Marketing Communications Programme of Adidas Essay

Marketing Communications Programme of Adidas - Essay Example The role of communication audit is to find whether the intended person is decoding the message in the manner, in which the messages were designed when encoded. When this communication audit is done on a real organization like Adidas, it gives interesting perspectives or results of their MarCom strategies. Adidas is the Germany based sports equipment and apparel manufacturing company, and along with Reebok, Taylor Made and Rockport constitutes the Adidas Group. Adidas is the second-biggest sportswear manufacturer in the world in terms of revenue and reach, following Nike and when it comes to Europe, it is the largest manufacturer. (freebase.com). Headquartered at Herzogenaurach, Germany, Adidas is known for producing and selling high quality products with the aid of effective marketing strategies to a wide range of customers throughout the world. Although, it also provides its products to its brand endorsers and sponsored teams, its main focus is on the key stakeholder of customers. A didas has a set of stakeholders and according to its website they are Employees at the Adidas Shareholders, Board of Directors Business partners including suppliers, retailers, distributors, service providers, etc. Employees in their suppliers' factories Customers, which include professional sports people and importantly consumer (adidas-group.com). Among these stakeholders, customer segment are the key because, although other stakeholders will also be communicated regarding the company’s operations, the customers will be mainly communicated through various marketing campaigns for their products. The customer segment of Adidas constitutes people, who want to buy sportswear and equipments for their sports activities and also as part of their lifestyle activities. As Borowski (2011, p.7) states, Adidas could focus on the â€Å"middle and upper-class athletics, single and family-households with lifestyle and brand loyalty, whose income allows buying those goods.† When the age aspect is focused, Adidas’ target segment will be mainly in the age group of 14 to 30, however as Hall, Jones and Raffo (2007) states age will not be always a factor, because even people in their middle-ages will buy Adidas products as part of their lifestyle activities. This perspective was validated by Keegan (2009) as well, who stated, â€Å"Adidas still enjoys high brand loyalty among older Europeans†. Thus, the target customer base or key stakeholders of Adidas is slightly broad, and so Adidas has been communicating with all these customer segments through different MarCom strategies. To initiate these customer segment specific marketing campaigns, Adidas in the late 1990’s categorized its brand into three main groups, called Adidas Performance, Adidas Originals and Adidas Style Essentials, with each group constituting a range of products exhibiting a specific focus. This categorization of products