The Baltimore Business Journal reports on the athletic apparel giant facing the challenges presented not only by the economy, but also by its evolution on the product life cycle curve. They have great brand awareness and equity, but stiff competition from Nike, adidas, and everyone else under the sun. After all, mimicking is the sincerest form of flattery.
We shall see if the brand loyalty they have mustered is enough in the long term.
They should quit spending so much money on endorsements and marketing and focus on empowering people to become their brand advocates. One way they could do this is to put more effort into creating community--especially on Twitter, where all they do is promote their own stuff. Obviously they need a larger strategy than just "use Twitter, use Facebook, etc" but I think that would be a good use of their money.
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