsibility to
monitor hazardous substances and eliminate them. The brand also
claims that all of their manufacturing factories units of the company do
not produce any restricted product which manages the company to
reduce volatile and compound emissions. Furthermore, Adidas
developed a “low waste initiative program”, where they focus on two
aspects of the choice of materials and the manufacturing process as an
initiative to the carbon footprint. Some of the other initiatives taken by
Adidas are Sports Infinity, Biosteel Fiber, Dyeing Processes to ensure
sourcing and supplying of the resources ethically. As a result, the brand
succeeds in imposing great image towards the environment by showing
concerns in such ways thus leaving deep impressions in the society
especially for the environmentalists.

SOCIAL FORCES
The performance of a brand is being affected by culture, religion and
lifestyle as it influences the brand image of Adidas in the market to
maintain customer loyalty. That is why the company’s core target
audience is health-conscious consumers who are intrinsically
passionate about sports. With an increasing number of audiences
channelizing energies into a healthy lifestyle and high demand for
sports apparel, putting Adidas is in a position where they have to
sustain with the preferences and latest trends to obtain new
customers. With so, using the websites, Adidas can offer consumers
seasonal promotions that provide discounts
 TECHNOLOGICAL FORCES
In order to survive in a competitive market and maintain a dominant
position, it is important that every sports brand adapts to the new
innovative technologies in the market. For the efficient functioning of a
company, it is important that technology be incorporated not only in
the product itself but in the way the company operates like process,
management, and accounting systems. Thus, Adidas is focusing on
investing in digital transformation to boost sales.
Since consumers cannot touch and feel the product by sense, they are
more likely to be dependant on reviews made by prior buyers to value
the quality of the products that they are interested in purchasing.
Hence, bad reviews left by prior consumers may also influence the
decision-making made by other consumers.

LEGAL FORCES
Personal Data Protection Act 2010, which protects the data and
information collected from consumers by traders from unauthorized
use, i.e., without the customer's consent. Adidas cannot exploit
customer's personal information especially when they make payments
via website.

Product safety is imperative. As a company, Adidas has to manage the

risk of selling defective products that may result in injury to consumers
and/or impair their image. To mitigate this risk, they have company-
wide product safety policies in place that ensure consistently apply
physical, chemical product safety, and conformity standards across all
brands of the company. To ensure product quality and consumer-safe
products, all materials and product samples have to pass a rigid
compliance process and are tested in accordance with standardized
material and product testing specifications and procedures.

ECONOMIC FORCES
Since the pandemic COVID-19 had struck the world, many countries
had implemented several kinds of restriction orders. For example, the
Malaysian government had enforced a Movement Control Order (MCO)
to bar social activities and curb movement. This had led the people to
spend more time at home with their gadgets at once impacting Adidas’
sales positively as consumers tend to spend their time purchasing
online via websites.

However, with the increase of online sales of Adidas, the brand had
faced a negative impact when counterfeit issues arose. It is known that
Adidas manufactures more than 50% of products in China because of
the low cost labor-intensive for creation compared to the North
American countries. Furthermore, the company faced continuous
challenges when it comes to exporting and importing goods plus, with
the rise of counterfeit products which had dampers Adidas’ sales when
the products can be duplicated as the designs are copied from Adidas’
online stores.

References
Digital Textbook Sixth Edition Digital Marketing Strategy,
Implementation, and practice, by Dave Chaffey and Fiona Ellis-
Chadwick
3 Outstanding Reasons Adidas is Better than Nike. (n.d.). SRI
Shoe Warehouse. https://www.srishoes.com/blogs/news/3-
outstanding-reasons-adidas-is-better-than-nike
Farooq, U. (2019, March 25). Adidas PESTLE Analysis.
Marketing Tutor. https://www.marketingtutor.net/adidas-
pestle-analysis/