Tripling Brand Membership Members from +150M to +500M by 2025

Key Takeaways

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Adidas has adopted a mobile-first strategy, with mobile apps playing a central role in brand advocacy. Adidas aims to triple its memberships from +150M members to +500M members by 2025. Adidas promotes app downloads through their "Creators Club" membership. The membership provides loyal customers which exclusive product launches and offers, early access to product releases and invitations to special events. 

Loyalty Program —  Driving Brand Advocacy: Adidas member perks are relatively inexpensive to offer (i.e., early access) but are meaningful to their most loyal customers (getting access to products before everyone else).  The Creators Club points program improves brand advocacy through community building and engagement instead of solely boosting immediate sales.

Loyalty Program —  Contextual Marketing: Adidas offers members 50 points for setting up their Creators Club profile. With this unique "Creator ID", Adidas can identify users in their buyer's journey at every touchpoint. 

Loyalty Program — Promoting Sign-Ups: 

• Website Features: Adidas promotes its memberships through a pop-up, universal benefits bar, and footer. Adidas offers incentives with a 15% discount code for new members and free shipping for creator members. The Adidas homepage uses powerful headlines and CTA buttons with contrasting colours to grab the user's attention. In addition, Adidas promotes Creators Club early access products on their website with an "Early Access" scrolling banner and a CTA to "Sign Up."
• Social Ads: Adidas utilized Instagram ads to drive sign-ups and app downloads from May 2020 to August 2021. 
• Events: In August 2021, Adidas had a +67% MoM increase in app downloads resulting from “Yeezy Day 2021” and “Members Week”. Adidas utilized Yeezy Day to drive app downloads by making products exclusive to the app. Members Week was a digital festival exclusively for Creators Club members, which featured athletes, artists, product drops, experiences and rewards.

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Adidas has adopted a mobile-first strategy, with mobile apps playing a central role in brand advocacy. In addition to their main app, Adidas offers a running, training and curated collection app (US). 

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In January 2021, Adidas reported that their commercial and sport apps lifted their brand equity to a point they hadn’t experienced in “60 years”.  As part of their growth strategy, the brand aims to triple the number of members in its membership program from the current level of more than 150 million to around 500 million by 2025*.  *Click for More

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From January 2021 to August 2021, Adidas has experienced a +94% increase in their monthly Adidas app downloads in the US (Google Play & Apple Store).

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Focal in their omnichannel approach, Adidas promotes app downloads through their “Creators Club” membership.

“The 'Creators Club' membership is an exclusive and personalized connection to the best of sport and style, linking all adidas apps, events, communities and channels within one single consumer profile.” -Joseph Godsey, Head of Digital Brand Commerce at Adidas. 

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Creators Club: Member Perks

The membership provides loyal customers with exclusive product launches and offers, early access to product releases and invitations to special events. The rewards are inexpensive for Adidas to offer (ie. early access), but are meaningful to their most loyal customers.

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Creators Club: Earning Points

The Creators Club is unlike other loyalty programs, in that members earn points for completing challenges and buying products. Instead of focusing solely on boosting immediate sales, the program is designed to improve brand advocacy through community building and engagement.

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Creators Club: Incremental Rewards

As users earn more points they are able to unlock more rewards. Research shows that consumers prefer small repeated gains and incremental rewards over big infrequent ones (Source).

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Creator ID: Contextual Marketing

After signing up members are rewarded with 50 points for setting up their profile by answering a series of personal questions. Each users is given a unique “Creator ID” which enables Adidas to identify users at every touchpoint. With this data, Adidas is able to give customers personalized shopping experiences and conduct market research. 

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The Creator Club landing page and rewards page has experienced a +148% increase in web traffic from January 2021 to August 2021. The membership page generates an average of 58K monthly visits in the US.

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Promoting Sign-Ups: Discount Code

On the Adidas homepage, new visitors are encouraged to sign-up for the Creators Club with a pop-up featuring a 15% off incentive to join. 

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Promoting Sign-Ups: Benefits Bar, Footer and Free Shipping

Adidas uses a universal benefits bar and website footer to drive membership sign-ups. The benefits bar incentivizes people to join with free shipping for creator members. 

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Promoting Sign-Ups: CTAs

Adidas utilizes strong CTA buttons and headlines encouraging users to sign-up for the Creators Club. The CTAs utilize value propositions such as “Join For Free”, “Experience It All”, and “Unlock Access”. CTAs buttons use contrasting colours to grab the user’s attention.  

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Promoting Sign-Ups: Early Product Access

Adidas drives sign-ups by showcasing their Creators Club early access products on their website. These exclusive products feature an “Early Access” scrolling banner and a CTA button to “Sign Up for Free”. 

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Promoting Sign-Ups: Instagram Ads

Adidas ran the following two paid ads on Instagram to drive Creators Club sign-ups and app downloads.

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In August 2021, Adidas had a +67% MoM increase in app downloads (US).  This growth was the result of Yeezy Day 2021 and Members Week. 

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August 2nd 2021 was “Yeezy Day 2021” which involved releases and restocks of the popular sneakers. Adidas drove app downloads by making the products exclusive to the Adidas app. Adidas generated +112K app downloads from June 27 - August 3, 2021.