Adidas AG, the second-largest athletic footwear maker, is branching out into new arenas, creating films for social-networking sites as part of its annual spring marketing campaign and collaborating with hip jeansmaker Diesel in time for New York Fashion week.

Beginning this week, the German company will begin to debut four original films on popular online sites Facebook and YouTube. The first focuses on the company’s founder, Adi Dassler, and chronicles how his shoe evolved from a sports shoe to popular everyday footwear. Adidas is the third most popular athletic brand in the U.S., according to market research firm The NPD Group Inc.’s Consumer Tracking Service, behind Nike and New Balance.

Adidas will also host a community page on Facebook with a variety of information and applications.

The campaign is part of its overall “Celebrate Originality,” global brand message for its sports lifestyle products.

While the marketing spending is undisclosed, Hermann Deininger said it is “the biggest” campaign the company has done in its 49-year history.

“There are two key pillars to the campaign,” said Hermann Deininger, chief marketing officer of the adidas sport style division. “One is retail and the second is digital.”

Adidas will reformat some of its 80 worldwide stores into an “atelier” concept, allowing visitors to design their own shoes and send pictures and videos to a large wall within the store.

The first Atelier store format opened in Berlin and the reformatted New York store opens Monday. Beijing, which will host the Summer Olympics in August, is next in May.

“The new store design brings to life the ‘Celebrate Originality’ theme,” Deininger said.

Adidas will also make a foray into the non-sports arena of denim, pairing with Italian jeansmaker Diesel to create four styles of jeans called “adidas Originals Denim by Diesel.” The line, which includes two mens and two womens jeans in four different washes, was shown at Fashion Week in New York on Sunday. The jeans will be available exclusively at adidas stores and retail for $160 to $210.

While adidas has paired with a variety of designers, such as Stella McCartney, this is its first foray into completely non-sports product segment.

But Deininger said the two brands “share the same value and share they same approach to the consumer,” he said. “There are a lot of commonalities between two brands.”

Diesel’s Stefano Rosso agreed.

“If you look back in the past 10 years, they’ve represented the sports world like we’ve represented the denim world,” he said. “The company represents innovation and something new for customers that’s exciting.”

John Shanley, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group, said the campaign fits in with a trend of merging fashion and athletics trends.

“I think it makes a lot of sense,” he said. “Casualwear is where most of the business is done (in the athletic sector). Technical or performance products are a relatively small part of the overall market.”

Source: BusinessWeek

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