Adidas Botched Internet Marketing Opportunity
August 11, 2009
This evening, I was forced to buy a new pair of Tennis shoes (actually for playing Tennis). I had about 30 minutes before my date with a ball machine, so I stopped at the Tennis pro shop. I found myself attracted to the New Adidas Barricade V shoes. The salesperson was atypically knowledgeable and went on to tell me about a 6-month warranty on the outer sole. Apparently, Adidas has added a new compound to the sole that makes it extremely long-lasting. They call it AdiWear 6. The shoes felt great, they look cool, and I could get them at a great price. So I bought them.
After hitting the ball machine, working some kinks out of my once-good forehand, I returned home and read the fine print on the Adidas warranty card.
Do you see what's missing?
This is a perfect opportunity. The shoe is made for a sports niche: Tennis. Where the typical life of a shoe is 3 to 4 months (if you're playing 2-3 times a week). Personally, I switch Tennis shoe brands almost every time I buy a pair. If, however, I received a compelling email offer from Adidas in 7-8 months, knowing that the shoe with AdiWear 6 will probably be ready for replacement, I'd probably take them up on the offer (increasing my lifetime value for Adidas).
They missed the opportunity to collect my contact information!!! This is such a simple thing - it's called Business Lead Generation Marketing. They just needed a form, where I could login and prove my purchase (which, by the way, would have been a better customer experience than asking me to hang on to the warranty card and my original reciept for 6 months). Then, assuming I was interested in future offers and specials from Adidas, they just grew their email marketing database. That is an essential component for creating loyalty today.
But, the way this warranty offer is structured, they still won't have my email address after I send in my $8.30 to pay for the shipping of my second pair of Barricade V shoes - because you know I'm going to wear through them in four months!
After hitting the ball machine, working some kinks out of my once-good forehand, I returned home and read the fine print on the Adidas warranty card.
Do you see what's missing?
This is a perfect opportunity. The shoe is made for a sports niche: Tennis. Where the typical life of a shoe is 3 to 4 months (if you're playing 2-3 times a week). Personally, I switch Tennis shoe brands almost every time I buy a pair. If, however, I received a compelling email offer from Adidas in 7-8 months, knowing that the shoe with AdiWear 6 will probably be ready for replacement, I'd probably take them up on the offer (increasing my lifetime value for Adidas).
They missed the opportunity to collect my contact information!!! This is such a simple thing - it's called Business Lead Generation Marketing. They just needed a form, where I could login and prove my purchase (which, by the way, would have been a better customer experience than asking me to hang on to the warranty card and my original reciept for 6 months). Then, assuming I was interested in future offers and specials from Adidas, they just grew their email marketing database. That is an essential component for creating loyalty today.
But, the way this warranty offer is structured, they still won't have my email address after I send in my $8.30 to pay for the shipping of my second pair of Barricade V shoes - because you know I'm going to wear through them in four months!
Posted by John-Scott Dixon. Posted In : Business Lead Generation
I have over 16 years of experience managing and leading the Ecommerce efforts of medium and large companies. I have held sales, sales management, marketing, operations, IS/IT, legal and executive management positions in start-up to multi-billion dollar organizations. I have also served as an adjunct professor of Ecommerce for the MBA program of the University of Missouri (where I received an MBA concentrated in Direct Marketing in 1989). I led the Ecommerce initiative for Sprint PCS (PCS) and Sprint (FON) as Vice President of Ecommerce. I led the integrated marketing efforts for Insight (NSIT) as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Ecommerce. Today, I am the President of Aidan Taylor - a Web marketing company.
