Today’s guest is a Marketing Bestie and by far one of the best (if not THE BEST) brand marketers I’ve ever met.
Ever wonder how a brand goes from “tough spot” to iconic? Meet Eric Liedtke, the brand strategist who took Adidas from struggling to soaring.
With a 26-year tenure that saw game-changing collaborations with Kanye West and Beyoncé, Eric knows a thing or two about turning around a brand’s reputation. Now, as the EVP of Brand Strategy at Under Armour—and co-founder of the sustainable fashion startup Unless Collective—he’s bringing his proven playbook to a whole new challenge.
🎙️ ICYMI, we broke down Eric’s journey in one of our latest podcast episode. Here’s a quick look at his brand-reviving strategy:
1️⃣. Analyze the operating model
So, what was Eric’s first order of business when he stepped in as Brand President? Hint: It wasn’t about creating bold new products or rebranding.
It was a restructuring.
Adidas has thousands of employees across roles like product, product design, product marketing, brand marketing, sports marketing, and distribution or what Eric calls his “buckets of commercial success”). But, during that rough patch, these teams were siloed, each working within their own “function,” rather than owning a specific product line or customer group.
This siloed approach led to inefficiencies and a lack of accountability. No single team was empowered to win a specific type of customer, and the end result was a disconnect between teams and Adidas customers.
So, Eric flipped the operating model on its head and restructured Adidas to be sports-focused rather than function-focused.
This new structure was a game-changer.
Rather than marketers juggling 3 different sports, they’d now be dedicated to WINNINGa single sport with their own team, KPIs, and goals. As Eric put it, this held people accountable.
“When individuals can run and own those…buckets of commercial success if you will, then they can be held accountable.”
With that accountability in place, also came speed. With general managers at the helm of each sport category, decisions didn’t have to escalate all the way to the C-suite. Teams could quickly make moves and stay close to their audience.
On top of that, by having teams focus on 1 single sport, Eric gave them a sense of ownership and pride in their work. Teams weren’t just supporting Adidas’s overall mission—they were also creating a deeper connection with the communities and athletes they were most passionate about.
But, that was only the beginning.
2️⃣. Choose your fighters
AKA, figure out which are your hero products, and which are your maintenance products.
At this point in the story, Eric has an operating model laser-focused on individual sports. What now?
Level up your marketing game
Zero BS. Just fun, unfiltered, industry insights with the game-changers behind some of the coolest companies from around the globe.
No spam. Unsubscribe any time.
Eric now needed to set a clear plan to move Adidas forward. He calls it his strategic business plan (SBP for you acronym heads). The SBP covered each sport over a three-year to five-year outlook to determine what their place would be in the greater brand picture.
Of course, getting all this info together was no cake walk.
It required analyzing international markets, evaluating retail channels, understanding your pricing segmentation, etc, etc.
Eric had to take all that data, hash it out with his team, and then turn it into something that everyone in the business could look at and use.
Ultimately, the SBP had to show:
-Which sport is poised to grow?
-Which sport needs to be maintained?
-Which sport needs to be scaled back?
The answers told Eric what type (and amount) of resources to put behind each sport to set the business up for success.
The playbook was set. But, how would the locker room approach it?
3️⃣. Culture, culture, culture.
The success of any of these previous steps depends on culture.
“Culture is a funny thing. A lot of people don’t understand the value of it, but culture is like how you behave… It’s very undervalued when you come to evaluating a company.”
If a culture is toxic and rigid, then it doesn’t matter how good your structure or SBP is. A plan sent from the heavens will still crumble upon itself if the people carrying it out feel complacent or unheard. When employees feel unsupported, their passion and creativity die and, unless corrected, the brand eventually follows.
Eric understood this deeply and set the tone for Adidas’s culture by prioritizing open communication and encouraging healthy debate.
He believed that fostering an environment where ideas could flow freely and everyone felt heard was essential to unlocking the full potential of his teams. For example, when writing the SBP, Eric talked about the “rich debates” he had with his team. Every assumption was challenged and the plan was stronger for it. But, the presence of those debates wasn’t just for the strategy, they were for the team to know their voice was being heard.
Dialogues like that build trust, and with trust comes a positive culture.
