The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 138 — Adidas' big plans
DTC is everything.
What up, family! The Kicks You Wear is back in your inbox. Thanks so much for rocking with me today. I appreciate you!
Hope you had a fantastic weekend.
Let’s dive in.
The Big Comeback
(Photo by Filip Baotić on Unsplash)
Direct-to-Consumer initiatives are all the rage among the biggest sneaker companies right now. We’ve been hearing about Nike’s for years now. Under Armour has one, too.
Adidas is up next. The three stripes unveiled a new five-year business plan last week in a presentation. A huge part of the plan was a new DTC initiative bolstering the online experience for consumers, per SBG.
Adidas is making a huge financial commitment of 1 billion euros to what they’re calling a “digital transformation” for the brand.
They’re aiming to make direct-to-consumer sales a hefty 50% of their total sales numbers by 2025.
This is expected. Particularly in the midst of the pandemic when virtually everyone moved their shopping experience online. Brick and mortar stores closed everywhere, so digital consumption increased across the board. Adidas is just leaning into that.
There were other priority areas CEO Kasper Rorsted introduced during the investor presentation.
Athleisure: The company wants to double down on functional sports products while keeping them — for lack of a better term — cool. They also announced a new partnership with Peloton.
Sustainability: Rorsted said more than “70% of customers” claim sustainability is a purchase driver for them and Adidas plans to tap into that.
Premium products: Rorsted mentioned that 50% of footwear demand is driven by bigger price points as a result of innovation and that consumers “want new technologies and material innovation” in their kicks.
In the big picture a DTC focus means more exclusive product available in less spaces. And if they come with premium price points, they’ll not only be more exclusive but also less accessible.
That runs counter to the vision of Yeezy, which is easily Adidas’ biggest brand right now. Ye’s vision has always been “Yeezy for everyone.” A DTC push like this runs counter to that.
Yeezy already acts as an independent brand in some ways, just as Jordan Brand does with Nike. Maybe we see that gap (pun intended) grow larger in the coming years. Maybe it doesn’t. Who knows?
It’ll be interesting to watch how this all of this unfolds. The situation feels ripe for a tug-of-war between the brand’s new initiative and their biggest mover. All I know is I’m definitely keeping an eye on this.
BTW…That Reebok sale is coming.
Nike’s impact report is here
(Photo by Nelson Ndongala on Unsplash)
Nike’s Impact Report for 2020 dropped last week and they took some pretty big steps in diversity.
The numbers:
Women made up 49.5% of its total employee base in 2020. That’s up year over year from 48.7% last year.
58% of their employees are minorities with Black employes making up 23.9% of that.
The decision makers are still overwhelmingly white and male. 57.5% of the directors are male and 70% of them are white. On the VP side, 58.9% of them are male. But 67.8% are white, which is down from 77% last year.
Nike is touting its 2020 class of 310 interns as the “most divers yet” with 55% of them being women and 49% of them being people of color.
There’s definitely some progress there. Changes won’t be made overnight, obviously, but you’d hope to see a lot more coming in the next few years. That diversity number for VP’s in the company is especially encouraging.
The big picture: The company said it planned on hitting 30 diversity and inclusion targets by 2025 including having “35% representation of racial and ethnic communities” in its corporate office, having 50% representation of women in its corporate office and investing $10 million in HBCU’s to build out diversity in its internship classes. Those are pretty encouraging goals.
There’s plenty to chew on here. If you’d like to see more, you can read the rest of the report here.
You’ve got the Golden Ticket
Alright, alright. I know y’all are probably tired of me talking about CONFIRMED at this point. But they’re making moves! What can I say?
What’s new: They’ve got the Golden Ticket now. What’s that, you ask? Great question.
CONFIRMED is holding a raffle for what they’re calling a “Golden Ticket” drawing on March 20.
They’ll pick a few CONFIRMED users on the app. Whoever is chosen in the drawing gets an automatic W on whatever they want that comes through the app over the next 30 days. Collabs are included.
It’s legit a golden ticket, too.
This is an interesting strategy. It’s sort of weird — it feels like a breaking of the 4th wall where they’re actively acknowledging artificial scarcity to the consumer. I like it…but at the same time I wish they'd just make more shoes.
Good luck, y’all. You’re going to need it.
SPECIAL DELIVERY!!!
I told y’all about the vintage basketball wave that’s about to hit us in 2021. We explored that a little bit on this week’s episode of Special Delivery with the P-550.
I am so excited to give these joints some run. Might convince me to shell out the cash for the ALD 550’s. We’ll see tho.
What’s droppin, bruh?
Yeezy 380 “Covellite” — Monday, March 15
Nike Air Foamposite Pro “ Volt” — Wednesday, March 17
Adidas x Bad Bunny Forum 84 — Wednesday, March 17
Yeezy Quantum “Sea Teal” — Friday, March 19
Air Jordan 3 “Georgetown” — Saturday, Saturday 20
Thank y’all so much for rocking with me! I’ll talk to y’all Wednesday, family.
Until next time, fam. Be easy. Love. Signing off.
-Sykes 💯
I knew you’d have something to say about the golden ticket, and I agree: it’s legitimately adidas saying “haha our shoes are hard to get but for these people we’ll give easy access...for a month.” Also — what’s a month’s worth of releases on confirmed? Two pairs?
Thank you, adidas, for giving me a chance to win a raffle ... to buy something. Free gear or gtfo!