At #EffWeek in London, Adidas Global Media boss Simon Peel reveals something extremely rare: reality in marketing. (By reality, we mean something that can be experienced sensually. You can touch it, so it has something to do with "digital" indirectly at best).
Success despite, not because of digital marketing
In reality, the adidas brand is having great success - 40% growth in a market that is only growing 8%. One might think that this success is due to "digital marketing". That this is not the case at all, that the success came about not because of, but TOTALLY because of the digital activities of the adidas brand - this is shown in a very impressive way in the 17 minute talk "Walking the Walk" by adidas Global Media Head Simon Peel embedded below.
Here are some highlights of the adidas presentation.
If you don't measure the brand, you automatically become a loser.
Continuous brand measurement, it is hard to believe, was missing at adidas.
The consequences of this are shown by these pretty charts from Binet & Field, to which Peel repeatedly refers.
Unified and integrated KPIs produce literally mind-blowing results
The mind-blowing thing at adidas - Simon Peel changed the mix. 77% performance to 23% brand became 40% performance to 60% brand. This is in line with the latest research.
Even global brands only "optimize" isolated silos via inconsistent KPIs.
Marketing budgets work against each other - but you have to look at the cross-silo effects to manage the brand. But this is not happening.
Adidas also had the organizational problem of advertisers: DIGITAL IS SHORT-CIRCUIT when goals are missing, which are on brand impact.
How to organize a digital short and how to get out of it is shown by these pictures.
The cross-silo effects of "digital" are modest, in some cases are not even present
Don't be surprised if Google is completely down for days (2x in Latin America), you can't run Adwords and yet there is NO impact on sales.
Product marketing is also organized in silos. Here in particular, we need to look at the effects across silos
For Adidas product advertising, they are significant. Adidas sells more footballs when running is advertised.
Nothing is easier than optimizing for efficiency, especially for media costs
You just have to have no other goals, or none at all. Optimize efficiency and costs, that always goes 😉
The focus on short-term (direct marketing) effects is the core problem of digital.
If you rely on short-term effects, you do nothing for the brand and come under price pressure. That is as certain as the amen in the church.
And here is the lecture: