Global Sportswear brand Adidas has handed its global media buying duties to MediaCom. The brand previously worked with Dentsu Aegis Network’s Carat in Southeast Asia, UK and US while Publicis Media’s Starcom has held the sportswear giant’s media-buying in the Middle East.
According to its Q1 2018 financials, the brand has grown its bottom line significantly faster than the top line while continuing to invest into creating brand desire, said adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted. There is also an 11% increase at brand adidas which was driven by double-digit increases in the running, football and training categories as well as at adidas Originals.
In May this year, adidas also halted its video ad spend on Facebook, and said it is considering cutting spending on the platform. This is due to concerns that consumers are not regularly viewing its Facebook ads, Digi day reports and adidas is quoted to be “frustrated” with the limited amount of data Facebook shares with its marketing team, making it hard to verify the effectiveness of its ads.
An internal review conducted by adidas uncovered that view ability and retention rates for its Facebook ads were not “high enough”. This poses a challenge to the brand, as it puts a heavy emphasis on video and wants to know that consumers are watching its videos instead of merely scrolling past them. adidas however, has no issue with its ad spend on Instagram.
Revenues at the Reebok brand decreased 3% due to declines in the training and running categories. Meanwhile, from a channel perspective, e-commerce was once again the fastest-growing channel with an increase of 27%. From a market segment perspective, the combined sales of the adidas and Reebok brands grew in most market segments. Growth was particularly strong in North America (+21%) and Asia-Pacific (+15%), the latter driven by a 26% increase in Greater China.
For 2018, adidas continues to expect sales to increase at a rate of around 10% on a currency-neutral basis, driven by double-digit growth in North America and Asia Pacific.
