The Brand With Three Stripes
Social Media serves as a step ladder for many personalities and brands to dish out user-generated content. Ranging from text posts (Twitter) to aesthetically pleasing images(Instagram), social media emphasizes on the user and their message. With regards to expressing ideas, opinions and experiences, one bears witness to the formation of virtual communities and networks that share a common interest or in more simpler terms, the generation of an audience. With Social Media, we become both content producers and audience members.
Today, we are all audience members to somebody’s virtual community. Whether you just follow somebody for the sake of following them or if you actively like and engage in the conversation, you are a number that fits into some sort of algorithm of measurement. This is not necessarily a bad thing. With the numbers, content producers are able to see what their fans like and what they don’t. This by in large allows for you or the audience to make an impact on the content you see.
For this post, I will critically analyze the use of social media by the German based street and activewear design brand that is known as Adidas.
Besides designing and producing stylish and affordable products like the Adidas Ultra Boosts, Adidas NMDs and the Adidas Superstar sneakers. The brand does an exceptional job at marketing their content through the use of popular Social Media platforms. So let’s take a look at their social media presence and if it effectively promotes audience engagement and delivers their message.
Adidas in itself is a huge company, consisting of many different sectors in the business. For the sake of this post I will mainly focus on the general channels for the company.
(Twitter Account Screenshot @adidas)
@Adidas is the brands main twitter profile with the good old verified check mark and 3.06 million followers.
The brand does a good job in regards to balancing the ratio of planned and canned tweets. The planned posts are based around real-time events going on like the UEFA Champion League Final. Adidas is a major contributor to the sports industry providing sponsorships for teams equipment and gear. Adidas has done a good job keeping up to date with current time sports while also promoting their branding. An example of this instance would be when Luis Suarez of the FC Barcelona team scored in the finals and Adidas tweeted out images of the athlete in Adidas gear along with the trending hashtag for the match. This played a huge role in the use of the social media platform of Twitter to achieve their goal of engaging with a wider audience and in turn generating digital traffic and potential profit for their brand.
The Facebook page is dressed in the logo for the company establishing their name and giving it a professional aesthetic. The company has done this for years and that is apparent in the fact that everybody knows the Adidas logo. Their fanbase is huge on Facebook with a following of roughly 27 million people. Their Facebook page serves as a hub for all of their digital content with links and videos from their YouTube and Twitter channels. With Facebook many lifestyle and culture magazines and news outlets share the brands new content and products because of the powerful demand from fans.
With this, Adidas generates discussion in comment sections of posts from the audience, ultimately furthering their reach and building their presence in the digital realm. The screen shot below is the comment section for the post above and shows the different opinions and of the followers of the brand and HypeBeast.
Being a company based around the sneaker and sportswear market, Adidas must visually showcase their designs and products. This is where the social media platform of Instagram comes into play.
With 13.4 million followers, the company has a lot of reach in terms of providing the audience with visual content. Rather than focusing on selling their product, they leave the audience with awareness of the products from the brand. It is at that point where audience members decided if they want to buy it or not. Due to the fact that they do not push for the purchase of new products and kind of just show them off on Instagram, audience members begin to crave it even more. Because of this, audience engagement is boosted ultimately allowing for higher influence on product demand. This relationship develops a sense of trust in terms of reliability.
Something intriguing the brand did in terms of real-time marketing was using Instagram. During the promotional period for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Montreal, Adidas sponsored the event by providing the facilities with balls. The brand then posted a series of images of the ball for the final game with the active geotagging of Montreal. This resulted in awareness of the game and the location it was going to be in. This allowed for the brand to generate word of mouth awareness.
Analysis
After looking at the multiple social media channels that Adidas utilizes for their brand it is apparent that they are doing something right. What I have noticed is that the brand in itself is self aware of it’s strengths and not afraid to express that. The brand knows that their products are excellent and people rely on them day to day. This backed with the fact that many celebrities and people of influence promote the brand with pride. An example of this would be hip hop godfather Kanye West and his collaboration with Adidas for his Yeezy clothing and shoe designs. With Kanye West’s cult-esque fan base and Adidas’s resources in the realm of production and distribution, fans receive an amalgamation of both of the brands creative content which allows for a more engaged and actionable experience.
Adidas recognizes that its biggest audience base on Social Media is Millennials. With that knowledge they are able to market their content and better refine their interactions with their audience. Millennials are Adidas’s biggest target demographic which is reflective of their marketing strategy on the many different platforms. The content that they post relates to popular culture influences and relevant real-time events.
Adidas’s approach in promoting work through the use of visually appealing and engaging content further reflects the social environment of the digital world.
Conclusion
In conclusion Adidas integrates a clear strategy that has worked quite effectively. Adidas has worked out a system of hierarchy for their multiple social media channels. The main Adidas account is the hub and the other accounts act as checkpoints that would direct users back to the brand. By keeping up and managing their pages with current events and molding their messages to tie back to the brand. Adidas becomes the ‘plug’ for culture and fashion. I believe that Adidas successfully markets their content and utilizes social media in an effective manner that promotes discussion and keeps the brand’s name buzzing online.
