Adidas’ Approach for “Meiso Runners”

Abstract

    In this article, the authors introduce an interesting and fresh marketing approach for the running market. Adidas, one of the world’ s top sports brands, conducted consumer research on 1,000 runners from all over Japan and released a previously unknown fact that 80% of Japanese general runners were sharing the same inner problems such as, “I had lost my aim or purpose in running” , “I was uncertain of appropriate running techniques” and “I was not realizing any benefit from running.” Adidas set this large group as their primary target consumers. Then, they used the name “Meiso Runners” and promoted this concept in the mass media as a highly influential communication technique.
    They executed the marketing communication activities with using “Strategic PR” for their service and products. They created the concept of “Meiso Runners” , and consequently they made a strong impact on the running market through the big media coverage and achieved a great success in their business; increasing their sales to 120% of the previous year.
    It is believed that by creating the concept of “Meiso Runners” and by clearly defining the concerns of this group of runners, Adidas was able to catapult running into discussions across a broad spectrum of society, and acquire awareness about which of their products and services provided ideal solutions to meet the runners’ needs.