Reebok Case

● In 1981, Reebok entered the women’s footwear segment by introducing the Freestyle aerobic athletic shoe. This was the first athletic shoe designed and marketed specifically for women and that was an important under-served niche segment and from all of it’s campaign it’s in our opinion it’s best. It Identified the target market of aerobics as a sport of preference for women; a well designed athletic footwear for street and causal wear. This allowed Reebok to gain an advantage over their competitors, such as Nike and Adidas for several years and in our opinion was their best strategy. It segmented Reebok as the preferred brand; assured Reebok’s growth that went from $13 million in 1983 to over $3 billion by 1992 and helped establish Reebok as a fitness brand in the US and Europe.

● In 1991, Reebok’s management, initially, set out to broaden the brand image, big mistake

in order to compete with Nike. They needed to penetrate the men’s performance sports apparel.

Needed to? Why? Why not just own the female market. Or buy Adidas and make it your macho male brand with Shaq etc.

Nike had a dominant presence with the active male sports population while Reebok’s was the active women athletic footwear.

They sought endorsements of male athletes and sports team, they launched their own SHAQ Campaign with the up and coming basketball player, Shaquille O’Neal. This was a strategic move aimed at targeting males, ages 12 to 34, the survey was much more positive for those male between 12-18 within this bracket group who idolized the rookie basketball player.

The series was also a success because it didn’t alienate the women market.

But it also did not spend the money spent on Shaq on the female footwear market. It took its eye off its premier segment that had built the company.

In 1993, Reebok survey revealed that the SHAQ campaign had a positive reaction with young males between ages 12-34 due to the up and rising charismatic basketball player; and many remember Shaquille O’Neal as the spokesmen in the SHAQ series without any aid.

A tactical success, a strategic disaster

● In 1992 there were three market segmentation: (1) Sports target more for active men users (2) Fitness: for the active women users (3) Casual which had the biggest opportunity for future growth. The advertising campaign changed nine times from 1988-1992 which brings confusion about what the brand stands for and can often fail to capture the attention of it’s target audience. In contrast Nike had contracted Michael Jordan, and maintained it’s “ Just do it.” with slight