adidas announced the global launch of its young, fresh and accessible collection Style Essentials. The new sport-inspired footwear collection focuses on young style-adopting consumers that shop at volume channels. It debuted in the U.S. and China in July 2008 and now expands to most European countries and Japan. The global Style Essentials Web site www.adidas.com/styleessentials launched January 29.
Style Essentials is part of adidas' updated retail distribution and marketing strategy to reach consumers across multiple categories in a targeted way, while growing market share. The collection places a specialized focus on meeting the needs of the volume channel shopper.
"adidas developed the collection to offer something entirely different for consumers," said Michael Birke, vice president of Style Essentials. "By constantly introducing new styles, this collection will be fresh and young, bringing trends quickly to consumers to fit their every mood. This consumer always has been important for adidas, but this is the first time we are singling them out to truly address their specific needs and wants, developing products that fit their lifestyle in a way only adidas can.
"Unlike any other label on the market, this collection will draw from the entire breadth of the adidas product offering from performance product to Originals and even Y-3. This allows us to increase adidas' brand equity by extending it to consumers in a new way with styles that range from vintage-inspired to sporty chic," said Birke.
Style Essentials becomes the latest collection with in adidas' Sport Style division joining Originals, Y-3 and SILVR. Originals is adidas' original lifestyle brand that celebrates originality; Y-3 is the sport-inspired high-fashion label; and SILVR is adidas' pure fashion label for the modern individual. Style Essentials takes inspiration from all the adidas brands along with today's mainstream trends and combines them into an accessible label for fashion-forward youth.
Famous Footwear is the lead retail partner in the U.S.; Decathlon will lead the way in France; Deichmann in Germany; Sports Direct in the UK; and Xebio in Japan. China currently has 540 dedicated Style Essentials stores and plans to have 850 by the end of 2009.