Adidas broadening Reebok brand identity

Adidas broadening Reebok brand identity

	Published : Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:15 By : Agencies Print this Story

BOSTON (AFX) - Adidas AG plans to reposition its Reebok brand to target athletics apparel consumers who value individuality, with a goal of broadening beyond an urban youth target audience and re-emphasizing Reebok's roots as an athletics performance brand.

The strategy announced Thursday comes as Germany-based Adidas ramps up its investment in Reebok a year after acquiring the brand for $3.8 billion and then seeing Reebok sales fall into a slump.

The revised brand strategy builds off the edgy 'I am what I am' campaign Reebok adopted four years ago by embracing hip-hop culture and youth-oriented entertainment alongside its traditional athletics performance market.

The new strategy will maintain the 'I am what I am' theme in many of Reebok's advertisements. But it also will position Reebok as 'an American-inspired global brand that celebrates individuality in sport and life,' according to Adidas.

Reebok President and Chief Executive Paul Harrington said the brand will gently shift emphasis toward suburban consumers of all ages without abandoning the urban youth targeted by 'I am what I am.' Reebok also will try to reconnect with consumers who value athletic performance over fashion.

While 'I am what I am' won't go by the wayside, 'It may not be as loud as it was when we first launched it,' Harrington said in an interview after Thursday's announcement at Reebok's Canton headquarters, where he was joined by Adidas CEO and Chairman Herbert Hainer.

The street-influenced 'I am what I am' campaign helped Reebok connect with youth by featuring endorsers such as rappers 50 Cent and Jay-Z.

But some industry analysts said the campaign risked alienating customers who prize performance over fashion and marked too sharp a departure for a brand that gained traction pitching aerobics shoes to women in the 1980s.

'We are not going to move totally away from music, but we are going to reach for a broader audience,' Harrington said.

Adidas hopes Reebok will double its U.S. business and narrow Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike Inc.'s market leadership.

But Adidas said in November that sales of Reebok-branded shoes and other apparel fell 7 percent in the first nine months of last year, compared with the same period in 2005. Adidas also conceded that Reebok's profit growth this year would fall short of initial expectations, and it said it intended to increase Reebok investment this year.

Among other things, Reebok has been hurt by a recent decline in the once-hot market for retro-styled sneakers that mimic styles from the '80s -- a trend that Reebok helped drive, said John Horan, publisher of Sport Goods Intelligence, a Glen Mills, Pa.-based industry newsletter.

Since Adidas completed the Reebok deal in January 2006, analysts have speculated as to how the one-time athletics sneaker and apparel rivals would position the two separately managed brands to avoid competing against one another in the same market niches.

The strategy announced Thursday will be launched with two Reebok campaigns this year. The first is a 'Run Easy' campaign beginning this spring emphasizing the fun and joy of running, rather than its 'blood, sweat and tears' aspect and winning.

Reebok plans to launch a broader campaign in August targeting a variety of athletes as well as lifestyle apparel consumers around the theme 'Best On/Best Off' -- suggesting that Reebok products offer the best in apparel both on and off the playing field.

New products Reebok plans to introduce this year include a running shoe created especially for women, a new Allen Iverson model basketball shoe, and an apparel collection endorsed by actress Scarlett Johansson.

Andrew Rohm, a former Reebok marketing employee and now an assistant professor of marketing at Northeastern University, said the revised strategy reflects an attempt by Reebok to create a new niche to complement the Adidas brand, whose traditional strength has been in athletic performance, especially soccer.

'I think it may be a reflection of looking less at sheer sales volume, and more in terms of owning a unique space, and becoming more of a niche player than they have tried to be in the past,' Rohm said.

Reebok's Harrington said the revised marketing strategy will help position the brand for a comeback.

'It really positions us for growth in the back end of 2007,' he said.