After several months of preparations, Adidas has embarked on a round of talks with leading retailers to impose a more distinct presentation of its product ranges in European stores. Taking an unusually tough stance, the company warns that it will cut back or downgrade its offering to retailers who are reluctant to adopt the guidelines.
As a try-out, Adidas already introduced this strategy for football products ahead of the World Cup: retailers were then split into four categories, and each of them was offered a distinct set of football products, reflecting the retailer’s positioning in the eyes of Adidas. However, as part of negotiations for the next Spring season, the company aims to implement the concept more widely for all its product ranges.
The initiative is kicking off in three markets - France, the UK and the Benelux – which have all been under pressure over the last months. Adidas believes that the troubles were partly caused by a dearth of clearly segmented and cleanly presented offerings in these markets.
Called “Win the Consumer,” Adidas’ new product segmentation program is based on an internal study which splits Adidas consumers into 7 leading categories. They range from the Style Setter to the Athletic Stylite – the young man who double-parks his luxury cabriolet in a trendy Berlin shopping street at lunch-time, hops out of it and casually forks out €400 to buy a classy outfit for the gym, just because he’s forgotten his gear at home.
Accordingly, retailers have been split into distinct groups to cover one or two of the consumer categories identified by Adidas. The company argues that this will help the retailers to refine their own positioning and eventually inflate their sales. In exchange for playing along, they are offered extensive market data, point of sales material and staff training.
The try-out in the run-up to the World Cup appears to have paid off, judging by sales increases in football products obtained by two of Adidas’ leading partners in Germany. Karstadt has been identified as the retailer to cater for genuine football fans, while Intersport more sharply covers the performance-oriented football products. The general managers of both retailers smiled widely as they took their seats alongside Roland Auschel, head of Adidas Europe, at the opening of the World Cup in Munich earlier this month, indicating that they were pleased with the new merchandising approach.
