Conventional Wisdom in sportswear industry

Sportswear has become a very important part of the fashion industry. It's no more just a comfortable clothes to do sports, it has become a lifestyle, a big part of fashion. With the growing of the industry the number of customers and purchase frequency is growing too. With this growth the competition increases and brands pay more and more attention on benchmark and marketing actions in order to attract clients.

Sportswear fashion is changing fast and these changes cannot stay unnoticed by consumers and they definitely influenced a lot on a sportswear marketing strategy and consumers perception of the sportswear products.

The sportswear marketing has started with the footwear, it was a beginning of a sport marketing race. Apart from the advertising and promotion in the middle of XX century Adidas has started to promote the brand through the athletes uniform and shoes (national football teams, tennis players, basketball teams, etc.). Today Nike and Adidas are main competitors in sportswear for professional athlets. 

Nike's great experience of using an emotional marketing has incouraged other companies to use the same one to attract customers and increase their loyalty. After "Just Do It" inspiration Adidas, Fila, Reebok and other brands started to play on consumers' emotions do make them believe in themselves and focus on a healthy and sporty lifestyle. This has obviously influenced sales and costumers' perception of the brands.

Sportswear industry is progressing all the time. New textiles, performance, technical apparel innovation.  Both Nike and Adidas are innovative, they give a significant role to multifunctional, lightweight and smart fibre development, eco-friendly, organic and sustainability trends in fibres and fabrics and etc. They create design-wise multifunctional knits, stitch free and other high qualified products. 

In order to be competitive on the market, companies have to invest in marketing and R&D to learn and develop new knowledge.
Even the logos were changed through times:

Irina Kalashnikova and Alexandra Tsarkova

http://sportswearbrandstrategy.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/sportswear-brands-customization/

http://www.mikeredwood.com/userfiles/File/The%20role%20of%20marketing%20in%20active%20in%20active%20sportswear%20and%20equipment.pdf

http://oxfordstudent.com/2014/05/08/the-secret-history-of-sportswear/

http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/how-do-knowledge-processes-support-innovation-sportswear-industry