Adidas "is to increase its marketing and point-of-sale investments over the next 18 months" and has introduced new organizational structures for its global brands and sales divisions, under recently appointed exec board members Eric Liedtke and Roland Auschel, according to Kim Benjamin of MARKETING MAGAZINE. Adidas said that the new global brand structure, which came in to effect Friday, "would drive faster decision-making and more effective consumer-focused strategies and execution in the marketplace" (MARKETING MAGAZINE, 8/1). MARKETING WEEK reported adidas plans to push its marketing spend beyond the €2B ($2.7B) barrier "for the first time in several years to accelerate demand in Europe and Northern America." At the forefront of the plan "is a move toward having one brand marketing team in each category and away from its previous global team managing all sports categories structure." General managers "will now oversee all marketing for each sport, spanning research and innovation all the way through to advertising and sports marketing." The multi-skilled marketers "will sit within the newly developed brand marketing units for each category." Marketing spend over the next 18 months "will increase" beyond the 12-13% of sales the business normally allocates to fuel the changes. Group revenues are expected to hit around €16B ($21B) this year, which will push its marketing outlay past €2B. The company said that "its recently announced shirt sponsorship deals with Manchester United and Juventus football clubs signalled its first steps to increasing marketing spend" (MARKETING WEEK, 7/31).
