internship report on marketing strategy of sport brand adidas in vietnam at phoenix trading investment jsc the official distributor of adidas vietnam

ABSTRACT This report is the result of 4 months working and research in Phoenix Trading Investment Joint Stock Company- the official distributor of adidas Vietnam to know how one of the b

Submitted by: Hoang Ngoc Lan, Class: AMI 9A

Under the guidance of Academic Supervisor Dr LE THANH BINH

and

Company Supervisor Mr PHAM NGOC KHANH

Hanoi, September 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Summer 2017, once checking my email I got such interesting information from Thang Long University that a Master Program which is the handshake between Université Nice Sophia Altipolis and Thang Long will be opened for entrance exam on September

So far my journey of knowledge to be a master begins After 2 years from the first day I met my supervisor- Dr Le Thanh Binh, she also the first teacher that interview me for the entrance, I think it is a predestined pleasure for me My sincere thanks for her patient and devoted instruction that makes a nearly completed master – me this fall, once again I am really appreciate her enthusiasm for me

Beside it, I would like to thank my supervisor in Phoenix Company where I research to make internship He gave me a lot of information and generously shared his experience of working in this company

Finally, I would like to thank the AMI course, my classmates, teachers that gave me knowledge for making this report

ABSTRACT

This report is the result of 4 months working and research in Phoenix Trading Investment Joint Stock Company- the official distributor of adidas Vietnam to know how one of the biggest name of international sport brand – adidas can conquer Vietnamese people

As my internship position in the company - Marketing Executive, I have chance to use my knowledge from the course to apply for my job In my point of view, the structure would have some parts need to be improved so that my report is the picture with structure, numbers, analysis which leads to instructions, some new ideas or a different way in marketing that helps adidas could be the most popular and successful in Vietnam

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the socialization is a globally phenomenon which effects on many aspects of lifestyle and create a number of trends that change mindset of people incredibly such as: gender equality, health care, beauty, no discrimination,…People tend to blur the boundaries, respect and open with expressing themselves freely and civilized that especially show on their appearance

They blur the boundary of gender and priority when a woman can wear tank top and shorts for doing some sports, a man can have a suit in baby blue or pink They respect themselves and care much about health when they choose comfortable or stretchy clothes instead of formal outfits that can be with them from the office to the street or training ground Actually the being born by modern life have to meet the standards of saving time and simplicity therefore sport wear in recent years more and more becomes popular and an essential part of life

My report is about adidas, the giant of sport brand in the world which was born 70 years ago, officially entered Vietnamese market in 2009 with desire to be the biggest coverage brand in Vietnam

CHAPTER 1

COMPANY BACKGROUND

Phoenix Trading Investment Joint Stock Company is the official distributor of many international brand names of sport such as: adidas, asics, Li-Ning, 361 Degrees… in Vietnam Before winging high and strong as Phoenix, the company underwent ten years as being a sporty equipment center named Viet Huong in 157A Nguyen Thai Hoc Street

In 2003, Phoenix Investment Trading Co., Ltd was officially established and marked a golden point to the company’s history and at the beginning of 2019, company decided to become an equitized enterprises

1 Key Facts

- Registered company name: Phoenix Trading Investment Joint Stock Company

- Head quarter: No 3, Lane 10, Tran Duy Hung Street, Trung Hoa Ward, Cau Giay District, Hanoi, Vietnam

- Representative office: are also 100 stores nationwide

- Business scope: wholesale, retailer, production of sports products - Registration Certificate number: 0101400822, dated: 13/8/2003 - Chartered capital: $ 2 million (45 billion VND)

- Number of employees: 600

- Nearly 100 retail stores, 640 agents nationwide - Legal representative: Director – Mr.Pham Ngoc Khue - Contact information:

Phone: 024 37830686 Fax: 024 37848374

Email: phoenixco.ltd@gmail.com

Website: http://phoenixvn.com.vn

Founded in 1993, Viet Huong sporty equipment center in 157A Nguyen Thai Hoc street, Hanoi was actualized by a big dream of a professional volley ball player who wants to see Vietnamese athletes could bring on good shoes and beautiful outfits to be appeared as stunning as every international athletes are

In 1995, Viet Huong signed an exclusive distribution contract for the brand of Proace badminton racket in Vietnam with Proace International Company From a retail store of sports equipment, after 1 year company had a network of over 200 dealers nationwide August 13, 2003 Phoenix Trading Investment Co., Ltd was officially established So far

Phoenix has become a leading company in Vietnam in the distribution of fashion business and sports equipment

In 2005, Li-Ning signed Phoenix as the exclusive distribution in Vietnam In 2006, exclusive distribution of 361 degrees in Vietnam

In 2007, exclusive distribution of Ashaway in Vietnam

In 2009, official distributor of adidas, asics, Ping, Le Coq Sportif, Lotto

Nearly 20 years of operation and development, Phoenix JSC has been taking strategic steps in creating brand image Since having only one store, presently company has a distribution network of nearly 100 retail stores, 640 agents nationwide Initially, company had only 20 employees, now has more than 600 employees With the motto: Prestige - Cooperation - Together, Phoenix desires to expand business in many fields, many areas with new brands and new products

2 Products

Phoenix is the official distributor of many international brands including: adidas, asics, Li-Ning, 361 degrees, Ping, Le Coq Sportif, Lotto and also owns super market’s brands: Maxxsport and Maxx Ker The company sells a range of sporty garments, accessories and equipment that varying from men’s, women’s and kid’s for many kinds of sport: football, basketball, golf, gymnastics, running, skateboarding, tennis, swimming

There are three main product categories:

- Apparel: T-shirt, shorts, jacket, pants, hoodie, tank top, workout bra, tights… - Footwear: shoes, sandals, slide, flip flops…

- Accessories: backpack, bag, cap, socks, shin guard, wristband, headband, ball, gloves, swimming cap, swimming glasses, towels…

2.1 Li-Ning and 3610

Both brands are from China which provide medium price’s products Li-Ning is a strong brand in Asia with two lines of product: sporty fashion and specialized sport products.With the affordable price and suitable design for Vietnamese people, the brand is one of the most popular choices in Vietnam

Beside Li-Ning, 361 degrees focus on the modern style and simplicity Products of 361 degrees are highly reviewed in Europe but not attractive much in Vietnam

2.2 Ping, Le Coq Sportif, Lotto and Ashaway

Ping is specialized brand of golf- sport for the rich in Vietnam This brand is always known as a pioneer of the new technologies application, especially is golf clubs Besides it, Phoenix usually sponsors for Vietnamese golf tournament so that the brand is highly recommended for customers

Le Coq Sportif and Lotto are the newest and least investment brand in Phoenix because of the simplicity and high price are not match the customers’ taste Both brands provides generally sporty casual fashion

Ashaway is specialized brand of badminton and the best known for manufacturing the world class racket strings Li-Ning and Ashaway are the key brands for badminton of Phoenix’s distribution channels

2.3 Maxxsport and Maxx Ker

Being the 2 brands of Phoenix’s sport supermarket which sell generally all of above brands Maxxsport provides the specialized and affordable price- sport products Maxx Ker focus on high fashion and the most expensive products of all brands

2.4 Adidas and Asics

Both brands are at the high price and high quality also favorite brands in Vietnam

Asics focus on quality but high price and designs are not modern so that almost being attractive to athletes and professional sports players

Adidas is the biggest and most invested brand of Phoenix There are 3 sub brands of adidas with different purpose and level of price: adidas SPC is specialized sport products, two sub-brands for fashion: adidas Originals and adidas Neo

adidas SPC with three stripes logo, provides specialized

products for athletes and sports player

adidas Originals with trefoil logo, provides

fashion products

adidas Neo, the youngest brand of adidas, provides simple, colourful at affordable price products for teenagers

sub-There are 33 adidas SPC, three Originals, five Neo mono stores, two specialized outlets and 18 sporty retailers national wide

Adidas products which provided by Phoenix are devided into kind of sports belows:

Figure 1: Age group of Phoenix’s customers

20 or below: almost are customers of adidas Neo, Originals and Li-Ning

20-39: the customers with stable income, they are regular customers of all Phoenix’s brands for sports and fashion also

40-50 and 50 or above: are generally customers of golf, tennis or some of them buy for their children

The others main customers of Phoenix are retailers national wide

4 Basic financial data

Financial figures of Phoenix in recent five years are illustrated for a nice below picture:

Table 1: Financial Data of Phoenix JSC in 5 years

Age group of Phoenix's customers

20 or below21-3940-5050 or above

In the first five years in joining Vietnamese market, from 2009 to 2013, Phoenix grew slowly due to the trend in sport wear was not strong and the low average income of Vietnamese people that they could not afford to buy such a high price like international imported product But in 2014, when the trend of sporty also Europeanized lifestyle began and the beginning of flourish economy made international brand name officially dominated Vietnamese market 2014 is the time for warming up with revenue around 200 billion VND, good news for around forty stores at that time 2015 was the ending time of difficult 5 years in Vietnamese

Economy so that 2016’s revenue marked a sharply raising when nearly double to previous year

The continuously expanding of Phoenix’s stores number national wide brought 2018 to the new peak of five years growing with approximated 900 billion VND However, the company still continues to multiply more stores nationwide and plans to be the masterpiece brand in Vietnamese market will be implemented in 2019

Profit of Phoenix JSC (billion VND)

International Director

Marketing Dept

Financial Dept Technical

Dept Brand

Manager 1

Brand Manager 3 Brand

Manager 2

HR Dept

Brand Manager 4

Brand Manager 5

Chain of stores

Warehouse Logistics

My internship’s

position

2 Organization Chart Explanation

2.1 Board of Directors (BOD)

Being the founders and the most powerful people in Phoenix, BOD decides the plan in years for all aspects of developing the company such as: PR, expanding markets, investment, policy, finance, human resources

2.2 General Director

General Director is responsible of general implementation management in daily operation that follows the approved annual plan Any changes in operation which are not in the plan, he is in charge to report to BOD or takes responsibility so that he has the full- control in detailed activities such as: salary, personnel, designs of POP, banner, poster, stores’ decoration…events, promotion program, ways of marketing and signs in every paper

2.3 Operation Director

Operation Director is in charge of positioning the trend, makes decision of products such as: products list in discount, imported products list, stores’ place, financial budget in store’s construction She is responsible of checking and responsible of signing the expense which is over 5,000 USD

She is also in charge of research the potential markets and joining in the meeting with all brands in headquarter for periodic reports

2.4 International Director

Generally, this position undertakes import transactions and original price dealing She takes responsibility of logistics implementation She is in charge of negotiation with all brands about: price, general policy, support, equipment, sponsorship plan

2.5 Brand Manager

There are 5 brand managers who lead 10 brands as following: 1 Adidas and asics

2 Li-Ning and 361 Degrees 3 Maxx Ker and Maxxsport

Le coq sportif and Lotto

4 Golf products: Ping and Le coq- Golf products line

5 Badminton products: Ashaway and Li-Ning – Badminton line

Brand Managers are responsible of the product’s quantity and quality for distribution to stores They manage sale and service: in stores and online They do the sales strategy and promotion suggestion that follows the general policy, strategy of brands and Phoenix

They work directly with Directors and brands that they are manager of to receive detailed campaign information monthly, sales document, policy of marketing and sales, rights to post information, name of KOL, events to promote…

They control stores and products to be match the plan and instruction of brands besides, they are charged KPI according to sales

2.6 Marketing Department

Marketing Department is in charge of including activities:

- PR team: creating PR content, advertising, running ads, administration of fan page, website

- Design team: design POP, banner, poster, leaflets, brochure… - Filming team: photographer, video creator

- Decoration teams: decoration for stores, events with printed and light products - Sponsorship and events support

They are responsible of marketing plan, reports follows the general policy of brands and Phoenix’s strategy

Marketing team works directly with athletes, sport team, KOL, influencers, events director for sponsor or PR and process all activities which helps promote the brand name also the sales

2.7 Technical Department

Technical department is in charge of construction activities such as: designing stores in 3D, construction, equipment installation, build up stores and all hardware construction process There are 2 teams in technical department: 3D designing team and construction team

2.8 Financial Department

Being in charge of control and managing the financial activities: auditing and finalizing statistics of revenue and expenditure figures, tax finalization, handling invoices, salary, preparing financial statements… There are 20 full time staffs in the department and half- time staffs to collect and handle document follows the areas Each staff takes care of a part in the financial process

2.9 HR Department

Being in charge of administrative and union activities such as: reception, logistics, delivery, equipment managing, human resources, external and internal events operation, ensure the facilities and working conditions of employees

Beside management the office’s activities, the department has to do the transportation, schedule of delivery, warehouses, stores support and staffs insurance…

2.10 Chain of stores

These above departments are the operation parts for supporting the image of company which is expressed in stores Stores are the face of company and brands which being represented and organized by store managers and salers Activities of stores are always be priority and supported by brand managers and all departments

3 The Intern’s Position

As the described organization structure, I have assigned to work as a marketing staff I am an administrator for adidas SPC and also take care of sponsorship for adidas’s events This is a great chance for me to apply my knowledge and experience of marketing when I can process two areas of work: PR and sponsorship It helps me to understand the products and organization in details and also a big challenge when my present job is in PR and Marketing team of a construction company

I have 15 co- workers in my department, they are young, enthusiastic, professional and very friendly I feel like we are family when working and being creative together

I have a pleasure when being guided by Mr Pham Ngoc Khanh- General Director I am pretty sure that he is professional and the most understand every activity in the company due to being one of the founders with experience’s years equal to the age of company

My detailed task would be presented in the next Chapter

With my referred experience and skills in the CV were the plus points to give me a chance to join in two teams: adidas SPC brand and sponsorship also For this assigned position, I have to be in charge of:

a In branding team- adidas SPC:

- Planning and create content of PR on website, facebook’s page, online newspapers - Creating the script for marketing events: grand opening, sales, camping, ceremony… - Creating the content or ideas to make: video, film, photos and design such as: banner

on facebook, photos in PR articles… and order design team to process I will figure out the way to PR and Design team will process it follows ours suggestion

- Choose place, concept, models, KOL, influencers to join in campaign, events or photoshoot and filming

- Livestream to recommend new products, campaigns, lead mini games or simply to introduce or share updated information in stores

- A part of planning and create PR content is analyze the status of existing goods in stores to strengthen advertising and PR activities

- Implement sponsorship includes some steps: choose sponsored subjects, negotiate benefits and obligations, delivery products and PR tools, follows the articles to remind sponsored party for obligation and report sponsor, complete invoice and agreement to be legal in dealing, making updated report for brand after each completed steps and overall summary

- Being representative for brands and sponsor to join meeting and events of sponsorship

2 The link between the Subject matter and my Mission

In my position, I understand how important of PR and Marketing in branding Moreover, working with and being official representative of an international brand are facing with many new challenges such as: competitors, price, policy, place, time, the trend, service and consumer thinking… Therefore, making a strategy in marketing from the start is definitely significant

The mentioned task that gave me the chance in decision of content, ways of process and create marketing strategy for a new product, store or event With the full stages that I join in from having the updated number of good sales in stores to the age of customer, the region where they live through face book’s information when they inbox to purchase, I can understand and have numbers to analyze the trend, the needs and the purchases of each region That is the purpose of my internship report when making marketing strategy in spreading adidas brand’s popular in Vietnam Especially, to be the greatest, adidas needs to have a key product that everybody crushes on it and when they see the brand they remember the product or conversely so that my marketing strategy is for a key product that will be a hit

3 The link between the Subject matter and my Mission

With my goals of making adidas more and more popular and being the greatest sporty brand in Vietnam through marketing, I have to complete following missions:

 Analyzing data of goods sold periodically to make a comparison and find the trend, hobby to choose the key products

 Organizing some campaigns to have interactive exploration

 Choose a KOL for advertising the new campaign

 Planning the concept for filming and shooting photos

 Create the timetable to launch media post and choose media channels

 Make a details plan in launching event/grand opening to attract community and media

4 Theoretical Knowledge Applied and Ideas Contribution

AMI course is an international program for master of international management and business that includes many interesting new subjects Each subject brings me not only the knowledge but also the experience of classmates and teachers In my report, I use all the lessons from the course to apply and it is hard to separate which knowledge from what subject due to the connecting together for making the perfect program and very suitable for us

With my purpose, I choose some disciplines bellows that I think it is helpful the most to apply in my strategy:

Table 2: AMI subjects and useful application

International Strategy Professor David Kalisz was very enthusiastic to share the way to build up a strategy It is an over view and clearly in each steps to process The useful knowledge in the subjects such as: analysis SWOT or transnational strategy During the study and the final exam are mission to make a strategy for an

international brand that helps my background to do internship International Distribution

Channel

The subject gives me an important knowledge to choose the channel in marketing that base on the channel of distribution The suitable channel helps saving time, expense, manpower and many aspects in my strategy

International Business Plan The knowledge from this course makes me understand exactly how to process a new project, campaign or start up something The more details than a strategy to deeply know the risk, the cost, assignment of work, implementation steps, schedule, financial situation in the future and possibility

International Management During this course, I regard that I am the owner of an

enterprise, I have to understand the establishment, history, core value, the main customers, purpose and market that I have

There are many cases study of international brand all over the world that gave me a lot of ideas: how they made that, what will they do the next…and the experience is always the supporter for us to make an success brand through strategic ways

International Business Communication

I have to work with many partners such as: KOL, organization of advertising or sponsorship to negotiate the benefits for our company Moreover, working for an international corporation is not only need internal contact but also the external ones that why I find knowledge in this subject of hobbies, culture even some ways in negotiation that can be applied to my job: email, meeting, report, make a phone call…

Business Game Role Play As the name of subject, through the course I am able of positioning each part in the business Trying to work as any role, I understand how important, the problem to fix and adjustment to do for a better work

International Economics & Globlization

Professor Kim Anh gave me an overall knowledge of analyzing international trade, evolution of globalization Adidas is an international brand that hardly avoided of the influence of global trend thus I need to have a suitable strategy within

5 Contribution to the Company

In my internship’s position, I have many chances to apply my knowledge from AMI course to help Phoenix expand the adidas brand and become popular national wide with the following plan:

- Give more new ideas and plan in each campaign or new product launching and cooperate with my supervisor, manager and teammates

- Make a direct survey periodically with customers to know their concerns It helps not only for the new products but also for promptly adjust

- Collect the information and analysis the result after survey to know how the plan in each campaign is effective or not to adjust

- Planning to promote KOLs of key products

- Follow the international trend and events of adidas

- Make a details strategy of marketing new product with schedule and deadline, person in charge, expense, place… predict and measure the effectiveness

CHAPTER 4 DEVELOPMENT

Adidas in Vietnam has a good position due to quality and long standing fame, the brand need to keep the track and some big hits that make customers instantly crush on its product Thus, my purpose is promotion the key product by setting up marketing strategy for enhance the position First of all, to process my strategy of promotion for a key product and keep being the most popular brand in Vietnam, I would like to analyze the stakeholders matrix, their power and expectations from strategy, which are the key points to open the door of success- “Where there is unity there is always victory”- Publilius Syrus After having an overview of all aspects, I will dissociate the macro environment such as: Political and Legal Factors, Economic, Social, Technological and Environmental Factors

Finally, to collect all of analysis for positioning exactly where the brand is and deploy steps in strategy, I make a S.W.O.T for details

1 Stakeholders Matrix

Table 3: Stakeholders Matrix

-Development of company and brand -Bonus based on working result