Executive Summary
This report provides an analysis of the Adidas sports shoes customer behavior and the role of its
marketers during two stages of Consumer Decision-Making Process. The two stages selected for
this report are ‘Need Recognition’ and ‘Information Search’. The four of the major internal
factors including motivation, perception, learning and attitude of consumers are analyzed during
these two stages of CDMP. In this report the potential customer of Adidas sports shoes are
segmented in a segmentation table and one major segment “Athletes and sports person” is
selected to analyze how their internal factors and behavior is influenced by the applicable
theories during first two stages of CDMP. The applicable theories analyzed during Need
recognition stage include Motivation-need theory, Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying theory and
Social Cognitive Theory and the theories analyzed in the Information search stage included
Theory of reasoned action and Engel, Kollet, Blackwell (EKB) Model. After the complete
analysis of Adidas marketing strategies used during these stages, three recommendations are also
given that will help the company to further improve its marketing strategies and increase its
sales.
Contents
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................2
1.1. Background of Adidas Sports Shoes.................................................................................2
1.2. Market Segmentation of Adidas Sports Shoes..................................................................3
1.3. CDMP and its Stages........................................................................................................3
2. CDMP......................................................................................................................................4
2.1. Stage 1: Need Recognition................................................................................................4
2.1.1. Applicable theories in “Need Recognition” Stage.....................................................4
2.1.2. Influence of these theories on Consumers.................................................................5
2.1.3. Theoretical implications of these theories on Adidas Sports Shoes..........................6
2.2. Stage 2: Information Search..............................................................................................6
2.2.1. Applicable theories in “Information Search” Stage...................................................6
2.2.2. Influence of these theories on Consumers.................................................................7
2.2.3. Theoretical implications of these theories on Adidas Sports Shoes..........................7
3. Recommendations....................................................................................................................8
3.1. First Recommendation......................................................................................................8
3.2. Second Recommendation..................................................................................................8
3.3. Third Recommendation.....................................................................................................9
4. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................9
5. References..............................................................................................................................10
1. Introduction
1.1. Background of Adidas Sports Shoes
Adidas is a global company that provides sports products, sports lifestyle apparels and shoes. It
was founded by a German Adolf Dassler in 1949 and now it is successfully operating all around
the world with people from around 100 nations working for it. Adidas is one of the largest and
most recognizable sportswear manufacturing company of the world. Adidas with its independent
manufacturers produced over 1.1 billion sports and sports lifestyle products in 2019. The
targeted Adidas product in this report is the Adidas sports shoes. Adidas produced about 448
million pairs of sports shoes in 2019 [ CITATION Adi19 \l 1033 ]. The major categories of shoes
produced by Adidas include running shoes, soccer shoes and golf shoes. Major competitors of
Adidas include Nike, Origin and Puma.
1.2. Market Segmentation of Adidas Sports Shoes
Adidas provides sports shoes to a huge variety of customers. Adidas mainly focus on its
psychographic or lifestyle segmentation. The lifestyle market segmentation of Adidas sports
shoes is represented in the following table.
Class Profession Health Interests Hobbies
Lifestyles
Middle Class Athletes Regular Brand Conscious Sports persons
Exercisers people
Upper Middle Class Gym Regulators Gym users FIFA and other Shoe Collectors
sports lovers
Upper Class Professional Trekkers and Travelers or
Coach Runners Hikers
Table 1: Lifestyle Market Segmentation of Adidas Sports Shoes
This report will focus on one target market of Adidas sports shoes that is ‘Athletes’. Most of the
Adidas sports shoes customers are sports person or people who are professional athletes. Adidas
should aim to achieve customer satisfaction among its athlete customers because they are regular
users of sports shoes and play a great part in the company’s sales of sports shoes.
1.3. CDMP and its Stages
CDMP stands for Consumer decision-making process. It is an extensive process where
consumers go through various steps to make a purchase. This process includes five stages that a
consumer goes through to identify whether a product or services can justify its needs. The first
stage of CDMP is Problem or need identification and recognition where consumers recognize
what kind of product they need. Second step is the information search, once the consumers are
aware of their needs, they focus on searching for solutions that is mostly done using internet and
search engines. The third stage is evaluation of alternatives where consumers evaluate all options
to solve their need or problem. Fourth stage is the final purchasing decisions when the customers
buy a product or service after evaluating all options. The last stage of CDMP is the post purchase
evaluation, in this step customers evaluate their decision after using the product or
service[ CITATION Pan19 \l 1033 ].
The stages that will be targeted in this research report are the stage 1 ‘Need Recognition’ and the
stage 2 ‘Information Search’
Internal factors affecting Consumer behavior:
Internal factors that can affect the consumer behavior include motivation, perception,
personality, learning and attitude. This report will focus on four major internal factors including
motivation, perception, learning and attitude. The personality of the customer impact their
decision making process as it determines the needs and wants of a person. The purchase
decisions of customers are also influenced by learning, it refers to the information received from
the surroundings [ CITATION Sta17 \l 1033 ].
2. CDMP
2.1. Stage 1: Need Recognition
Need recognition is first stage where customers recognize their needs and wants that must be
fulfilled. This stage is also known as problem identification. The needs and wants of the
customers can be influenced by both external and internal factors. Potential customers of Adidas
sports shoes can develop or recognize their needs and wants on the basis of their lifestyle or their
needs can be influenced by their society, peers, social media or other forms of media.
2.1.1. Applicable theories in “Need Recognition” Stage
Motivation-Need Theory:
Motivation-need theory was proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943. This theory emphasizes that
people use a hierarchy of five-part priority system to recognize and fulfill their needs. The five
priorities include physiological (survival), safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. The
customers recognize their needs according to these priorities and try to fulfill them.
Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying:
Hawkins Stern argued that the customers not only recognize their needs based on rational
thinking, sometimes needs are also generated based on impulse behavior. Some external stimuli
drive the impulse needs among customers that lead to sudden purchases instead of traditional
decision making. According to this theory, impulse buying is of four categories. First category is
impulsive purchase of something right at the moment, second category refers to the impulsive
want generated after viewing a typical advertisement, third category is the suggested impulse
purchase and last category includes planed impulse purchases. In the last category the customers
preplan to buy something but they do not decide the specifications of the products [ CITATION
Mur13 \l 1033 ].
Social Cognitive Theory:
One theory that is most applicable during this stage is the “Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)”
According to this theory customer needs and demands are influenced by internal and external
social stimuli and reinforcements [ CITATION Sti13 \l 1033 ]. The external social stimuli
include peers, society, culture, and the past experiences. Past experiences of customers play a
vital role in the recognition of their needs because they impact the expectations and behaviors of
customers.
2.1.2. Influence of these theories on Consumers
Motivation-need theory influences the need recognition process of customers. The priorities
mentioned in this model affect the personality of customers and motivate them to buy a product.
Customers often create their own perceptions about their needs based on their cognitive and self-
actualization priorities. This theory also drives their attitudes towards the products based on the
provided information.
Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying theory motivates the customers to develop a sudden need or
want. It also influences that attitude of customer during the recognition of need of a certain
product or service.
Social cognitive theory also influences the customers to purchase a certain product or service.
The external societal factors help the customers to improve their learning about a certain product
that can affect their perceptions and attitudes.
2.1.3. Theoretical implications of these theories on Adidas Sports Shoes
Sports shoes are the necessities of Athletes because they use them in their daily routine. Adidas
provides high quality sports shoes to fulfill their needs and take necessary steps to create
awareness about the specifications of their sports shoes. The fifth level of Moslow theory “Self-
Actualization” is based on cognitive thinking so the marketers need to make the athletes
recognize their needs regarding sports shoes by using effective advertisements and campaigns.
Marketers of Adidas should create an imbalance between the present status and the preferred
status of athletes, such imbalance helps to generate the need of the relevant product and make the
consumers buy it.
Adidas is successfully creating the impulse need by using the second category of Hawkin’s
impulse buying theory, the company invests heavily in posting advertisements in playgrounds
and gyms that generate an impulse need of shoes among the athletes and sport persons. The
advertisements also motivate the customers that require cognitive thinking so that they have
enough information at the beginning to recognize their needs.
The marketers of Adidas are also using social media platforms and search engines where athletes
and sports persons receive frequent shoe advertisements with the slogan “Nothing is impossible”.
This technique also motivates them to search for high quality sports shoes.
2.2. Stage 2: Information Search
The second stage of CDMP is very crucial to reach the final purchase decision. It helps the
consumers to understand all characteristics of a particular product or service. If the consumer
becomes happy from the information provided by the company about their products and services,
it will influence them to buy that product or service. In this stage, the consumers analyze both
external and internal information that helps them to make the final decision [ CITATION
Sta17 \l 1033 ].
2.2.1. Applicable theories in “Information Search” Stage
Theory of Reasoned Action:
One key theory applicable in this stage is the “Theory of Reasoned Action”. This theory was
proposed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen iin 1960s. This theory emphasizes on the
importance of perceptions and pre-existing attitudes of consumers regarding any particular
product or service. According to this theory, a consumer takes a specific decision if he or she
expects specific outcomes [ CITATION Sou11 \l 1033 ].
Engel, Kollet, Blackwell (EKB) Model:
The model is also applicable during information search stage. This model includes five steps.
The first step is where consumers absorb information from their surroundings including TV,
internet. The next step is information processing where consumers compare all the collected
information with their past experiences. Consumers reach to their decision after rational insight
where different variables affect the process [ CITATION Ash15 \l 1033 ].
2.2.2. Influence of these theories on Consumers
Theory of Reasoned Action influences the decision-making of customers. Customers make their
purchase decisions according to their expectations and perceptions. The information search stage
plays a major role in changing the perceptions of customers about the products, if the
information of the product is provided efficiently the consumers will expect positive results from
that particular service or product that will affect their attitude towards a product or service.
The EKB Model influence the customer evaluation of the products or services provided for their
needs. If marketers have provided enough information, the customers apply five step evaluations
to consider and analyze that information that can drive them to purchase a certain product. This
evaluation motivates the customer to make their purchase decisions. The attitudes of the
customers are also affected by the information they gather from their surroundings.
2.2.3. Theoretical implications of these theories on Adidas Sports Shoes
The information search stage is very crucial for Adidas marketers, it helps them to attract
maximum athletic and sports related customers by providing effective and extensive information
regarding their shoe quality and designs. Since 1954, Adidas is using interesting goal oriented as
well as humorous slogans to attract its customers. Their advertisements also provide some basic
specifications that attract the consumers to do more information search on the brand, One of
these slogans is “A.D.I.D.A.S: All Day I Dream About Sports”, this slogan clearly indicated how
much importance the brand is given to sports and sports shoes that also motivates the athletes to
buy their products. As the Theory of Reasoned Action indicated that such factors influence the
perceptions of customers and motivate them to buy the product [ CITATION Der10 \l 1033 ].
The company also provides detailed information of its products including all of its specifications
and design along with the product display pictures on their official website.
3. Recommendations
3.1. First Recommendation
The Adidas marketers should develop the need for brand by providing content where its potential
customer can access it. Today’s world is an online world where people believe on online
information more than any other learning sources. Social media is being extensively used and
most of the customers get attracted towards the brand through their social media platforms.
Adidas needs to start guest blogging in the websites that are frequently visited by the athletes and
to seed the relevant content in such online platforms where athletes and sports persons actively
visit to make them realize that they need the Adidas sports shoes. The marketers need to generate
attractive and influencing content that can develop the brand need among the sports lovers.
The best strategy to do this is using Public Relations (PR) method. This practice will help the
company to spread the information about their product with the help of influencers or
personalities that can easily motivate many customers. The selection of the influencers is very
crucial, marketers need to hire sports influencers or famous and successful athletes to spread the
word about new varieties of Adidas sports shoes.
3.2. Second Recommendation
Adidas marketers should develop Omni channel support systems to assist their customers during
their information search stage. This method will help the company to provide consistent support
to their customers and increase the business credibility. Adidas should invest in aiding their
customers through all channels including social media chats and posts, instant messaging, or
emails. The Adidas marketers should streamline all the conversations to be available to provide
every detail of their products all the time. During information search stage, customers search for
the information of the product, if the company will be available to guide the customers in real
time it will motivate them to stick with their products instead to searching for alternatives
[ CITATION Pay17 \l 1033 ].
3.3. Third Recommendation
Adidas sports shoe providers should pay special attention to the negative feedbacks and the
complaints of the customers to gain their trust. The customer feedbacks help the business to
identify their weaknesses and gaps. Once the company will be able to address the issues faced by
the sports persons regarding its sports shoes, it will be very convenient for the manufacturers to
bring the necessary changes in their products. This step will increase the trust among the
customers and will also help to attract more customers through social cognitive approaches.
Satisfied customers will also recommend the Adidas sports shoes to many more people that will
lead to increase in the purchases of the company.
In today’s virtual world it is very easy to gather customer feedbacks and the brands can easily
response them using social media platforms of mobile applications. Adidas sports shoes should
provide feedback options in application or website of Adidas where customers can share their
complaints and positive or negative feedbacks and the company can also communicate and
resolve the customer’s issues [CITATION Lui \l 1033 ]
4. Conclusion
To conclude, all five stages of customer decision making process are very crucial for the
marketers to attract them towards the brand. Adidas is continuously striving to increase customer
satisfaction by applying effective 4Ps strategies. This research focused on the first two stages of
decision-making including need recognition and information search. The marketers of Adidas
can develop the need of their brand by providing their promoting content on the platforms that
are frequently visited by their potential customers. Omni channel support system will also help
the brand to provide all necessary information about the brand during the information search
stage that will attract long-lasting customers. Adidas also needs to put emphasis on the customer
feedbacks so that the needs and demands of customers are met and sales of the brand are
increased.
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