Blog: Talk by Nike, Adidas and Hill & Knowlton

Last week Friday, 20^th Nov, we attended a combined talk held by representatives of the companies mentioned in the title. The reps from Nike and Adidas are Ngee Ann Poly alumni, so it was nice to hear from those who came from the same mould for a change.

To be honest, I couldn’t really get anything from the Nike talk! It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention (I was!), but I guess Adidas kind of outdid them too well!

Marketing as the main objective, Alex Lim from Adidas put across his company’s marketing strategies plain and simple in 4 categories – Visual Mechandising, Go-to-market, Brand Communication and Sports Marketing.

Visual marketing can easily be seen in their retail stores. Such examples include their 2-fingers-spacing between hangers (consistency at its best!). Their products are arranged seasonally where during the peak point of football, such merchandises are placed at the back of the store while other sporting apparels are placed closer to the entrance. This is due to the idea that at the height of a particular sport, the consumer does not need to be enticed visually.

Go-to-market in a nutshell involves the product and pricing. Depending on the hype and marketability of the product, the pricing is allocated accordingly.

Brand Communication examples include Adidas House Party, Liverpool tour, and also the acquirement of non-athletic personalities (Gurmit Singh, Felicia Chin). You get my drift.

Sports Marketing is just advertising for events. Their more notable advertising are in your Winning Eleven game, Standard Chartered Marathon’s main attire provider.

Wrapping up the talk, “What are the 5Cs in marketing?” This was probably the crudest way of describing the marketing world, but it’s clear cut. And to prove to you, I’ll them all in one sentence:

COVINCE the consumers, and faced with heavy competition CONFUSE them with specs and benefits, which at times may require you to CON and CHEAT, well at least their feelings because at the end of the day you’ll always have to stay ahead of your COMPETITION!

Okay, so it’s a really long sentence with tons of commas, I know!

The final talk was by Hill & Knowlton, a renowned and established public company.

PR = Reputation.

Besides that and the many case studies that the dude talked about, another main point put across is Good Activation. This is plentiful of subtle branding during an event so that when the media takes a photo to use for publication, viewers will receive the brand.

That’s about all for this long post, and if you’ve read this far (kudos!), remember to check out our side project link at the top!

Mr Vivian Lines, President of Hill & Knowlton, Asia Pacific.