When people think about what sorts of degrees are needed to enter into any business industry they more often than not think of the obvious options: business degrees. While this remains true there are various other ways that individuals interested in working in business can go about doing so. Most recently, social scientists, particularly anthropologists, have been in high demand, outpacing the demand for individuals with traditional business degrees. Various businesses, such as Intel, Microsoft, and Google, are hiring anthropologists to help them better analyze and understand consumer data. This is because anthropologists bring a skill set that teases out more specific and detailed information that large, traditional methods and data sets cannot pick out, making anthropologists and other related social scientists valuable and in demand resources. Today’s blog post will focus on one such profitable partnership between anthropologists and the athletic business giant Adidas.
Founded in 1949 Adidas has and continues to remain a competitive company in the creation and marketing of athletic and sporting goods and attire. From the company’s founding they drew inspiration from various well-known athletes, many of whom received sponsorship and endorsements from the company to help market their products. Adidas’s design and marketing teams were driven by the idea that competition and athletic prowess drew consumers to their products, and until the early 2000s this idea dominated their mission. This all changed, though, when VP James Carnes observed everyday people wearing athletic attire outside of the gym. They were wearing athletic attire while at the coffee shop, while jogging, on their way to yoga class, and more. Carnes was perplexed by this because he expected his brand to be on athletes, not nonathletic individuals, leading him to investigate this matter further.
Carnes’s curiosity led to Adidas hiring ReD Associates, a Copenhagen-based consultancy that employs a range of individuals not with business degrees but social science and humanities degrees to dig deeper into consumer patterns and trends. ReD’s anthropological team trained the Adidas designers in anthropological methods, particularly cultural anthropological methods such as participant observation and interview methods. The ReD anthropological team also reached out directly to consumers and asked them to take pictures of what motivated them to work out and wear athletic wear. The ReD anthropological team realized a consistent theme among the surveyed participants photos: they wanted to look sexy based on sociocultural beauty standards. From an American perspective this promotes a body image of a thin, athletic physique. Ultimately, this led the ReD anthropologists to conclude that consumers did not want to perform athletically for the purposes of having a competitive edge that enabled them to win; they worked out to maintain a healthy lifestyle and meet the demands of the American beauty norms.
Executives at Adidas realized that they had misjudged a large consumer base, which they were underserving. They concluded that they did not just have to market to athletes. They could and should market to the everyday person who wanted to work out to be healthy and beautiful, thereby necessitating a different type of athletic wear and gear. Adidas stepped up and created their athleisure wear line to meet this consumer demand, making huge profits in the process.
The relationship between Adidas and ReD Associates did not stop there, though. About a decade later they worked together again, this time to determine how best to create athletic shoes for soccer players. ReD’s anthropological team interviewed German soccer players to figure out what they needed out of a shoe, realizing a shoe that enhanced performance, particularly speed, was needed. Soccer shoes were not necessarily built to support that. The players required a running shoe that was built to assist them in maintaining performance levels to enhance their speed, but these types of shoes are not conducive to the rigorous footwork required of soccer playing. Adidas took this information and designed a running shoe that could be used on the soccer field, which they debuted in 2010. The soccer teams that adopted these new hybrid shoes were pleased and impressed, crediting them with giving them the competitive advantage that secured them various wins. The biggest win was scoring the most goals at the World Cup that happened that year (which to readers unfamiliar with the World Cup is the paramount international competition that any soccer player or team can participate in, demonstrating the positive impression players had on these shoes).
Ultimately, Adidas’s success has inspired companies across various industries to rethink their approaches to creating and marketing their products. They could no longer rely on their preconceived notions of what the customer wanted and needed; they needed to learn what the customer wanted and needed by better understanding the sociocultural and biocultural environments they exist in, be it for work, pleasure, health, etc. They began to rethink and revolutionize their previous market survey approaches, which were faulty because they relied on closed-ended questions that limited the scope of information that could be collected from consumers. They also ran on the assumption that consumers were always truthful in their responses, which is unrealistic, particularly when consumers are surveyed about topics that they feel can and will present them in a negative way if they were completely truthful. Anthropological methods could bypass these issues by enabling companies to really understand their consumers’ needs and wants, thereby creating and marketing products that they actually want and will use. This leads to happier and satisfied customers and greater profit margins for the companies.
Works Cited
Baer, D. (2014, March 27). Here's Why Companies Are Desperate To Hire Anthropologists . Business Insider.
Jess the Avocado. (2022, January 25). How Anthropology and Adidas Design Shoes Together. Medium.
6 comments:
As a former athlete myself, I have found that athletic wear, like mentioned in the article, has more uses other than for sport. They serve as a very comfortable replacement for traditional clothing and seem to be more adapted for day-to-day life other than athletics, showing that companies, like Adidas, have listened to their consumers, allowing them to change and adapt to their needs.
As a new learner of anthropology, I definelty didn't know big time businesses were hiring anthropologists to better explain and make others understand information better. I've learned that anthropologists are great speakers and spread information well. The anthropologists helped Adidas by getting outsiders point of views to know want they actually wanted from the company and made sure Addas knew their clothes and shoes could be for performance and a lifestyle in general.
Using an anthropologist to analyze customers to be able to produce products is an incredibly intelligent way to increase inclusion and profit. It is very surprising to me that in our very diverse world that Adidas only shifted their view away from solely athletes in the early 2000s. I would have guessed that this shift would have happened early in time. The anthropologists created a movement that many business should mimic and support.
Adidas serves as a great example of ways integrating anthropological expertise can gain a business. The company’s initial awareness on athletes and competition has developed due to observations made by vice president James Carnes, who noticed that their athletic wear turned into being adopted by a much wider audience for normal use
-Ahmesha Johnson
ReD Associates' anthropologists are used to study consumer trends and preferences, which highlights the value of multidisciplinary methods in corporate planning. Through an exploration of societal standards of beauty, the group gave Adidas important information that more conventional approaches to market research would miss. The emphasis placed on comprehending customer requirements and wants rather than just focusing on competitive advantage shows how product development and marketing are beginning to take a more customer-centric approach. Adidas was able to successfully adjust their products to match customer expectations because of this tactic.
To me, this blog post is very interesting, especially the emphasis on the use of anthropology in business. Many people tend to think that a business-related degree is necessary to enter the business industry, but it turns out that experts in other fields actually play an important role as well. The story of how Adidas hired an anthropologist to better understand consumer behavior and successfully develop products based on consumer aesthetics and lifestyle is very interesting. I could see how such an approach could have a significant impact on a company's success.
I am also impressed by the process by which Adidas realized that it had misunderstood consumer needs and conducted research to correct this misunderstanding. I feel that the introduction of an “athleisure” line that not only creates products for athletes, but also caters to consumers who value exercise and health on a daily basis, is a smart strategy that flexibly responds to the changing times.
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