Basketball: increasing global footprint

adidas is committed to strengthening its position in basketball by expanding its footprint in the critical North American market and capitalising on the growing popularity of the sport in the emerging markets. To achieve this, adidas strives to build brand equity by leveraging its status as the official NBA outfitter, capitalising on relationships with some of the most promising future stars of the NBA, as well as reinforcing its position as a performance brand.

In 2009, adidas Basketball took further steps in these areas. For example, the brand strengthened its highly valued NBA partnership by becoming the official compression brand of the NBA. This exclusivity will serve to garner further global exposure for adidas in the very competitive compression apparel market. In addition, adidas also expanded its on-court NBA partnership rights to new territories that now include Europe, Africa and the Middle East. With the league’s increasing visibility and growing popularity outside of North America, this is a critical vehicle to drive the adidas business forward in emerging basketball markets.

To leverage these partnerships to their full potential, adidas continues to refine and expand its brand marketing initiatives. Celebrating basketball as a brotherhood remains the key theme in its communication for the sport.

In addition, Basketball is also exploiting the latest in digital media technologies, which is taking product messaging and consumer experience to new levels. For example during the adidas Double-Double Tour to China, a market where basketball has overtaken football as the most popular sport, star player Dwight Howard posted personally shot videos, delivered SMS text messages and photos all from his own mobile phone, and the content was aggregated live at www.adidas.com/cn and syndicated out to the most popular social spaces across China. This allowed his millions of fans the chance to experience this event at a level never seen before.

Through expanded global rights from the brand’s NBA partnership, the star power of players such as Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose, adidas is well positioned to grow its share of the basketball market worldwide.