Image via Complex Original
Adidas made it very clear that it wasn't happy with sitting stagnant as a brand and letting the gap between it and Nike grow larger by the day. So the brand made some moves. It signed Kanye West, Pharrell, and Nigo, put out a handful of great Y-3 sneakers, signed three of Nike's young designers, and spread Boost and Primeknit — two innovative and sellable technological properties — among its offerings.
But there's still a lot of work for the brand to do. They're still not no. 1. Although I'm not a financial specialist and adept at figuring out at the structural woes of a multi-national corporation, there are still things that the brand could do to make things better and more simple for its customers. Would they work in practice? We'd have to see to judge. But in the meantime, here's How adidas Can Get Its Groove Back.
Matt Welty is a staff writer at Complex. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Figure out basketball.
Adidas shocked some people when it announced that it would no longer be the official uniform sponsor of the NBA after the 2016-2017 NBA season. According to analysts, jersey deals can be lucrative, and it was criticized that adidas was missing out on dollars flowing into the brand. But here's the sad truth about adidas and basketball: It just doesn't work.
The brand has a long history with the sport. The adidas Superstar was the first leather low-top basketball sneaker. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wore adidas. Patrick Ewing, at least for some time, wore adidas. Kobe Bryant used to wear adidas, and the brand is still trying to sell that. But its current crop of signature athletes and sneakers needs work. Derrick Rose has a huge contract with the brand, and although he hasn't played much in the past few years, continues to get signature sneaker after signature sneaker. And, sadly, none of them have off-court appeal. And let's not even talk about Dwight Howard and his signature models.
John Wall and Damian Lillard, two young stars in the NBA, were both given their first signature models this year. And they've gained some buzz. But when when you look at the sneakers in comparison to what Nike is doing with Kyrie Irving, its latest signature athlete, they just don't match up, at least aesthetically. Being a European brand, it's fair to say that maybe adidas is disconnected from the basketball world, or the rest of the brand's products don't jive well, from a design prospective, with what it's doing in basketball. That needs to be fixed. The lifestyle appeal is what allows adidas to constantly re-issue its back catalog product. That crossover isn't seen with its current products, and it's vital to the brand's progress. It can change from creating models that translate to the street as much as they do the hardwood. Make stuff that people, even if they don't know who these players are, would want to wear.
Make the Kanye collection available to the masses, and make it look like adidas.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not a hater for the Kanye x adidas collection, I just don't think it makes sense to sell the adidas brand image to the masses. We've been waiting on this collaboration forever, and it's finally started to release. But there are a few issues with it. First off: It's billed as being part of adidas Originals, which is the brand's lifestyle division that takes cues from its past and readies them for the future. There is, however, virtually no adidas DNA in any of the product. It's essentially Kanye West x Kanye West and put out by adidas. Very little of the collection's pieces have comparable or takedown models that the average consumer, who's not getting lucky via the brand's Confirmed app, can purchase.
Which leads to the bigger issue: Kanye promised everyone that his adidas collab would be readily available and affordable. Neither of which are true. The Yeezy 750 Boost, the first Kanye x adidas sneaker to come out, was $350 and near impossible to track down. The clothing prices were equally as steep. It's been rumored that the 350 Boost, the Roshe-like runner from Kanye, is going to be less expensive and easier to purchase, but that waits to be seen. All I really want is Kanye's take on adidas, not just the clothing brand he's always wanted to design. And I want to be able to buy it at a non-outrageous price and without winning the luck of the draw. Is that too much to ask?
Stop hoarding the good stuff overseas.
With adidas' global headquarters located in Germany, it's no surprise that European shops get first dibs on exclusive products. What about showing the U.S. some love? Coming across the good adidas stuff, that isn't the run of the mill, is difficult if you don't have access to the top-tier boutiques in the States. Even then, there are certain models that will only be available in Germany, France, or the UK. These sneakers — mainly the adidas Originals silhouettes — can be difficult to track down in the U.S., but they scream what adidas is about.
Who wouldn't want more EQTs and similar models available at the local shop? Maybe they'd take away the appeal of getting stuff straight from Europe, but if adidas wants to be cool again, it needs to sell its most-cachet product to more than a limited audience.
Stop being such a segmented brand.
There's adidas Originals. Y-3. Adidas Fashion Group. Jeremy Scott for adidas. Rick Owens for adidas. Pharrell Williams for adidas. Adidas U.S. Stella McCartney for adidas. Adidas NEO. Adidas Skateboarding. And the list goes on.
The brand has many tiers, and makes a lot of good. But it's confusing. Unlike Nike, who does have a few sections of the brands, which have limited collaboration partners, adidas has so many buildouts within its structure that it's hard to keep up with everything that's going on. I'm not saying that these lines aren't worth pursuing, but it would make a lot of sense for them to figure out a way for everything to flow organically. Nike has its sportswear line, and then there are certain categories that fall underneath it. Adidas does the same things, too, with its Originals line.
But each collection feels like its own category of the company, rather than a piece of the puzzle. Kanye, Pharrell, and Nigo all signed deals to the brand, but they feel detached from each other. If adidas simplified things a bit, it could potentially be easier for its fans to figure things out and make sense of what the brand is offering — instead of having to pick and choose from a handful of separate silos.
Soccer, soccer, soccer.
If there's one thing that adidas is known for — no, I'm not talking about the Stan Smith, Superstar, or RUN-D.M.C. — it's soccer. The 2014 World Cup Final included two adidas nations, Argentina and Germany, but the talk of the tournament, at least from a brand perspective, was what Nike was doing. It had unveiled its first Flyknit soccer boot and was casually integrating that look into its lifestyle portfolio, too. The Free Mercurial Superfly, designed by the HTM crew, was a niche model that gave Nike big style props.
Adidas has been able to dig into its soccer archive as well. Just look at the SPEZIAL collection and what it's done with Barbour. But those items didn't have much appeal outside of the core soccer fan in the UK or Europe who knew hooligan or casual culture. Not to say that they weren't great, but they do very little to advance soccer culture, something that's currently budding in America, on a larger scale.
But the brand's Tiro track pants have caught fire, due to their low price point, $45, and slim cut. So why not take soccer silhouettes and introduce them with Boost midsoles, the brand's latest and greatest technology, and sell them to people who love soccer or want something to wear off the pitch? Which brings me to my last point.
Run Boost and Primeknit into the ground, literally.
Two of adidas' newest technologies, Boost and Primeknit, have been received to critical acclaim. The Boost midsole looks and feels great, and the same can be said about Primeknit. They've both been transitioned into lifestyle product, but are still applicable to performance product, too. And adidas needs to keep using these winning formulas.
I know, not every sneaker can have Boost or Primeknit, but find a way to streamline them into every facet of the brand. Nike has done just that with its own Flyknit technology and there's no reason why adidas should be trailing in their wake. And from the looks of things in 2015 and for upcoming seasons, this may be true. But we need to hold our breath until it actually happens.
