Marketing[edit]
Chuck D in an Adidas sweatsuit
Ken Westerfield, disc sport (Frisbee) champion, clothing sponsored, Adidas Canada (1974-1979)
Adidas, like other sports brands, is believed to engender high consumer brand loyalty. Brand loyalty towards Adidas, Nike, Inc., Puma AG and several other sportswear brands was examined in a recent study.[63] The study found consumers did not exhibit unduly high loyalty towards such brands.
During the mid to late 1990s, Adidas divided the brand into three main groups with each a separate focus: Adidas Performance was designed to maintain their devotion to the athlete; Adidas Originals was designed to focus on the brand's earlier designs which remained a popular life-style icon; and Style Essentials, which dealt with the fashion market; the main group within this being Y-3 (which is a collaboration between Adidas and renowned Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto - the Y representing Yamamoto and the 3 representing the three stripes of Adidas).
"Adidas is all in" is the current global marketing strategy slogan for Adidas. The slogan aims to tie all brands and labels together, presenting a unified image to consumers interested in sports, fashion, street, music and pop culture. There appears to be connection with the phrase "all-in" meaning "exhausted" in some English speaking nations.
Launched in 2004, "Impossible is Nothing" is one of the company's most memorable campaigns.[64] The campaign was developed by 180/TBWA based in Amsterdam, but significant work was also done by TBWAChiatDay in San Francisco.[65] A few years later, Adidas launched a basketball specific campaign -- "Believe in 5ive"—for the 2006-2007 NBA season.[66]