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Does anyone remember the shoe company Adidas? Back in the day, they were hot stuff. However, in the world of highly competitive sports shoes, their product development definition and the company just faded away over time. However, they didn’t go away and they are in the process of trying to stage a comeback. It’s going to be up to their product managers to make this happen. Can they do it when they are competing with big, well established companies like Nike and Reebok?
It’s Time To Call In Kanya West
The product managers at Adidas know that they have an uphill battle to get customers to once again to both want and buy their shoes. In the world of shoes, it’s long been known that if you can get a celebrity to endorse your product, people will want to buy it because they want to be more like that celebrity. The classic case of this were Nike’s “Air Jordans” who had the support of basketball great Michael Jordan when he was at the height of his fame.
The Adidas product managers realize this. They believe that all they need is a famous person to endorse their shoe, it does not have to an athlete. This has lead them to enter into an agreement with Kanye West. What the product managers need him to do is to be seen wearing their new Yeezy Boost shoe when he goes stepping out. If this happens, then somebody’s going to have something to add to their product manager resume.
In order to boost the buzz about their new shoes, the Adidas product managers are trying something else also. Specifically, they are releasing fewer pairs of their new shoes than their marketing studies are telling them that the market wants. This has caused lines to form at the stores that do have some copies of the product and people are not having any problems paying US$200 to get their hands on a pair of these shoes.
It’s All About The Boost That Your Shoe Can Give You
Kanye West is a popular singer, there can be no doubt about that. However, not everyone likes him or wants to be like him. What this means for the Adidas product managers is that they can’t put all of their eggs in one basket. They are going to need something else that is going to make their new Yeezy Boost shoes attractive to people who are out buying shoes.
Adidas has gone back to its German engineering roots and created what they call Boost. Boost is a proprietary plastic that the company gets from German chemical company BASF. This plastic is then used to create the soles of the Yeezy Boost shoes. According to the Adidas product managers, this gives the shoes demonstrably superior athletic performance. Adidas says that the new soles release far more energy than any other soles that are currently on the market.
Adidas has struggled in the past few years because they have not done a good job of connecting with their customers. Nike has done an excellent job of connecting with their customers and thereby making them want Nike products. The new sole technology that comes with the Yeezy Boost shoes appears to give the Adidas product managers another chance. Right now consumers are less worried about connecting with their vendors and more interested in the performance and product quality of what they are buying. Adidas strengths in both materials and product quality should serve them well in this area.
What All Of This Means For You
I’m sure that many of us know what it’s like to be considered to be down and out. The product managers at Adidas who had chosen to focus on soccer and engineering during the 1980s and 1990s were passed over as the other sports shoe manufactures focused on connecting with their customers. Things may be changing for Adidas now.
The product managers at Adidas are preparing to roll out a new line of shoes that they are hoping will help the company regain its footing (sorry for the pun) in the marketplace. The approach that they are taking has two prongs to it. The first is to make their new line of shoes, Yeezy Boost, more attractive to potential customers by getting the popular singer Kanya West to endorse and wear them. Making your product popular is a part of everyone’s product manager job description. The next approach is to incorporate a revolutionary plastic into the shoe’s soles. This plastic allows the shoe to return a great deal of the energy that is put into it allowing for better athletic performance. The Adidas product managers are hopeful that both of these features will attract a large number of customers.
The Adidas product managers are clever in that they have created an artificial shortage of their popular product. Having a popular singer endorse the product and agree to be seen in public wearing the product will also help to make potential customers aware of it. If they can get some positive reviews written about the engineering that has gone into the shoe’s soles, then they are almost guaranteed to be a winner in this race.
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Product Management Skills™
Question For You: Do you think getting multiple celebrities to endorse your product would boost its chances of success?
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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
As product managers sometimes we have to sit back and just watch our competition execute a fantastic marketing program. Due to limitations that might be budget based, resource based, related to our product development definition, or simply lack of time based there is nothing that we can do to counter what our competition is doing. As their sales then zoom up we kick ourselves for not being able to come up with an effective program to counter their moves. This is no fun. Over at the mobile service provider Sprint this was happening to them. However, then they decided to do something very bold…