GRASSROOTS ACTIVATION

Group 6:Brendan BegleyGreg BrantmeierSvenja DrahtstiftMax MullerEric NoeJosh Sacher

EXECUTIVE SU

MM

ARYSummary of Report

This mission of this report is to create a stronger brand image for adidas Tennis through grassroots activation. Our markets for this grassroots activation were the United States and Europe, more specifically ages 14-19. Using these markets we plan to bring more customers and spectators at our tennis events. The goal is to put on events that are so exceptional the brand of adidas tennis will be their top choice whenever thinking about tennis. The way we have decided to do this is come up with five events that have never been done before. Also, there will be many side events to promote the five major events scattered through out the year. We believe that through this, sponsorship, and our promotion tour, this will put adidas at the forefront of the tennis apparel industry. Our budget was one million euro over the course of one year in both the United States and Europe, and we did what we thought was the best way to balance the budget and have an effective and innovative grassroots campaign.

Adidas Future Classics CupThe idea behind this event is to bring the top rising stars from the United States and Europe, and place them in a match play style event. This is to host an event that puts rising stars against each other, and puts adidas at the forefront of hosting a unique and rare event.

Promotion TourOur idea with the promotion tour is to target middle class areas, and areas where the youth are not around tennis or have only played it a few times. This includes hitting markets that host a professional event within a calendar year or have a big population of tennis players.

SponsorshipsOur ideas in relation to sponsorship first and foremost relate to the adidas Future Classics Cup and the play-in tournaments. This is because these are ideas created by adidas, and they have exclusive rights to these events. Other sponsorships include youth tennis teams, men’s and women’s high school teams, tennis academies , and the adidas promotion tour.

TABLE OF CO

NTEN

TS

Target Market Segmentation

adidas Future Classics Cup Play-In Tournaments

Marketing

Promotion Tour

After Tournament Promotion

Sponsorship

Budget Analysis

Return on Investments

Future Ideas

Conclusion

5

6

8

9

10

13

16

17

18

20

22

23

Aims

Grassroots

SWOT Analysis

Works Cited

24

4

adidas Future Classics Cup Tournament

25

GRASSROOTS

-Grassroots activation is a relatively new low-cost marketing strategy that is based on personal recommendations. Instead of the old classic marketing approach that usually uses mass media and is aimed to a less specific target group, grassroots are characterized by opinion-leaders and smaller target groups who have high influence addressing others. Afterwards the aim is to use their influence to distribute the grassroots campaign and make it popular to a vast majority.The idea of this strategy grew because of the adoption that the consumers are now “resistant” to classic mass advertisement. With recommendation of opinion-leaders, role models or friends; marketing experts assume to address their target group more effective. Important marketing tools are e.g. Facebook, twitter or a homepage. Due to the strong focus on recommendation and the use of marketing tools like social media, grassroots marketing often costs much less than classic marketing efforts.-As the name already indicates “grassroots” are ideas that start up from the ground. A grassroots activation always implies a new and innovative idea to promote something and can even develop to a big trend.

-As our grassroots activation we created an unique tournament and called it “adidas Future Classics Cup”. It basically consists of the following three areas: event, sponsorship and promotion tour. The main focus will be on the event part. We will implement the first tennis tournament for the youth that will take place in USA and Europe. The basic idea is to have several qualification tournaments in each of the continents and at the end a big final on the weekend before the US Open in August 2015. The smaller tournaments will be organized in cooperation with local clubs or academies so that we can exactly reach our target group of 14-19 years old in the local area. In addition to that we will extend our target-group and make a bus-tour around the area to different clubs and schools to promote the event. Also, to the youth who are less interested in tennis, until now. The bus-tour will always be joined by two young professional players on its final stop who will help to promote the tournament and who will be seen as an opinion-leader. To spread out the idea of the tournament we will intensively use social media platforms where the people can follow the run of the tournaments. In addition to using our own Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets we will ask our adidas stars to promote the tournaments on their own social media sites.

 

4

AIMS

-To see if this project is successful it is necessary to define precise and measurable aims. Sometimes, it is hard to measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts, because marketing is much more than bringing someone to buy your product. It means to build up an image and brand your company which can be difficult. Also, the cost can be a lot of money to measure the attitude of the customer to your brand. Especially because you would have to make a pre and post measurement.

-The defined target of adidas is to become closer to the 14 to 19 years old consumers. One way to find out if this aim is fulfilled would be to count the numbers of visitors to the website, to Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. The aim of the grassroots campaign is to grow over the years and establish adidas in the tennis sector to become the leading tennis brand in the future. The idea is to come closer to the consumer in the younger ages and to inspire them for the brand so that they become loyal customers. Our aim is to reach different target groups. On the one hand we want to support the rising stars in the tennis sector and bring them to excellent performance. This is because that is what adidas stands for as well. On the other hand we want to create awareness among potential customers and to establish the brand.  

5

TARGET MARKET SEGM

ENTATIO

NTarget Market Segmentation

-Our target market for this grassroots activation are youth tennis players between the ages of 14-19. We want to target the youth because we want them to start using our brand early and hopefully become loyal customers and continue using adidas products as they grow up. It is easier to attract new fans to the brand than it is to convince fans of another brand to switch.-Tennis is far more popular in Europe than it is in the U.S. but its popularity is growing. From 2011 to 2012, the U.S. saw a four percent growth in tennis participation topping 28 million players for the first time since 2009. This was mainly due to the increase in youth tennis players. Players of the ages between 6 to 11 saw an increase of thirteen percent. This means that youth tennis is growing the fastest in the U.S. and that is why the target market of the grassroots activation is youth players. If this activation can cause some of these youth players to become loyal supporters of the brand, it will hopefully lead to future life-long customers.

6

TARGET MARKET SEGM

ENTATIO

NPopularity of Tennis

-We found geography is a factor in the popularity of tennis as well. In the U.S., tennis has a higher popularity in the southern part of the country, especially in California, Florida, and Georgia, and is growing in states such as Texas and South Carolina. These states are home to several of the major Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) events and where many of the top ranked youth players live. We believe tennis is most popular in these states because of the climate and the wealth of the people living in these states. These southern states have a warmer climate, meaning athletes can play outside year around. This gives them more opportunity to practice compared to an athlete living to the north where they must find an indoor court to play during the winter. Tennis is a fairly expensive sport to play, meaning the participants must have excess spending money to participate. States like California and Florida are often more expensive to live in meaning the families living there make more money and have the extra money to be able to participate in sports like tennis.

-Europe is much more established in the sport of tennis compared to the U.S. This can be seen by the total number of participants and the development of these players. When looking at the top ranked players in the world, not many players are from the U.S. This shows that Europeans take tennis more seriously in comparison to the U.S. The fact that adidas is a European brand is another reason Europe is in our target market. Adidas is the second largest brand of its kind in the world, mainly due to its popularity in Europe. The brand is much less trusted and used in the U.S. Hopefully this grass roots activation event will change the minds of the youth players and cause an increase in popularity among U.S. tennis players.

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PLAY-IN TO

URN

AMEN

TS-The play-in tournaments will consist of four overall tournaments. There will be two tournaments in each continent. The tournaments will take place at University of California Los Angeles, Florida International University, Alicante Public Tennis Courts, and Munich Public Tennis Courts. We have chosen these locations because of the popularity of tennis in each area. We have also chosen these places because of their location which is close to a professional tennis tournament being played. Also, the popularity of tennis in the area and the access to paying customers.-The dates of the tournaments will coincide with professional events being played the day after within close areas of the tournament. The first tournament will be played March 6 th-8th at UCLA’s facilities, the weekend before the BNP Paribas Open. The second will be played at FIU’s facilities on March 20 th-22nd, the weekend before the Sony Open. The third will be played in Alicante, Spain April 17th-19th, the weekend before the Barcelona Open. The last will be played in Munich, Germany April 24th-26th, the weekend before the BMW Open.-The participants will be able to register through a website. They will need to put together a resume of their tennis credentials. This will will include tournaments they have won, official rankings, and/or any accolades they have collected. They will then be reviewed and the best shall be chosen to perform in the tournaments. They will be charged a small fee of 10 euro to register. -The top eight boys and the top eight girls from each age group, which includes ages 14-18 will be accepted. -There will be 160 total participants selected to participate in the play-in tournaments, 80 from the United States and 80 from Europe. They will be divided up by gender and age, with five different age groups ranging from 14-18. For example, there will be eight 14 year old boys and eight 14 year old girls from the US playing and eight 14 year old boys and eight 14 year old girls playing from Europe. Both the boys and girls 14 and 16 age group and the boys 18 will play in the UCLA and Alicante tournaments and the boys and girls 15 and 17 age group and the girls 18 will play in the FIU and Munich tournaments.-The tournament will consist of three days. The first day will consist of the opening rounds. The second day will consist of the semifinals. The last day will consist of the championships.-The top player from each boys and girls age group at each tournament will receive an automatic bid to the adidas Future Classics Cup. -As an incentive the top two players from each age division in both genders will receive an adidas Tennis ClimaChill shirt-The reasons we chose these locations is because they had a big event the following weekend. Also, there is talent in places such as California and Florida. Twenty of the top a hundred amateur players are from California and sixteen of the top a hundred are in Florida. This is where tennis is popular.

8

ADIDAS FUTU

RE CLASSICS CUP

-The adidas Future Cups Classic is our main event for our whole project. This is the tournament everyone will compete in that has won the qualifier tournaments. This includes winners from each play-in tournament from each age division and both genders. The winners from the U.S. are on one team and the winners from Europe on the other. There will be one player in each age and each gender from both teams. The event will start August 27 th and end August 30th. The weekend before the US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.-The tournament will be a four day event

-The 1st day will consist of an introduction to the junior players competing. This is when stars such as Andy Murray and Jack Sock will be there to promote the event.

-The 2nd day consists of each player from the girls division playing a singles match against the opposing girl in their age group.

-The 3rd day consists of each player from the boys division playing a singles match against the opposing boy in their age group.

The 4th day will consist of doubles matches between every age group. Example: The US 14 year old boy and girl vs. the European 14 year old boy and girl-The point system entails each match counting for one point.-The winning team will be used in the promotion for adidas tennis for the promotion campaign September through the end of December.-As with the bus promotion tour we will also have the charter bus with the tents. The bus will be displaying adidas tennis branding on its two newly installed HD TV's. The large tent will be selling apparel to customer. Some workers will be selling lottery tickets for the chance to earn a day with the tennis star of your choosing. The small tent will be the area for people to play on the adidas tennis Kindle Fires. All they have to do is use their email address to sign in. That way adidas can database market to whoever signs the Kindle. As well as send messages to them over social media.

9

MARKETIN

G ACTIVITIESMarketing

In this chapter the marketing actions are supposed to be explained regarding general activities which support the brand image amongst the target groups. These activities include simple advertising and social media as well as Guerilla-Marketing and a promotion tour along the biggest cities/championships . These activities function as a display amongst the target groups that adidas is best for young tennis players having the ambition to play professionally. As well as to have a great time during a match with their friends. The promotion tour will be explained exceptionally in the next few pages.

General Advertising

This section explains how the advertisements of adidas could look like and also which contents should be submitted to fit the teenagers needs. It is a matter of common knowledge that adolescents are determined by emotions and role models corresponding with their interests and aims. Therefore the advertisements should use emotional contents such as high contrasts in colors, pictures transmitting success, victory, greatness of role models as well as slogans speaking of emotional factors and situations.

10

MARKETIN

G ACTIVITIESSocial Media

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20130

50

100

150

200

Internet activity amongst 12 to 19 years old adolescents in minutes per day

As an example of the usage of media by 12 to 19 years old boys and girls the institution Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest made a survey asking 1,200 adolescents about their usage of media. As you can see there is a growing trend of media usage amongst people in this age. The study also shows that especially Facebook and streaming of videos play the biggest role. 74 percent overall stream videos and 75 percent use Facebook several times per week. Thus these platforms generate massive potential for reaching out to those target groups. To Achieve the goal to actually reach as many teenagers as possible we concluded there should be a channel on several platforms keeping its followers posted and winning new followers by posting videos, photos, and news that draw interest. Furthermore that way customers can share contents about adidas tennis very easily by themselves for example by using hashtags as #smashthesilence.

11

MARKETIN

G ACTIVITIESGuerilla Marketing

Guerilla Marketing uses the circumstances given by the environment. It is a very effective way of courting because of very low expenses and the advertisement is so special and surprising that people talk a lot about it. Thus, the spoken propaganda effects pitch our story amongst the people we want to reach. The guerilla marketing activity we thought about iscutting the grass in a park shaped like a tennis court with necessary linings on the ground using a row of park benches as a net in a spot people would not expect it to be. Similar to the parking spaces Jeep made a few years ago viewed on the pictures below. The message we want to share by that is, that there are no obstacles for adidas tennis players, they cannot overcome. An alternative could also be to put those courts anywhere in a city or a park with obstacles so people talk about it. This basically correlates to #smashthesilence. Maybe there is not even the adidas logo but only the hashtag sprayed next to it, so people first wonder what it is about and look for the note on the internet. One of the biggest advantages of this type of advertising is that it is made very rarely, so it is very attractive to customers who will be surprised positively by adidas´ originality.

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PROM

OTIO

N TO

UR

Promotion Tour

Additionally to the advertisement we explained on the sheets before, we suggest a promotion tour with busses around Europe and USA to attract the people who would be rooting on their continent. Therefore we thought of a bus branded by adidas touring along tournaments over the course of the year, such as Franconian Championships, Bavarian Championships, and German Championships. As well as Tournaments in the US such as the Sony Open in Miami and the Paribus Open in California. One of the reasons is that during those tournaments there are already a lot of tennis players, their families and their friends assembled. Thus adidas will already have a tennis market heading to those areas. As the tournaments are getting bigger and bigger the less regional and more national the tournaments become, the more opportunity you’ll have with people. Usually the national championships also attract not only the active players but also a lot of spectators, which attracts even more new customers. That is a reason we have decided to host the adidas Future Classics Tournament in New York the weekend before the US Open. Also, every place the bus stops is either a tennis crazy town or middle class income area. That way we know we will have paying customers.

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PROM

OTIO

N TO

UR

-To make the promotion buses more attractive, there are some activities planned which several functions. -First people must be attracted to the bus. To reach that goal there are big tents and banners with adidas logos on it and some music which makes people curious about what is happening there. -Secondly people coming to the bus shall become informed about adidas tennis. When they leave the bus area they must know about the product, its functions, and its attractiveness. Therefore the busses are equipped with the latest adidas products. This will give them an opportunity to interact with our product. -Thirdly people have to be entertained during staying at the bus and using its opportunities. Since the younger generation is used to technology and works with it everyday they will value getting information quickly and easily by using tablets. They can watch videos about tennis, see what makes adidas tennis special, and have a look at adidas gear and its features. As side effect people can like the social media sites of adidas directly at the bus and subscribe for a newsletter connected to the web pages adidas has. To make more people to sign into the newsletter you can program the tablets to not allow the customer to use them until they sign in with email. That will allow adidas to database market.-Fourthly to achieve more advertisement appeal there will be a lottery. People can buy tickets and win adidas gear if they have the right number. Also, could win a day with their favorite adidas tennis star. This will cause people at the event to talk about the adidas bus and attract more people. -Fifthly we would include games such as how hard can you serve, an accuracy challenge, and best trick shot to attract people that might not be the biggest tennis fans. This would still make it fun for them to come to the event. And also, to arrive at our events and just play the game of tennis in a relaxed environment.In addition there the will be a sale of adidas product shown at the bus so people are even more likely to have a look at the bus and the tents.

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PROM

OTIO

N TO

UR DATES AN

D LOCATIO

NS

USA Tour

• January• Houston, Texas• Dallas, Texas

• February• Oakland, California• Los Angeles, California

• March• UCLA Play in Tournament• FIU Play in Tournament

• April• Tampa Bay, Florida• Orlando, Florida

• May• Atlanta, Georgia

• June• Rock Hill, South Carolina

• July• Fredericksburg, Virginia

• August• Manhattan, New York• adidas Future Classics Cup

European Tour

• January• Sagres, Portugal

• February• Malaga, Spain• Valencia, Spain

• March• Marseille, France• Lyon, France

• April• Alicante Play-In Tournament• Munich Play-In Tournament

• May• Modena, Italy• Villach, Austria

• June• Pardubice, Czech Republic

• July• Halle, Germany

• August• London, United Kingdom

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AFTER TOU

RNAM

ENT PRO

MOTIO

NWho’s up Next?

-At the very beginning of the tour in January is when we have decided to make the teaser video for the promotion of this event. This video will not consist of any of the athletes, considering we do not know which are competing just as of yet. It will just set a base for the campaign idea of “who’s up next,” or “who’s the next us?” Referring to the amateur players.-After the play in tournaments have been decided and we know which players are playing we will invite them for a shoot. Both teams will be filmed and adidas can then use clips from both teams to put on social media to promote the event.-Once the tournament is over the winning team will be featured from September till the end of the year in the “who’s up next,” or “who’s the next us,” campaign.-We like the idea of this because it does not only promote the adidas Future Classics Cup but also motivates young tennis players. This branding will make our target market, 14-19 year olds want to become tennis stars as did the players from the winning team. They will want to enter the tournament and become champions. Along with thinking adidas products will help them along the way.

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SPON

SORSHIP

The beginning of the sponsorship within the grassroots activation campaign for adidas Tennis, the first thing adidas should sponsor is the play-in tournaments and the adidas Future Classics Cup. The reasoning behind this is due to these events being created by adidas and having exclusive rights to sponsor these events. The next events that adidas should sponsor are the play-days and skills challenges that take place during the promotion tour, which consist of visiting ten different cities in the United States and Europe. During these events, adidas will team up with a local sporting goods store, such as Academy Sports in the United States, to help supply the proper tennis equipment to those who need it as they arrive to our promotional events. Another effective way adidas Tennis could sponsor within the youth tennis community is to sponsor youth teams, such as in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Through the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation and a cost of €184, adidas can sponsor a youth tennis team. Included in this is not only helping the youth in the area get introduced to the game of tennis and supporting them, but adidas is able to have their logo on the shirts and get their brand promoted at a low cost. Another good way for adidas Tennis to sponsor is to sponsor local high tennis programs, particularly ones that are in an area where the temperature year round is fairly high, such as Phoenix, Arizona. In Phoneix, one way to sponsor is by sponsoring the Pinnacle high schools men’s and women’s tennis teams, and outfitting them in the ClimaChill adidas Tennis products, so that each player on the team can perform at a championship level each time on the court. This sponsor ship could be done for €500. Also, the idea of sponsoring a junior tennis academy is a great idea. Adidas already does so by sponsoring The Gate Junior Tennis Academy in the United States. We think adidas should also pursue a sponsorship for the Barcelona Summer Tennis Camp, which takes place throughout the summer with different ranges to participate in the camp. Adidas should do a sponsorship of €1.500, included in this would be branding around the facilities and one of the adidas Tennis shirts for the participants. We like the idea to sponsor multiple men’s and women’s high school tennis teams along with the idea to sponsor multiple junior tennis academeis and camps across both the United States and Europe, as this is a good way to brand the image of adidas Tennis to those preparing to enter the peak of their tennis careers. The total invested in the sponsorship would be €50,000.

Sponsorship-adidas Tennis

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BUDGET AN

ALYSISAs a group, we have been given a starting budget of €1.000.000 for the grassroots activation. We broke up the sections into three parts. Labor costs, marketing costs and facilities & giveaways. To start with the labor costs, this section includes only the additional costs for building up the new tournaments “adidas future classic cup”. That means first aid measures, physical therapists, security, referees, craftsmen and we also put the insurance costs inside. Because of the fact, that there is already an existing base of employees working for adidas to figure out the rest of the duties. We are calculating about €10-15 per hour for each of them and also €500 of insurance costs for each of the tournaments. We are thinking of two referees for the pre-tournaments and three of them for the final one. We will have a need of the same amount of persons for first aid measures and physical therapists. For security and craftsmen we set the price about €1.000 for both of them for each tournament. The remaining work has also to be done by a number of volunteers. Our next section includes the marketing costs. First of all this part consists of the endorsements, that we will prepare for the tournaments. For the four pre-tournaments we will sign some upcoming stars of the region where the tournament will take place. For the final, we want to have Andy Murray and Jack Sock to represent the brand adidas. Furthermore, as a part of the lottery, we want to organize a meet and greet or a private lesson with an adidas professional. In this case, we calculate with an amount of €250.000. According to the second section, we also want to promote the tournaments by using short teasers on social media platforms. For this creation, we want to spend €50.000. Another aspects of the marketing costs are branding, short advertisements and displays inside of the most popular sports and tennis magazines. This proposition will cost us about €150.000. The third section of the budget analysis comprises facilities & giveaways. To start with the facilities, this includes logistics and gas money, the acquirement of two buses for the promotion tour (€67.900 for each), the acquirement of two HD televisions for the tour and the tournaments (€750 for each), twenty Kindle Fire 7´s for the same purpose (€140 for each), four decals on each side of the bus (€400 for 16 decals), four tents for selling apparel and the Kindle Fire area (€680 for each of them) and the rent for the courts will cost €116.345.

18

BUDGET ANALYSIS

Lab

or C

osts

•Insurance € 2.000•Laborers €48.000

Marketi

ng C

osts

•Endorsements €250.000 •Teaser €50.000 •Branding €150.000 •Sponsorship €50.000

Facilitie

s & Give

aways

•Bus €135.800 •HD TV´s € 1.500 •Kindle Fire €2.800 •Tents & Decals € 3.120 •Courts €116.345•Logistics, Gas, Prize Cost €11.100

€ 50.000 € 500.000 € 270.665

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RETURN

ON

INVESTM

ENT

-This aspect is, beside the general grassroots activation by itself, the most important component of that project. “It is all about exposure”, so how can we extract revenue out of it. In this case we have to use the tournaments and promotion tour as a platform for generating pull through revenue. To start with the chance of up selling. People come to the huge tournaments for experiencing the atmosphere of an event, that never has been existing before. Therefore we can also offer the top products of adidas or products, that in some cases are hardly find the way to the consumer. In addition to that we have the opportunity of sports tourism, that ensures a low price elasticity. Moreover this will also be a place of product extension - “anything can be a sports product” -All in all the aim should be to transfer the high commitment of sports identification to the brand adidas.

-First of all we will offer a lottery all over our promotion tour, the pre tournaments and also at the final. We will sell tickets with the chance of winning a meet and greet or a private lection with a chosen Adidas signed tennis star. Other prices will be Adidas tennis apparel or merchandising for the tournaments. We set the price for a ticket by three Euros and at the final by five Euros . Another source of generating money will be the selling of Adidas tennis apparel at every place of the events. For this case the low price elasticity and the up selling should be used. Furthermore there is the opportunity to sell the rights of hospitality or do it even by ourselves. The biggest amount of revenue will be extracted by selling tickets for the tournaments. For the pre tournaments the prices are €10 per game or €50 for the whole tournament. For the final event the prices are €20 per game and € 100 for the whole tournament. For all these return on investment opportunities it is hard to measure the exactly amount of pull through revenue. But this innovational art of tournament in the world of tennis will attract many people, so that we can make full use of extracting money.

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RETURN

ON

INVESTM

ENT

Return on Investment

Hospital-ity

Lottery Apparel Tickets0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Revenue

Datenreihe 3

21

FUTU

RE IDEASGoing into the Future-Going into the future we see the adidas Future Classics Cup being very successful. We believe with a bigger budget and more popularity through the successes of the first adidas Future Classics Cup we will be able to put on more events. This will include more side events at the bus tour, more events at the tournaments, and even open up the tournament to more people. These are some of our ideas:-With expansion of budget we would eventually like to see the adidas Future Classics Cup become the adidas Future Classics World Cup. This would include all other continents along with the USA and Europe.-Knowing that we cant make it a world cup right away and will have to build up from the first tournament we would like to integrate Asia into the cup first. We would integrate them first because of the fast rise of tennis popularity in their area. We would even be open to a USA vs. Asia or Europe vs. Asia cup to start.-Coming off the last idea, this would also include a bus promotion tour in Asia. This would include all the same features as our last tours in the US and Europe and maybe even more with a bigger budget.-We would also like to expand the tournament so much that there would be even more play in tournaments. We like this idea because it gives more people the opportunity to play and more people means more money. Eventually we would like to make it a process where all you have to is sign up to play.-At the play in tournaments we would also like to implement a skills challenge. This might cause us to add another day to the tournament but we believe it will draw more people in. This will give kids opportunities that maybe don’t play the best overall game of tennis but are good in certain areas a chance to shine. Also, a chance to be rewarded by adidas.

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SWOT AN

ALYSISSWOT Analysis

Strengths• Strong European market• Adidas is the best sporting goods brand in Europe• Promotion tour covers best demographic areas in the

United States and Europe• No other tournament like this in tennis

Weakness• Tennis is not as popular as before• United States is not a great market for tennis• The promotion tour is not year round• Hosting only four play-in tournaments before the

adidas Future Classics Cup

Opportunities• Opportunity to reach the market of youth tennis,

ages 14-19• Opportunity to reach new markets in the United

States and Europe• With tournaments being right before professional

events, there is an opportunity to bring in a portion of professional crowd to amateur events

Threats• A failure to meet the expectations of the grassroots

events• A failure to not meet expected attendees of the

promotion tour events• The possibility of not expanding adidas Tennis brand

with enough sponsorship

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CON

CLUSIO

NConclusion

For this report as you can see from the previous pages, we were asked to develop a true grassroots activation calendar with a clear roll out in every market. The idea was to set the brand of adidas tennis above and beyond the competitors. While also getting a return on investment. As a group we felt we had to be creative and think of something that has not been done in tennis. Since we were told that the event had to be for 14-19 year olds we decided to come up with a juniors tournament. Though, this does not seem unique at first glance it very much is because the tournament is The United States vs. Europe. As shown earlier, the participants would essentially send in a resume of why they should be picked to play in the qualifying tournaments. While this was going at the beginning of the year there will also be a teaser video coming out in January. This obviously will not show the athletes, it will just convey a short message that there is a juniors tournament coming up between USA and Europe. This is the exact time our promotion tour in both continents starts to roll out. These buses will be equipped with HD televisions promoting the adidas tennis brand. Also there will be two tents by the buses with one selling apparel and the other with Kindle Fires. The Kindle Fires will also be used to promote the adidas brand. All they have to do is login with an email to use, that way we can database market. In January and February the buses will travel to the various destinations we have talked about earlier in the report. For March the bus in America will be at the qualifying tournaments in California and Florida. The bus in Europe will carry on its own tour. During April the European bus will be at the qualifying matches in Spain and Germany. During that time the bus in America will carry on its own tour. During May, June, July, and August the buses will continue their promotional tours to the various cities listed earlier. All of these cities have been chosen because of its appreciation for tennis and/or the city being a middle class location. Also, during this time the players that will be competing in the adidas Future Classics Cup will be invited to make a promotional video. Adidas, will then use clips from the video to promote the tournament coming up in August on social media. Once August comes around the American bus will be located at the adidas Future Classics Cup. After the tournament is completed the winning team will be awarded not only with trophies but their promotion video being used September through the end of the year. The promotion video will entail the idea of “who’s up next,” or “who’s the next us?” The goal is for kids ages 14-19 will see this type of branding and think I want to be the next champion. This will motivate them to play tennis, play in the upcoming tournament, and also motivate them to use the adidas brand to accomplish their tennis dreams.

24

WO

RKS CITEDWorks Cited2013, Jim-Studie. Jugend, Information, (Multi-) Media (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 16 June 2014.

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