Business news

Battle of the brands

Bloombergs Businessweek had article on Oct. 2 about Adidas and Nike.

Two of the biggest sports clothing & equipment brands Nike and Adidas are battling hard to make them market leader. The United States of America is one of the major ”battlefield” for them.  Adidas is having trouble to grow their revenue in North America. One of the reasons may be because they have too European image to compete against the American brand Nike in North America.

Adidas has not been able to make the same impact in popular sports in the United States that Nike have done in soccer world where Adidas leads the industry. Nike has stepped up its challenge in soccer gear with increased advertising and sponsorship deals with star players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Adidas have responded to the challenge in soccer by making the richest uniform deal in the history of sports with English team Manchester United. Adidas will pay 1.3 billion over 10 years to United. It’s also signed endorsement deals with six of the first-round picks in this year’s NBA draft, including Andrew Wiggins of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers, to generate buzz among American sports-gear shoppers.

But because problems with growing their revenue, they had to do some changes. Adidas continues to have an open dialogue with the investors. On Oct. 1 the company announced it will buy back up to €1.5 billion of its shares over the next three years, a move analysts say is an attempt to placate investors.

 

 

 

Job news from October

The Finnish oil company Neste oil and Kesko which is also a large company in Finland announced on Oct. that they are going to start Co-determinations. A total of more than 500 man-years may be terminated 250 from Neste and 279 from Kesko. Also, Many other Finnish companies have been recently announcing about redundancies. This fall has been dark for many employees in Finland.

 

Christmas-time sales

 

Christmas sales have started and Traders’ Association (=Kaupan Liitto) has estimated that Christmas sales will shrink this year by 1,5% since last year.

Stockmann and Kesko are expecting growth in e-commerce. Kesko’s expectations are stimulating NetAnttila reforms leading to the e-commerce chosen as Finland’s Digital Winners in 2014 survey, Finland’s best online store. Stockmann has invested in this year alot this year particularly in digital marketing. Stockmann’s department stores and an online store director Jouko Pitkänen indicates that the webstore has more selections and hard growth expectations.

Remains to be seen whether another year of lackluster Christmas sales or do investments in e-commerce help to boost the sales.

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Adidas Struggles in America: Too Much Fussball, Not Enough Football? (2014)

Kauppalehti (2014)