Tag Archives: Adidas

CloudTec for ON Running shoes: Intuitive naming helps sell innovation

In the crowded world of running shoes, big names like Nike and Adidas are everywhere. But even with these giants, ON Running is making a mark.

It started in 2010 in Switzerland. One of the three founders, Olivier Bernhard, wanted a new kind of running shoe. He tried something different by attaching pieces of garden hose to shoe soles. This simple idea led to CloudTec, making runners feel like they are running on clouds.

One possible reason why ON Running is successful is its smart naming of this technology. The word “Cloud” signals softness, while “Tec” adds a sense of innovation. Without knowing the details of the technology, consumers can easily grasp that these shoes provide a unique running experience: soft landings followed by explosive take-offs.

Consumers often rely on technology features that are intuitively understandable. One of my favorite examples is Quattro, Audi’s all-wheel-drive system. Even for those unfamiliar with car mechanics, the name “Quattro” suggests something powerful, stable, and reliable.

A well-branded feature name gives consumers a reason to believe in the technology, even without technical knowledge.

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Reference

Gunasti, K., & Ross Jr, W. T. (2010). How and when alphanumeric brand names affect consumer preferencesJournal of Marketing Research47(6), 1177-1192.

This research develops a taxonomy of alphanumeric brand names (ABs) based on the alignment between the brand names and their links to products and attributes. Five empirical studies reveal that ABs have systematic effects on consumers’ product choices, moderated by consumers’ need for cognition, the availability of product attribute information, and the taxonomic category of the AB. In an identical choice set, the choice share of a product option whose brand name takes a higher versus lower numeric portion (e.g., X-200 versus X-100) increases, and it is preferred more even when it is objectively inferior to other choice alternatives. Consumers with low need for cognition use “the higher, the better” heuristic to select options labeled with ABs and choose brands with higher numeric portions. Consumers with high need for cognition process ABs more systematically and make inferences about attribute values based on brand name–attribute correlations. The effects of ABs on consumer preferences are prevalent for most technical products, even when consumers do not know the product category or meanings of attributes.

In the age of customer experience, marketing needs to be persistent and participatory

I was invited by Contents Marketing Summit 2022 to help two professionals share their insights about marketing trends and activities in the age of customer experience. The two professionals are Hyewon Oh, Director of Brand Communication at HE Division, LG Electronics and Ginny Lee, Head of Sports Marketing and Key City Brand Activation at Adidas. They both have 20+ year work experience in the marketing field.

Customer eXperience (CX) matters significantly in Korea because product-based differentiation is challenging more than ever and people strive to experience something new. The invited two professionals introduced several interesting projects and provided participants with fresh insights.

First, LG Electronics is now running a pop-up store called “Geumseong (Goldstar) Recreational Room.” People could play video games with the high-end OLED TVs, having gaming experience. It is also collaborating with world-class artists such as Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor at the Freeze Art Fair in London and LA, Saatchi Gallery, and Venice Biennale at the same time. While introducing these activities, Director Oh highlighted that only persistent activities work out.

Second, Adidas Korea is running various activities to directly participating in numerous customers, from city tours with Son Heung-min to CSR running events all over the city. Marketer Oh emphasized that in order to engage customers, activities should be designed to give chances for customers to participate in special experience.

They both concluded that commercial impact of marketing activities in the CX era is difficult to be measured in a short run. CX marketers need to be persistent and participatory.