Publicity

Carlsbad, Calif. – Looking a bit like Darth Vader against the traditional wood-grain tones of classic golf pro shop displays, a new tower from adidas Golf rolls out to stores Sept. 1. The tower is part of a P-O-P program supporting the arrival of Tour 360, the company's latest golf shoe offering.

Will shoppers find this space-age design jarring? According to Brad Holder, visual marketing manager, adidas Golf, that's almost the whole point.

"We want someone to look at this display and just be overpowered by the [message of] performance and technology," says Holder. "We wanted a very sharp, modern, progressive look, and that's really where the color palette, the tones of black and silver, comes from."

Holder says that adidas counts on the "performance story" to sell Tour 360 as "part of a golfer's equipment," justifying the shoe's $180 price tag. The marketing campaign targets serious golfers looking to improve their game."You find professionals spending more time in the fitness truck working out, rather than at the 19th hole having a beverage," says Holder.

The performance angle of the Tour 360 display is indicative of a shift in adidas' marketing in general, Holder says, and retailers can expect to see a lot more of this tech-savvy color palette arriving in-store through 2006.

The tower is the showpiece in a worldwide display program that includes four P-O-P elements, allowing adidas' sales teams to tailor the Tour 360 launch to the needs of each retailer.

The display program also marks the first collaboration between adidas Golf and P-O-P supplier The Carlson Group, Portland, Ore. The company produced 500 of the tower displays, which are mainly geared toward the larger, off-course specialty stores that are popular in the United States. Placing towers in smaller, on-course pro shops, as well as in international stores where space is at more of a premium, presents more of a challenge, hence the variety of P-O-P options.

The vacuum-formed tower holds three shoes, one each of three colorways that adidas will release with the initial launch. All shoes balance on pegs rather than resting on flat shelves, a feature Holder hopes will achieve a "floating" look and encourage customers to pick up the shoe. The brand's signature three-stripe emblem is echoed at the top of the display and in three silver dowel rods that support the structure from its plastic base.

Because educating customers about the shoe's new technology was key in promoting the product, Holder's team took special care to emphasize all of the shoe's unusual features. The hero shoe receives 3-D treatment in a recessed sphere adorned with informational diagrams. A mirror placed below the shoe reflects the features on the outsole back at the customer and adds more sheen and movement. Hang tags further explain the technology, and adidas counts on well-educated store staff to fill in any gaps.

The "workhorse piece" of the display system, Holder says, is a set of three shoe shelves that can be placed on a wall or set on a tabletop. He says he hopes the size and mobility of the shelves will, in addition to accommodating stores of all sizes, encourage retailers to place the shoes in apparel areas of the store for cross-merchandising. Production of the shelves is slated at 1,000 sets, and adidas plans to send sets to every store that books the product, no matter what the order sizes. Stores can qualify for additional displays by placing larger orders of product.

The other elements of the program are a wall display — essentially the top part of the tower detached for mounting on slatwall — and a hanging banner that can be placed in a window display or hung inside the store. Vacuum-formed components are light and easy to ship, and the assembly required on the larger displays is minimal.

"Creating a larger suite of elements is kind of a challenge, because you have to manage the buy, and figure out what the right balance of quantities are," Holder says, "but we have to have some flexibilities so that our sales reps always have a Plan B, and they can fit the right P-O-S items to the right store."

Because the display rolls out at the end of the 2005 season, well in advance of the major golf buying season in early 2006, the units are easily updateable and are expected to last through next year. Graphic elements are Velcro-attached, and can be replaced with images of adidas-sponsored pro golfers wearing Tour 360s on the course.

"We certainly assume that one of our athletes, whether it's Sergio Garcia or Retief Goosen or someone else, is going to be winning a tournament throughout the rest of this year," says Holder, who is enthusiastic about pro athlete endorsements. "And when they do, they'll be winning it wearing this shoe."

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