World Cup Marketing Strategy
Adidas Vs Nike
When it comes to soccer or futbol depending where you are from, there is not bigger stage than the World Cup. Major sporting companies such as Nike and Adidas spend up to 100 million dollars on just advertising their brands. The world cup is sponsored by Adidas and Adidas only. this means that Nike or Puma can not use the world cup in their market strategy. If you look closely at Nike's most popular commercial for the 2014 world cup you will see that no where in the commercial was the world cup shown or mentioned.
The commercial does do a good job at making it seem like it is representing the world cup but in reality they never once make reference to it.
Adidas has the rights to use the world cup in its commercials but is it really worth the millions of dollars just to publicise a few words and a golden trophy? If Nike can make the feeling of the world cup in their commercials and not have to pay the money Adidas is paying, who really wins? In my opinion I believe Nike won that battle because they still made the audience believe they are watch the world cup even though they are not.
Even with the rights to the world cup Adidas did not take full advantage to what they had in my opinion, as you can see in this commercials.
Regardless it is a very good commercial. It shows the world cup being played but there is so much that Adidas could have done with the rights.
The war between companies such as Adidas and Nike is not limited to only commercials, it also carries over to the apparel, countries, and players.
Cristiano Ronaldo gets paid 21 million dollars a year by Nike and all he has to do is wear their brand and participate in ads.
Messi on the other hand gets paid 20 million dollars a year by Adidas to wear their brand and participate in ads.
Nike and Adidas battle for countries to represent. For example Nike supplies USA, England, Brazil, Portugal,Netherlands, France, Australia, and a few others with Jerseys and other clothing.
Adidas supplies Argentina, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Belgium, Sweden, and a few other.
If the winner of the world cup is wearing a company's jersey the possibilities for ads are endless.
Germany who was the winner of the world cup in 2014 was sponsored by no other Adidas,seeing that they are in fact a German company. 
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/image.axd?picture=2014%2F7%2Fadidas-germany-560.jpg
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/image.axd?picture=2014%2F7%2Fadidas-germany-560.jpg
As you can see picture Adidas is everywhere in the image and is in fact the first picture on google images if you type in 2014 worldcup.
To further the Nike/ Adidas world cup battle take a look at this video from Bloomberg.com
Shaun Degnan
St. Michael's College
Marketing
1/25/15
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