Adidas was once known as a German brand unable to capture the American youth market. Then one fine day in 2014, the brand brought in a collaboration with Kanye West on a sneakers and clothing line. Consequently, Pharell WIlliams also partnered with the brand, with other pop celebrities like Jay Z, Beyonce, Diddy and Rihanna attending more and more Adidas brand campaigns. In the next few years, more celebrities got in the loop. Fashion icons Taylor Swift and Emma Stone were also caught on cameras wearing Adidas.

Adidas-wearing stars and other social initiatives created a very effective social media buzz. What’s more, Adidas has been actively engaging with fans on social media, for example, creating a contest asking them to tweet images of themselves for possible use on the label of a popular shoe line.

In March 2017, with a very smart move, Adidas hired 25 social media influencers for their own brand campaigns. They will be working on the brand’s social media as regular people. These 25 people dont only include sports stars but non athletes like people with a high school social media presence too. Former tennis player Ana Ivanovic is  joined by model and DJ Hannah Bronfman, author Robin Arzon and personal trainer Zanna van Dijk, reports businessoffashion.com

This move can be compared with Puma, partening with celebrities like Rihanna and Kylie Jenner but what’s different about Adidas is they have captured the social media habits, where celebrities are not the only influencers we have. And all social media influencers, even though might now have any connections with sports, come with millions of followers.

 

The increased female focus is part of Adidas’s strategy to boost profit by as much as 22 percent each year through 2020 and close a profitability gap with rival Nike. Liedtke said the company is “not happy where we are today” when it comes to its position in womens wear, which represented 23 percent of revenue last year, and vowed to lift that proportion to 28 percent within four years.

• businessoffashion.com

Consequitively, in the next couple of weeks itself, Adidas reported record sales of €19.3bn in 2016 thanks to a strong performance in its ecommerce business and it will be aiming to channel much of the growth in women’s line through digital sales.