Hello, learners. I'm happy to be here at ADIDAS Korea with the Vice President, HyeongKeun Kang, Senior Manager, Hoyoung Lee, and Senior Manager, Ginny Lee. We will be conducting this inverview in Korean, but we will offer subtitles. So there shouldn't be any problems. So, let's get started. -Hello, everyone. -Hello, professor. Thank you so much for the interview. ADIDAS is one of my favorite brands, and I heard ADIDAS is now pursuing more innovative marketing. Can you first talk about the vision that the company has? I believe you know already know that ADIDAS is playing an important role as a global sports brand. We have a clear vision, which is to make the world a better and brighter place through sports. In addition to that we want to improve our lives with sports. Together these goals form the groundrules that guide all of our activities here. So your vision strongly suggests that it's not just a sports brand but also a lifestyle brand? That's right. Sports itself has already occupies a large part of our lives, and because it is closely related to our life, we think it is meaningless to separate sports with one's style of life. Very good. This course is about Sports And Entertainment Marketing. How different do you think sports marketing is, as compared to that of other industries? To talk about sports marketing, if you look at the essence its contents, there's an outstanding athlete, and there's also a popular team or an organization. Furthermore, there are various aspects related to consumers of sports. Sports marketing is defined as activities that inspire consumers, giving them dreams and the motivation to consume via these various assets as mentioned before, and from the perspective of consumers, the boundary between sports and entertainment is becoming blurred. So what you are saying is that the two industries overlap significantly, and can it be because content is so important in both sports and entertainment? Yes, if you look at our brand architecture, or portfolio, we have the Performance logo which is about the Badge of Sports, and it deals with sporting performance, but we also have the Originals brand, which is more about fashion. The first one is for consumers who love and enjoy sports, whereas the second one is for people who love Street Fashion. We make brands and perform marketing for those two groups and so for consumers belong in both markets, there's no difference. In reality, there are people who play soccer and basketball, and they also enjoy hip-hop, watch performances, participate in entertainment show programs. Since consumers are living their daily lives crossing over between sports and entertainment, putting them into different categories is now becoming meaningless. This is true not only for consumers but also for the athletes. Ok. You talked about the brand. Can you tell us what is the philosophical background for the of ADIDAS brand? Basically, we started with sports. Since we originally started there, the very basic philosophy we have is to do our best for the better performance of athletes. We try to provide the best products and service, and also innovative products, so that we can enhance the performance of the athletes. When I say athletes, it doesn't mean just the top athletes but rather who we call "Creators." This refers to consumers who try to improve their daily lives in a more creative way. We are a brand that takes their performance to the next level. For that, we have to examine their needs, wants, and expectations in a thorough manner, connecting them to other opportunities for commercialization, so that we can help them in that regard. This cycle is our philosophy and our activation method. But what about other brands like NIKE? Aren't they also doing the same thing? What kind of point of difference does ADIDAS have? We can say it's consistency. Like I said before, we perform marketing for style and entertainment, but as you know our brand has about 90 years of history, and we still maintain our traditional sports. such as football (soccer), track, or basketball. While keeping these sports is important, we also constantly add new sports that the younger generation can enjoy, such as extreme sports. Our brand is rooted in sports from the start to end, so we mainly devote ourselves there, but we also try to come up with new ideas at the same time. This concept has not changed and will not change in the future. For instance, if you see General Electronics or other consumer brands, they change their business model constantly with the times. However, we do not lose our consistency with our business model, since at the core we are pursuing positive outcomes for our users. Consumers might see superficial changes, but the essence of our brand about sports and consumers, has not changed for more than 90 years. So we might call this a kind of DNA that you have here. Yes, that's right. Very Good.
