From the perspective of marketing and products, how does the appeal of stars affect the brand? Perhaps adidas has more say in the answer to this question.
At the end of last year, adidas immediately announced the termination of cooperation with Ye because of Ye's public improper remarks. In addition to the YEZZY series becoming the swan song, adidas was also overwhelmed by the backlog of YEZZY inventory of 1.3 billion dollars in the lamentation of countless consumers.
Ye One wave is not even and another wave is rising. If Ye is the male representative of adidas' star lineup, Beyonc é must be the leader of adidas' female star lineup.
Beyoncé
Beyoncé At the 65th Grammy, which ended last month, Beyonc é won four awards with her album RENAISSANCE. With 32 Grammy awards in her career, Beyonc é became the artist who won the most awards in Grammy history. At this historic moment, the rumor that Beyonc é's personal brand Ivy Park and adidas had "broken up" suddenly became very popular in the business community.
adidas x Ivy Park Of course, such information was soon drowned in the praise for Beyonc é's creation of history. A month later, many media confirmed that adidas had ended its cooperation with Beyonc é, and adidas and Ivy Park had parted ways.
adidas x Ivy Park After Beyonc é launched the Ivy Park brand in 2016, it reached cooperation with adidas in 2019. Adidas executives hope that this cooperation project can replicate the success of the YEEZY series, and promise to guarantee Beyonc é the absolute control of creativity.
However, according to the Wall Street Journal, in 2022, the sales of adidas x Ivy Park cooperation series dropped by more than 50%, and the revenue was only $40 million, far less than the sales of $93 million in 2021, and even less than the annual sales forecast of $250 million. Relevant documents show that most of the products of adidas x Ivy Park series are in the stage of unsalable inventory.
adidas x Ivy Park At the same time, adidas also needs to pay Beyonc é 20 million dollars of cooperation funds every year. Due to weak sales performance and fixed large expenditures, adidas has to give up Beyonc é and her Ivy Park.
adidas x Ivy Park We can't measure the cultural influence of Beyonc é and Ye by the standard of "greatness", but many critics believe that it is Beyonc é's poor publicity that has made Ivy Park in trouble. Maybe because of marketing considerations or design self-confidence, Ye can be seen wearing YEEZY series in many public occasions, but Beyonc é, in addition to the "work needs" such as shooting the brand catalogue, rarely sees her wearing the adidas x Ivy Park series in daily life, and such behavior directly reduces consumers' purchasing desire.
Ye
Beyoncé However, the senior management of adidas refuted this statement, saying that its partnership with Beyonc é was "strong and successful" and that "they are proud of the works they have created together". It is hard to tell the truth of the scene after the cooperation ended, but Beyonc é's departure has become a fact.
This is also another "star trump card" that adidas gave up again after Ye, and a new sales gap reappeared. The future trend of adidas is uncertain with the market development.
To count the current adidas camp, who is left with the ability to turn the tide and reverse the current decline of adidas in star cooperation?
Pharrell Williams must be the first person to come out of people's minds. After taking office as the creative director of Louis Vuitton men's wear, adidas Originals also gave Pharrell a blessing at the first time. Whether people can see the cooperation between LV and adidas in the future is still inseparable from Pharrell's matchmaking.
Pharrell Williams
Pharrell Williams Pharrell's influence and pioneering in the fashion field is beyond doubt, but when we review the cooperation series between adidas and Pharrell, it seems that there are few impressive cooperation products since the launch of the groundbreaking Human Race NMD series shoes in 2016.
adidas Humanrace NMD Even today, the two sides continue to bring forth new ideas based on the cooperative relationship, but neither has aroused too much controversy.
adidas Humanrace NMD S1 After Jerry Lorenzo joined adidas Basketball, he also faced the challenge of "thunder, rain, and little". After all, it has been three years since Jerry joined adidas, and there has been no news of the expected Iron of God Athletics branch line. Recently, a blogger exposed Jerry's first sneaker in adidas. Although Jerry strongly denied that he would appear in the first big show of Iron of God, he avoided responding to people's criticism on design.
via.Instagram@youngviet23 At the same time, Nathan VanHook, the former designer of Nike Air Yeezy2, joined adidas as the design president of the basketball department. What kind of inspiration can be generated by the two of Jerry and Nathan VanHook? It is also worth looking forward to.
adidas Basketball Chapter 02
Nathan VanHook As the mutual best friend of Ye and Pharrell, Pusha T and adidas also have a deep relationship. With Ye's departure, news about Pusha T joining the adidas star lineup spread widely. At the beginning of the year Paris Fashion Week During this period, Pusha T put on a pair of unexposed Samba when attending the Twilight Reverie show, and the word "THORN" on the outside of the shoe also confirmed the co branding status with Pusha T.
adidas Originals x Pusha T It is reported that Pusha T may ask adidas to open a branch line led by him, similar to the way Pharrell takes over the adidas Humanrace series. The blank left by Ye must also enable the brand to find new partners and develop existing cooperation strategies, and Pusha T will also become one of the perfect candidates for adidas in the future.
Different from Ye and his YEZZY, Pharrell and Pusha T failed to really develop an independent series of product lines in the cooperation history of adidas, but left many "hand in hand" and "co branded" works with individuals and personal brands.
Of course, for their fans, this form of cooperation is enough, but for the vast number of consumers, the lack of integrity and depth of cooperation is really hard to impress.
Of course, adidas is also expanding the boundaries of creativity through several in-depth cooperation with stars or designers with different styles, such as Kerwin Forst and Sean Wotherspoon. Unfortunately, these cooperation series still belong to the "carnival" of a small number of players, and have not formed a real sense of widespread influence.
adidas Originals x Kerwin Forst
adidas Originals x Sean Wotherspoon At the moment when co branding cooperation is becoming a common practice, people seem to be tired of aesthetics. From topic to style and language, consumers need strong multi-dimensional stimulation.
adidas Originals by Jeremy Scott However, it is undeniable that with the takeover of adidas' new CEO in 2023 and the recovery of the global economic environment, adidas is ushering in a new round of development vitality, and the removal of Ivy Park seems to imply that the brand is moving towards a new direction of cooperation.
In the autumn and winter of 2023 released by Moncler Genius last month, the cooperation series with adidas Originals included, from down products to the remodeling of NMD S1 shoes, the first cooperation between the two sides was full of sincerity; The 2023 Spring/Summer series of adidas Originals and Gucci has also been launched recently. Adidas's heavy cooperation with two luxury brands has been unveiled one after another, which is believed to be enough to fill the gap between adidas and Balenciaga.
adidas Originals x Moncler Genius
adidas Originals x Gucci The stable output of each quarter with Yohji Yamamoto's branch line and Wales Bonner also brings a lot of topics and attention to adidas;
Y-3 / adidas Originals x Y’s
adidas Originals x Wales Bonner The recent appearance of cooperation pieces with the cutting-edge designer brand Song for the Mute and the British footwear designer Mr Bailey has also set off a wave of social media, including retro and future bipolar design, retrospective archives and the development trend of scientific and technological innovation, thus capturing more consumers in various fields.
adidas Originals x Song for the Mute/
adidas Originals x MRBAILEY ®
For adidas, there are many choices to make the brand "rejuvenate", but the best choice of stars who can really make the brand "rejuvenate overnight" remains to be discussed.
It is not necessary to achieve the goal overnight. It is more important to steadily lay out the brand breadth than to focus on the spire. In this view, adidas may have found its own development direction.
(The picture is from the network)
'Selected from the Past'
