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Adidas - Crm Technology

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Abstract

Purpose - In a seminal article, Webster argued in 1992 (Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56/October, pp. 1-17) that some changes in concept and practice have fundamentally reshaped the field of marketing. He claims that ‘customer relationships' are now the key strategic resource of a business. Strategic partnerships and networks are replacing simple market-based transactions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this claim in the context of various relationships maintained by the adidas® group.
Approach – A detailed analysis was carried out to consider how the organisation has adopted a customer-oriented approach as their key strategy for improved business. This includes factors like increased loyalty of the customers, …show more content…

Today, the adidas® product range extends from shoes, apparel and accessories for basketball, soccer, fitness and training to adventure, trail and golf . adidas®, like many companies during the 1960s, believed in large volume sales. Lot of effort was put into advertising the brand in the early days through sporting celebrities. One of the main reasons that the colour of the 3 stripes on the running shoes was changed from black or dark brown to white was to facilitate easy brand recognition and identification, which in turn would promote the overall sales. The ideology was that the ability of a brand to stand out in the market place will enhance its chance of standing out in the customers mind. adidas® produced shoes that could be used for different types of sports.
Changing market
However in the late 1960's, the concept of "jogging" started to spread in the U.S., which was by now a huge market for the adidas® group. The adidas technicians initially dismissed the jogging trend by contending that ‘jogging is not a sport'. But their distributors in America started to demand for products for jogging. Finally when the technicians gave into the pleas of the American distributors, they still couldn't figure what the American customers required. While Germans tended to run on forest trails, the Americans jogged on roads and clamoured for soft shoes. When adidas® finally came up with the shoes, it was too little, too late. In the first

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