As someone who doesn’t live under a rock I am sure we are all aware of the sporting/fitness brand Adidas. From their partnership with Kanye to bring to life Yeezy’s to global partnerships like the FIFA World Cup. Adidas as always been a national and global recognized brand. With such a large brand recognition will often come a large audience that is fast to scrutinize and quick to blame.
This proved to be true in April 2017 when Adidas got ready to release what was to be their next big PR idea. The idea was to send emails out to all of the finishers of the Boston Marathon and congratulate them on such an accomplishment. Adidas was one of the sponsors for the race that year so they wanted to congratulate the finishers all while promoting there products. What better way to do that than in an email right? It’s fast, instant, and provides a direct link to Adidas products. However when the racers received the email the subject line read: “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon.” With this email coming not even 5 years after the tragic Boston Marathon Bombing the racers, family members of the fallen, and community members were not pleased with this subject line. Many people took to Twitter to express their concerns with this subject line and call out Adidas marketing team.
Even national brands such as Sports Illustrated were calling attention to Adidas major PR error.
Despite the major errors that occurred with this email, Adidas acted swiftly and took to Twitter to respond very transparently with its consumers and the Boston Marathon Racers.
Adidas was able to call attention to the fact that they made a mistake and a lack of thought was very evident in the launch of their email campaign. The CEO of Adidas also remained very transparent during the time of media scrutiny. This proves to have a positive affect for Adidas.
Something Adidas could have improved upon was just having more thought when constructing the campaign. Something that could have also been beneficial is having more of an open conversation about pervious marketing plans or major/historic events that happened around the time of the Boston Marathon.
Something I would have changed was not have sent out an entire email chain to every single person who accomplished the race. I would have constructed an advertisement that celebrates the champions of the Boston Marathon, the fallen racers families and friends, and community members. This ad would be released the day following the race opposed to the email. The goal was to connect with an audience, and an ad that evokes positive emotion would connect more to the audience than an email ever could. I would also have had the marketing and PR team to think back to 5 years ago and talk openly about the Boston Marathon Bombing. This would hopefully bring a certain amount of sensitivity to the marketing creation.
All in all with Adidas ability to remain transparent with its audience and quick to apologize, the scandal ended better than it could have. Slight backlash from consumers and a very apologetic CEO later, Adidas is still a well known and respected brand. Adidas still continues to come out with trendy shoes and workout wear all while continuing to build a very loyal customer base.
If you were in Adidas shoes what would you have done differently?
Life According To Alex 