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Reebok to refocus on sports(Boston Globe, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 22--CANTON -- Adidas Group chief executive Herbert Hainer yesterday said the German sportswear firm will position Reebok International more strongly as an athletic performance brand, reining in the sneaker company's reliance on hip-hop stars and rap moguls to woo consumers. "I do believe they went a little bit too far on the music side," Hainer said in an interview yesterday at Reebok's headquarters. "They have a lot of extremely good performance products, and this we'll definitely communicate much stronger in the future." Adidas, which bought Reebok for $3.8 billion earlier this year, is looking to rival powerhouse Nike, the world's top athletic sneaker business with nearly 40 percent of the global market. In recent years, Reebok's image as a lifestyle brand overshadowed its reputation for designing shoes for serious athletes, even as the company built an impressive roster of endorsers, including basketball star Allen Iverson. But Adidas, which wants to enlarge its US presence, recently cut short a 10-year licensing agreement that Reebok signed with the National Basketball Association in 2001. Instead, Adidas will be the official uniform and apparel provider for the NBA, the Women's National Basketball Association, and the NBA Development League, beginning with the 2006-2007 season. "It allows us to focus on the NFL and the NHL and our existing relationship with Major League Baseball," Reebok chief executive Paul Harrington said of the NBA deal during an interview yesterday. "It drives the business better and it's more profitable for the brand and the leagues." In an earlier interview, Harrington acknowledged that Reebok needs to more clearly focus on its initiatives and that "the company had been trying to do many things." Some of Reebok's most recent forays into the music scene include partnering last November with Comcast Corp. to produce programs for its new on-demand hip-hop channel, featuring exclusive interviews with rap artists Jay-Z and 50 Cent. Reebok agreed to create an hour's worth of content every month for the cable service known as DoD, or Def on Demand, the first of its kind that targets the hip-hop and urban markets. But Reebok's focus on the music scene as a way to promote itself as a lifestyle brand hasn't been that successful, said John Horan, publisher of Sporting Goods Intelligence, a Pennsylvania industry newsletter, making the performance piece of its business even more important. "The performance business is a much steadier foundation to build your brand on than the fashion business," Horan said. "You can always get hot, but you can get cold too." Puma has managed to "stay hot for the longest" Horan said, but even that sneaker company is trying to build its performance base. When Adidas first talked about taking over Reebok last summer, it said the transaction would allow the companies to better compete for customers, endorsements, and licensing deals. The combined group has licensing relationships with five sporting leagues and global events, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics. |