UEFA Euro 2016: Adidas vs Nike


06/09/2016

UEFA Euro 2016 starts tomorrow in France. Traditionally, the championship will also become a battleground for two largest sports brands - Nike and Adidas. Strategies of the both competitors involve full use of advertising and sponsorship potential for Euro-2016. Repucom marketing research agency in its football report devoted to the start of the championship compared chances of both brands.



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Football has always been a battlefield between sports giants – producers of uniform sets for national teams and the players support. More than 20 years, Adidas has set the pace by number of teams equipped for the European Team Championships. This year, Adidas has equipped 9 teams out of 24 (37%), calculated Repucom’s analysts. Nike has produced uniforms for six teams (25%), Puma – for five (21%). Deliveries to form to other four teams (17%) were divided between several other manufacturers of sportswear.

This year, Adidas tied up with French Paul Pogba (€ 4 million), Wales midfielder Gareth Bale (€ 4 million) and German Mesut Ozil (€ 3 million). Nike, in turn, provides support to three other stars of world football. These are winner of "Ballon d'Or" Cristiano Ronaldo, who has the most expensive contract for € 19 million, player of the national team of England Wayne Rooney (€ 3 million) and Swede Zlatan Ibrahimović (1.5 million euros).

Activities of the companies in the social networks perfectly illustrate battle of the two competitors. According to Repucom’s estimates, number of the companies’ active users greatly increases each year since social networks today are playing an increasingly prominent role in the brands battle. Nike is leading the field by total number of fans and followers. For example, the brand has 4,6 million football fans subscribers on Twitter, whereas Adidas can boast only with 2.9 million. The gap on Facebook is even more impressive, with Nike’s 42,2 million "likes" in Facebook, and 21,8 million of Adidas.

In 2016, Adidas has substantially strengthened the brand awareness through Facebook and showed a much higher level of interaction with users. This is largely due to changes in the company’s page content in the social network, specify the analysts. Precisely, in average Adidas weekly placed four publications on the page, 67% of which were videos, and 33% - pictures. To compare, for the current year Nike published an average of three posts per week, of which pictures took 93%.  

The companies’ sales also indicate the brand awareness. According to Bloomberg, on 16 June in Paris, Adidas will provide a forecast of sales of football shoes and equipment for the current year. Last year, sales of shoes and Adidas sportswear amounted to € 2.2 billion ($ 2.4 billion). In turn, Nike sold football uniforms for $ 2.2 billion in total last year.

UEFA Euro 2016 will be held from 10 June to 10 July at stadiums in ten French cities. For the first time, Euro-2016 will feature 24 teams, with 552 players taking the field. 

source: foxsports.com.au