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

Sportwear Emotional branding

Emotional branding is a very effecting way to make a consumer to notice and try the product. Tools that marketing managers use to affect buyers' feelings work very well: this is why "sex sells" and this is why public service advertising is so shocking. Very often buyers don't choose and love the product relying on their reasonable perception but on their emotional perception.

Who is the customer of Adidas and Nike products? Very likely someone who likes sports, who prefers active living, who's going to gym, does yoga, jog quite often or does sports professionally. Words that come to our mind are "energy", "health", "activity". How do brands like Nike and Adidas use the emotional branding to reach their clients?

"Be aggressive" is a very common cheerleader slogan. Sporty people are very often very competitive naturally, they need to be aggressive, they need this energy, this motivation to be able to compete, to reach great results, to win. This is why sportwear brands like Adidas and Nike often address to this "aggressive" side of their consumers talking with them about the challenge, about competition, about strenght and victory in their ad campaigns. They want to awake this desire and adrenaline inside every sporty consumer. Or, very often, to inspire them, telling that their buyers are strong enough to get what they want. And Nike/Adidas/any-other-sportwear-brand will help them to do it!

Let's look at some examples where Nike and Adidas used the emotional branding in their advertising campaigns:

Nike is one of the brands that is often used as a good example of creating an emotional advertising. One of the stories is a Hero-Villain story. They address to a consumer's amotional and competitive side, challenging and inspiring at the same time: "You are the hero and your lazy side is a villain. They know that while some people may identify with an external foe, all people identify with an internal foe", says emotional marketing consultant, Graeme Newell.

Nike target the inner inside of a customer, the internal desire to be the best, to be the winner, to be the One! Their slogan "Just Do It" calls to their competitive nature, promisind success and a longing result, the accomplishment.

Adidas approach is quite different from Nike's one. Nike is focusing on inspiration of their consumers, making them believe that all they need is "just do it". Adidas approach is more aggressive. They're focused on superiority,  on speed, energy, passion, strenght, control.. They try to awake the warrior. 

There are different approaches to touch the consumer's feeling and Adidas and Nike has found good points to focus on: inspiration, challenge and desire to win, against the external or internal rival..

Alexandra Tsarkova

Sources: 

https://medium.com/marketing-102/emotional-branding-ac90ac79d784

http://602communications.com/2013/02/nike-brand-strategy-emotional-branding-using-the-story-of-heroism/

http://warschawski.com/blog/nike-and-adidas-play-for-brand-equity-at-the-world-cup/

Brand management, ex. Fifa 2014 Nike/Adidas

It is impressive how strong brand equity became for well known brands last decades and how greatly it influences on consumers' choices.

Brand equity may increase market share, profit margin, consumers'  recognition of logo, consumers' perception of quality and other relevant brand values.

It is not an easy task to create brand equity. It requires strategic investments in channels of communication and market education. The feedback of hard research does not come directly, it shows up over time and bring return on investment.

Nowadays building a brand equity is important and let's say mandatory, if the company wants to be successful and competitive.  The proven fact is when customers believe in a brand, they are ready to pay even a premium price in order to get it. Every part of the product should be valued and authentic, name, logo, image, packaging, advertising. It should provide with quality, performance and, depending on the product, with other dimensions of value, which can influence consumers' choice among competing products.

Let's have a look on the example of significant side by side walk during FIFA World Cup in Brazil 2014.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1nn5ie_brand-equity-battlefield-brazil-nike-vs-adidas_news

Adidas has been historically a front runner of football, but soccer's brand Nike is catching up quickly. Nike Brand Director explains that this event is a chance for Nike to reinforce their position as a leader of football brand. Both brands launched new knitted boots but with unimportant difference. It means that sales for average customer will be based on the fact which stars wear them on.

In order to bring brand awareness and be on the top of consumers' minds both brands invested millions of dollars. Taking an example of Nike's cooperation with Tiger Woods, annual sales for Nike Golf have exceeded to about $500 million dollars with an estimated 24% growth per a year in the first five years of agreement. 

All in all the challenge is not only in building a powerful brand equity, but also on sustaining the loyalty for years. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_equity

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1nn5ie_brand-equity-battlefield-brazil-nike-vs-adidas_news
http://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/brand-equity-case-study-nike-marketing-essay.php

Irina Kalashnikova

Sportswear consumers: Multiple Profiles

The consumer’s expectations in the sportswear market depend on how the profile of individual is. Indeed, an athlete, a sport amateur, an occasional sports user or a person with just a sportswear lifestyle will have very different kind of expectations in terms of the nature of the products, the budget and the frequency of purchase.

The Athlete profile

The athlete category has the lowest percentage of customers. In this category, the sportswear products must tackle extreme using and they also have to offer the best performance. The product serves as a real working tool.

So, professionals tend to have the sportswear products with the best innovation that has ever existed in order to excel in the concerned sport. In addition, athletes trains every day. That is why the product life will be very short and consequently the frequency of purchase will be high.

However, in most of the cases, a professional is sponsored by a brand during competitions. They also can have financial support for training equipment.

To sum up, the budget is very important in that case taking into account the short life cycle and the premium quality.

For instance, Lacoste sponsored French team for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, and they distributed more than 10 outfits per member that could be use only for these Games.

The amateur profile

This category is looking for products with good quality and they associate quality with specialized brands (Ex: Nike, Adidas, Puma and so on). So, the amateurs are ready to spend a lot of money in good quality products in order to keep them for longer.

For example, let’s have a look on a sport amateur who runs 3 times per week. This guy is willing to pay an average of 130€ for running shoes every year. His purchasing intention is motivated by the quality and the life cycle of the materials. After running the same kilometers and the same time, specialized shoes (so more expensive) will be more resistant and in a good way than classical basket shoes (less expensive).   

The occasional sport user profile

Unlike the previous category, the occasional sport users do not often engage in sport activities and consequently they do not have the same expectations. They are not willing to spend a lot of money in sportswear and they are looking for products, which are more comfortable but still with good quality. 

Thus, the frequency of purchase is lower than the amateur’s frequency with an average of 2 years because they use less the sportswear products.

The sportswear lifestyle profile

Since the 90’s, the sportswear lifestyle has invaded the fashion world. The concept tends to have a cool and fashion style. Many brands understood the interest of this profitable

market that it was growing.

Their first target is the young people (10-18 y.o). The frequency of purchase is very important because it is a dress code of every day. In addition, some of people collect and customize clothes in order to have unique piece.

So, in that case, quality and price are not the main preoccupation, the sportwear lifestyle person just want to be recognize by the other, be a part of a tribe. People are willing to pay more money in sportswear products because they are personalized and consequently unique for them.

Nike Tech Fleece coat - 250€

Nike Dunk Sky Hi - 180€

Sources:

- "Guide pratique du sportif de haut niveau", FFSA, May 2011, Paris

- "Les phases de développement de nouveau produit", http://www.evalpro.net/webPROJETS/evaluations/00_01/FITNESS.pdf

- "Le temps libre des Français dédié au sport", http://www.acteursdusport.fr/uploads/Documents/WEB_CHEMIN_4958_1257664783.pdf

- "Lacoste partenaire chic" http://lerdvsportif.fr/lacoste-partenaire-chic/

The Sportswear Industry Trend : Fshion and Innovation

        The Sportswear Trend : Fshion and Innovation

The Cross-Border Cooperation of Sport and Fashion Industry:

As Topshop’s creative director puts it, “We’re in a sportswear revolution at the moment. Fashion is really driven by what’s happening in the sportswear world, it’s at the top of the radar in the fashion stakes so to have Adidas Originals as a starting point was fantastic”. Fashion and sportswear have fused and the combination is an appealing mix for consumers. With sportswear appearing on the fashion catwalks, it’s time to reverse the trend and reconsider our workout wardrobes.

Let’s take an example of Adidas. Recently, Adidas Originals and the British high street brand Topshop teamed up to create a twenty piece spring-summer line of athletic inspired wear in 2014. And in the November, 2014, Adidas will released the new series which cooperated with the fashion designer Mary Katrantzou who are good at digital printing. In addition, Adidas also cooperate with Stella McCartney to design the new collections. Beside its fantastic design, the technology was also used : the organic cotton, recycled yarns and dry-dye technology. And Adidas invited Raf Simons, who owns his brand Raf Simons and the chef designer of Jil Sander since 2013. And the famous Adidas Y-3, which released the collection seasons by seasons, was also designed by the fashion designer YohjiYamamoto since 2001.

Wha’t more, Puma cooperated with the famous fashion designers Alexand McQueen Jil Sander and Mihara Yasuhiro. Nike also cooperated with the French Brand A.P.C.

Topshop x Adidas Originals

Sport brands get more fashion and innovation conscious.You can help but wonder why sport became so in fashion and innovation? There are three main reasons.

Firstly, the sportswear are not only wore for exercising activities, but also increasingly become a daily life part. People wear the sport clothes in the following situation: around the house, running errands,shopping,out to eat.

For the man who does the exercise 5 to 7 days a week spends about $38 on the athletic wears per month. And for the man who does not do the exercise regularly spends around $31 per month. Therefor, we can conclude that the demand for sportswear lifts and the market targets are not only on the exercising people who focus on the performance according to the top exercises they do, but also the non-exercising people who more pursue for the fashion style and design.

Secondly, the rise in popularity of fitness classes emerging globally, based around dance, yoga, ballet and Pilates, and with appealing branding, including Barre Body, Fitness Rave, Twerkshop. In the US, there has been 29% increase in yoga practice since 2008. In the fitness classes, most of them are women who prefer the sportswear in fashion style and design.

Lastly, it is about the notion of woman being active rather than passive. For instance, Nike wants women to sweat, move, dance and jump; in other words, live. That’s a notion that is reflected in a not obviously athletic way. The flat shoes make the women can move around at speed without breaking an ankle. They can work in comfort and cosy wearing the oversized sweaters and roomy tailored trousers replacing the boobs-out cocktail frocks.

The New Players ---The Sports Series in Apparel Brand :

Since January 2014, the new H&M Sport has expanded to cover more sporting activities, reflecting the increasingly active lifestyles of women, men and children. The collection more focused on performance, fit and designed with input from world-class professional athletes from the Swedish Olympic team. As a fast fashion apparel brand, H&M undoubtedly has more experience in design and style. And for its biggest rival in fast fashion, Zara has plenty of things H&M doesn’t—including about twice as many stores—but it’s still focused on fashion rather than fitness.

H&M Sport

The athletic apparel market is competitive. Not only H&M, but also the other fast fashion brand joined in this game, Uniqlo and Gap which now has both GapFit and Athleta, a separate brand aimed at active women, wrestle for market share with such all-stars as Nike and Adidas. Compared with the original sport brands, such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, the sport series in fast fashion brands have many advantages. First, the lower price. Second, fast products update. Thirdly, more extensive consumer groups.

Window displays for the «Sport of Life» campaign in London.

Edited By Mengdi LI

Source :

http://i-d.vice.com/en_au/read/think-pieces/5502/sportswearinnovationfashionstaples

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-05/h-and-m-turns-to-sportswear-to-make-zara-sweat

http://editd.com/blog/2014/03/the-sportswear-revolution/