Adidas Brand in the Hand

Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration started a new MBA program last fall. This new program placed an emphasis on MBA students working closely with the business community. The issue that marketing departments of today’s companies is to try to come up with new ways of getting their product in front of consumers. Fareena Sultan, marketing professor and head of the marketing track at the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University, wrote a case study entitled, “The Brand In The Hand: Mobile Marketing at Adidas,” where she provides a current example of how Adidas went beyond the traditional marketing medium and what obstacles they had to overcome to do it.

The study explores the development of telecommunications technology with cell phones which led up to the possibility of mobile marketing. Initially, Adidas’ marketing firm, Global Media Group presented this new mobile marketing for the company. “The Global Group had been arguing that mobile marketing was the surest, and perhaps only, way for Adidas to break free from the advertising clutter and fragmentation of traditional media.” The biggest challenge was to place this message out there without forcing it on consumers and so Adidas decided to allow the consumer the option of receiving the message. “Adidas opted an ‘opt-in’ policy for all Internet and mobile advertising.”

Below is Professor Sultan’s bio:

Professor Sultan is the Robert Morrison Fellow, and the MBA Marketing Career Track Chair at the College of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Boston. Professor Sultan holds a PhD from Columbia University, an MS from MIT, and BS and MS degrees from the University of Karachi. Prior to joining the CBA faculty, she served as assistant professor at Harvard University, associate professor at Golden Gate University, and visiting associate professor at the University of California - Berkeley, where she received the Earl F. Chiet Teaching Excellence Award. She has consulted and taught in executive education programs in the U.S. and overseas. Professor Sultan has research interest in Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations, Global E-Business, Mobile Marketing, Digital Marketing, Media Multitasking and the Role of IT in New Product Development. Professor Sultan has published in such journals as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Business Research, Marketing Management, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, IEEE Transactions, Marketing Letters, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and Journal of Economic Psychology among others. She is the author of Harvard Business School and Ivey cases. Professor Sultan is the recipient of the 1995 O'Dell Award from the American Marketing Association for her research. In 2006, she received the College of Business Administration’s Robert Morrison Fellowship.

If you would like to speak to Professor Sultan or would like a copy of this study, please let me know.