In probably what has been the most enjoyable project I have worked on in my MBA so far, we are trying to value the adidas brand. Within that, we are valuing just the three stripes and not the trefoil logo. Researching for some of the little known things of the brand has thrown up some very interesting nuggets but none more revealing than this.
Karhu
Karhu Sports ( a Finnish sports brand whose logo is seen above ) sold the three stripe trademark to Adidas for (the equivalent of) 1600 euros and two bottles of Whiskey. Yup, the same iconic brand which today is valued at 5.4 billion $ by interbrand. Stunning.
Hopefully, the whisky tasted good for Karhu.
Brand marketers go to great lengths to ensure consumers have the associations they would like them to have. Admittedly, it’s never a perfect art. For some segments you might have to hammer the brand message ad nauseum and for the rest it is analogous to flipping an internal mental switch. You come up with one memorable ad, one memorable tagline and boom! You have them converted for life. I like to think of the former as rational consumers and the latter as the irrational but a fiercely loyal segment – the “fan boys”.
My switch was flipped when I first saw this ad by adidas in the mid nineties. I have tried to introspect and figure out why it had the influence on me which it did. Was it the sight of the smile that slowly spreads across the old woman’s face towards the end – highlighting the sports sans age barriers credo? Was it the fact that we as a nation finally had our sports icon who could complement the new generation? To this day, I still can’t figure out what it was which resonated with me (as a highly impressionable youth at that that time) but fair enough to say it was a powerful pull. It sure would be an interesting exercise to see how brand equity varies with the proportion of rational/irrational adherents the brand might have.
The last time Robbie Keane moved to a club he supported as a kid:
Robbie Keane
Andy Murray
Kevin Mitchell in the Guardian writes an excellent piece as he analyzes the significance of the game tommorow between Federer and Murray. While most have gone overboard harping on the alleged slight by Federer, Kevin eschews hyperbole and goes about it in a balanced view. Some excerpts:
When titles and ATP rankings accumulate, when one plane journey blurs into another, what matters most to the elite players is the respect of their peers. Murray wants that from Federer – and it has not been given unreservedly just yet
What everyone fails to realize is that Fed is feeling the heat as well. While there is prior history between the two, Murray tends to get into Federer’s head a little and that probably explains an extra spurt of snideness from.
There is a vivid sense that, although Federer says he feels less pressure than Murray in this final, that might not be entirely true. This will not be his last slam, far from it; it could, though, be the one that will be remembered as the match in which Murray landed the first proper punch on him.
adidas
It has been permanent jurisdiction in German courts since the 1970s that two, three and four stripe designs infringe adidas’ three stripe trademark. The distinctive mark enjoys a worldwide brand awareness of more than 90 percent. According to the German Federal Court of Justice, the public recalls and recognizes such well-known and distinctive brands rather than un-established marks. It is therefore likely that consumers associate and confuse signs with two, three or four parallel stripes with the adidas trademark.
The objection that the questionable stripe motifs are not used as trademarks, but merely for embellishment or decoration, is negligible. This is because the consumer is accustomed to view parallel stripes on apparel and shoes as evidence of origin and not as a simple design motif.
While this gives adidas a great vantage point, it has had a mild repercussion on the company’s apparel design as evidenced by this:
For more than forty years, the three stripes have appeared on athletes’ dress, while other logos were limited in size to 20 centimeters. This was because the three stripes were considered a design motif and not a logo, like the Nike swoosh or the Puma cougar.
Adidas’ competitors demanded that IOC president Jacques Rogge deprive the three stripes mark of its design status. The IOC deduced from the worldwide trademark registration of the three stripes that they should not be treated as a mere design motif anymore.
Hence, adidas now too is bound by the IOC’s Marketing Code of Conduct, which limits logos to a maximum size of 20 centimeters on an athlete’s shirt.
Fascinating read and answered a lot of the questions I had about why an apparent design concept ( parallel stripes ) was not more widely used or attempted to be used by other brands.
Vive la three stripes.
And as it is the season to list and summarize, BusinessWeek has a list of the 10 most significant events in sports business in 2009. Two of the picks which I personally found interesting are below. I believe it would be a sign of things to come in 2010 as well:
Brooklyn to Add Russian “T” Room
In 2009, the New Jersey Nets became the first NBA team sold to a foreign national owner, Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who has signed contracts to acquire, for a reported $200 million, 80% of the franchise and 45% of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards development. Lady Liberty on nearby Liberty Island couldn’t welcome other foreign national would-be sports owners any better: Give me your tall, your point guards, your huddled masses yearning to break fast. And your billions, be they yuan, euro, or ruble.
The team, which started 2009 with an NBA worst record 0-18, and its new owner will tentatively move into the Barclays Center in 2012. Meantime, the Nets are applauding Atlantic Yards owner Bruce Ratner, who just sold $511 million in bonds to finance Barclays Center construction, negotiating with Newark to play in the Prudential Center for two years, and trying to avoid getting slapped with a technical for on-court incompetence.
The Fury and the Sounders
When asked “What’s My Line,” comedian and game show host Drew Carey now likely answers “successful MLS franchise owner.” The expansion Seattle Sounders Football Club topped Major League Soccer in attendance (the squad drew 430,347 spectators throughout the season) and also leads the league in merchandise sales and overall revenues. The Sounders reached the MLS playoffs in their inaugural season, selling out tickets to their first match in half an hour. Although they didn’t get to the finals, they played host to them, selling out their 67,000 seat stadium for the MLS Cup on Nov. 22. And the team proved a healing salve to Seattle sports fans still reeling over the departure of the NBA SuperSonics for Oklahoma City the year before.
In other news, Pepsi drops the Gatorade Tiger Focus as part of an overarching “product lineup overhaul”. Watch this space for more “marketing reorientations” and “product refreshals” as sponsors watch their biggest asset suffer a meltdown.
“We decided several months ago to discontinue Gatorade Tiger Focus along with some other products to make room for our planned series of innovative products in 2010,” Gatorade spokeswoman Jennifer Schmit said in an emailed statement in response to inquiries.
Watch out for Sunil Gulati (for those not in the know, he is a native of Allahabad, India and heads the US Soccer federation and also the New England Revolution soccer team in MLS) in the coming days. Widely credited with turning around the US soccer set up from a rag tag bunch to a quite credible force, he is a clear example that Indians can be efficient sports administrators when allowed to do their job without the sort of interference that plagues the Indian setup. Matthew Futterman in the WSJ has a short interview with Gulati as he discusses the 2018 World Cup bid. An excerpt:
WSJ: With FIFA and the IOC so taken with how their events can help transform countries, what can the U.S. offer FIFA?
Mr. Gulati: We don’t need to build any stadiums in the U.S. or a single hotel, or a highway to host the World Cup. So you start from a basis of not asking for any public funds. The U.S. has shown it can be a powerful force in the soccer community. We set an attendance record in 1994 that will not be broken this year. We’re the top international ticket buyer so far for this event. Our television rights payment is the highest, and we have more registered players than anyone. Imagine if the game ever really, really took off in our country, the entire economics of the game changes for FIFA.
Amy Lawrence in the Guardian has a hilarious spoof of Woods’ agent Mark Steinberg in a conference call with his major sponsors. I will leave it you to enjoy the piece but could not resist pasting the denouement here:
Mark Steinberg: Alrighty … Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll endeavour to address those points before we reconvene tomorrow. But that about wraps up initial soundings, as I think I’ve heard from all of Tiger’s most understandably concerned stakeholders.
Dubai Holdings: Wait – what about us?
Steinberg: Oh please. This is so not your biggest problem right now
As they say the curse of gillette has had a nasty sting this time around..
