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ADIDAS BOSTON MARATHON EMAIL
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Adidas Boston Marathon Email Crisis Case
Analysis
HOW A COMPANY SCARRED ITS REPUTATION WITH ONE EMAIL
Curran Umphrey, Sarah Turner, Katie
Money and Laurabeth Givens
ADIDAS BOSTON MARATHON EMAIL
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Abstract
Effective research and thought is critical for a public relations campaign, or any form of
public communication that a company takes part in. When reaching out to their publics, it is
important for an organization to research and determine what the best strategy is for their
campaign to be successful. On April 17, 2017 Adidas sent an email to those who participated in
the 2017 Boston Marathon with the subject line reading, “Congratulations, you survived the
Boston Marathon!” Adidas was bombarded with negative comments on Twitter concerning the
email’s insensitivity to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Adidas was now in the midst of a
sudden crisis. This case study will analyze the role that proper communication tactics have in
crisis management.
ADIDAS BOSTON MARATHON EMAIL
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Company Background
Adidas began in 1949 by Adolf Dassler in Germany. Since then, they have become the
second largest manufacturer of sportswear in the world, as well as the largest in Europe. They
are currently a multi billion-dollar company. In 2016, their total revenue was 19.29 billion euros
(Wikipedia, 2016). They are also an employer for over 50,000 people worldwide (Wikipedia,
2014). In addition to their own success, they also own the sportswear company Reebok,
TaylorMade-Adidas golf company, as well as partial ownership in an Austrian fitness technology
company. Adidas boasts in designing products for competitive sports, but also for athletes in
general. They define an athlete as someone who strives to do their best no matter what they are
doing. The mission is “to be the best sports brand in the world. Everything we do is rooted in
sport.” (Adidas, 2017). They stick to the main beliefs of their creator, Dassler, which is to help
athletes improve through innovative measures. Over the past sixty-eight years Adidas has
cultivated a growing fan-base of devoted customers who love and appreciate the products they
provide.
Boston Marathon History
The Boston Marathon is a competitive race that many runners train for years to qualify
for. Beginning in 1897 with only 15 participants, it has since grown significantly to include
more than 30,000 participants each year. Runners consider it a high honor to be able to take part
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in such a coveted marathon. The event, however, was struck with tragedy in 2013 when two
bombs exploded at the finish line, resulting in 3 fatalities and 263 injuries. The runners of the
marathon were not the only ones effected by bombing that year. After this act of terrorism, the
entire country was shaken to the core with fear and disbelief that such a horrific incident could
occur at such a joyful event. The tragedy of the bombing and the lack of consideration from
Adidas caused an uproar when the subject line on their email read, “Congrats, you survived the
Boston Marathon!”
SWOT Analysis
A few internal and external factors need to be considered when deciding to initiate any
form of communication with your publics. In this situation, Adidas should have implemented a
SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis would have provided an in-depth look into the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats that Adidas would face once they sent this email. The
conduction of a SWOT analysis could have saved Adidas from this embarrassing incident.
Strength: Adidas has a large fan base and the marathon participants, which consist of many people who would be interested in athletic gear; Adidas has been a sponsor for the Boston Marathon for 29 years
Opportunity: Adidas large fan base to promote business and new products
Weakness: Adidas relying heavily on their large group of fans to be supportive in all situations; they need to consider that these fans may not always be fans
Threat: Adidas has such a large fan base that can potentially become a large group of critics and can hurt the company’s image and sales
Formative Research Phase
Based on formative research, it was evident this subject line caused an uproar and led to
lost respect from many people who received or heard about the email. In the subject line Adidas
used the term “survived” because that it is a common term in the running community used to
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describe the way it feels to complete a marathon. However, the main issue in this case is that
Adidas did not consider the context of the situation they were using it in with reference to the
Boston Marathon. Adidas, as an organization, has encountered few issues like this one in the
past. Due to their seemingly clear record, it was a shock that this company let something as
insensitive and inappropriate as this happen. Until this crisis occurred, Adidas had a mutually
beneficial relationship with their publics that made them feel appreciated by the company. The
main publics involved in this case were originally those who received the email. Additionally,
non-publics, who were unaware of the email initially, became active publics after they heard
about the offensive subject line. The reach this crisis had stretched far across the social media
site, Twitter. Many users were among those who went from non-publics to active publics. On
this site they were able to see the posts of those who received the email and agreed with them
that the email was inappropriate.
Strategy Phase
The email’s initial key message and objective was intended to be a marketing technique
to promote athletic gear to a specifically targeted audience by getting participants to go to
Adidas’ online store and order merchandise or apparel. However, the objective of the email was
diminished because of the disapproval of the subject title which caused this sudden crisis.
Timeline of events:
• April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing occurred
• April 17, 2017 Adidas sent “congrats” email
• April 17, 2017 Key publics negatively react on Twitter
• April 18, 2017 Adidas apologizes on Twitter, via email, and news media
ADIDAS BOSTON MARATHON EMAIL
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Adidas’ next key message was apologizing on Twitter by tweeting a picture of an
apology statement made by Adidas’ CEO Kasper Rorsted (Calfas, 2017).
Adidas could have had a well planned strategy developed to prevent this crisis from
occurring. Their biggest mistake was not having a well developed proactive plan in place.
However, Adidas did a good job of taking an accommodative stance and responding to the crisis
quickly. Below is the conflict management cycle that Adidas used to handle the criticisms they
were receiving.
Conflict Management Cycle:
• Proactive Phase:
o External environmental scanning- In this phase Adidas could look to other
companies who have experienced similar situations to the one they were in
to have reference of what strategies were successful for others.
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o Internal risk assessment- Determine what went wrong within their
organization. In this assessment, Adidas should find out how many people
actually reviewed this email before it was finalized and sent to their
subscribers. By doing this, Adidas can establish a more effective way to
do this in the future.
• Strategic Phase:
o Risk communication- Adidas strategized their key message and the best
way to communicate that message to their publics about the situation.
• Reactive phase:
o Crisis communication- Adidas decided to rectify by taking an
accommodative stance.
o They took full responsibility
o Had one spokesperson, their CEO
o Communicated with their key publics
o Put the public first by stressing how sorry they felt about the email
• Recovery phase:
o In this phase, Adidas made the decision to drop the situation immediately
after providing an apology. Adidas felt the best way to go forward was to
move on from the situation and begin new campaigns to further their
company’s success.
Tactics Phase
The initial communication tactic Adidas used was through a controlled media,
email. Adidas’ communication tactic was not employed well because of the insensitivity that it
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possessed. Their key publics received this tactic with immediate dislike towards the company.
Based on the tweets about the email, it is clear the public viewed this tactic as unsuccessful.
Ross Bolen, a New York Times Bestselling author, tweeted, “Someone in the marketing
department at @Adidas is going to get fired hard for the subject of this email.”
More tweets from upset publics:
In response to the aversion received by the public, Adidas relied on both uncontrolled and
controlled media, like Twitter, TIME, CNBC and Business Insider to communicate its apology
one day after the original email was sent. Adidas also sent another email to their subscribers
which contained their apology. The apology came from the Adidas CEO, Kasper Rorsted who
was the designated spokesperson for the company. Their decision to communicate to their
ADIDAS BOSTON MARATHON EMAIL
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publics in an accommodative and apologetic way was effective in this tactic because this was an
empathetic way to handle the crisis. The reason Adidas gave their apology to these media outlets
appears to be because of the wide audience reach that each of the media outlets possess. Since
many people expressed their criticisms of the email on Twitter, Adidas used this social media
site to post their apology in an effort to handle the issue on the platform it was most
discussed. After they issued their apology, the public seemed to be at ease about the situation
because of the quick response time that Adidas reacted with. For example, Twitter user Pete
Young said, “Easy mistake to make. They apologized (over-apologized). If anyone is still upset
about it, that’s on them.” Based on tweet’s like the one from Pete Young, it is evident that
Adidas’ response tactic was successful in it’s attempt to appease the public.
Evaluation/Continuation Phase
After the apology was given by the CEO, Kasper Rorsted, Adidas did not take any further
action to handle the crisis. The company chose to drop the situation after apologizing and focus
on other projects they had in the works.
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One main theory that applies to this case is the Contingency Theory. The Contingency
Theory states that organizations take certain actions to manage conflicts between an organization
and their publics. The organizational stance depends on the particular situation that an
organization is involved in and ranges from pure advocacy to pure accommodation. Adidas
immediately took an accommodative stance by apologizing and and designating their CEO to
speak about the crisis. However, Adidas is no longer taking action to repair their image. Adidas
did not want the crisis to grow anymore. They were hopeful the situation would blow over and
be forgotten as quickly as possible.
Another key theory utilized in this case study is the Public Information Model. The
Public Information Model has information flowing one way from organization to its stakeholders
(e.g press releases, newsletters, VNRs). Because there was no interactive dialogue, Adidas
applied the Public Information Model by tweeting an apology, sending another email and making
news statements.
The Situational Theory of Publics can also be applied to this case. In this theory there are
four types of publics: non-public, latent public, aware public and active public. Before sending
the insensitive email, Adidas had non-publics, which were those who were completely unaware
of the situation. After sending the email, people began tweeting about the wrongdoing of
Adidas. Many people were participating in the conversation on Twitter, whether they received
the email at all. Therefore, these people moved from non-publics to active publics when they
began to engage in the conversation via Twitter.
Several of the PRSA Code of Ethics were violated in this case, including advocacy,
expertise and enhancing the profession. The principle of Advocacy states: “We serve the public
interest by acting as responsible advocates for those we represent.” Adidas certainly did not
ADIDAS BOSTON MARATHON EMAIL
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have the public interest in mind, especially in regards to the actual survivors of the tragic 2013
marathon bombing. By sending the email, the marketing team did not responsibly represent
Adidas. The principle of Expertise states: “We acquire and responsibly use specialized
knowledge and experience.” A public relations practitioner with strong expertise should think
twice before sending an email like the one they sent. The team responsible for the email should
have evaluated and reviewed it several times before approving it to be sent. If this had been
done, the team would have been able to understand that the email would offend a large number
of people and cause serious backlash. The principle of Enhancing the Profession states: “Work
constantly to strengthen the public’s trust in the profession.” This email made the marketing and
public relations profession seem inconsiderate and insensitive. From this email it appears that
marketing and public relations practitioners would be willing to go as far as using others’ grief
and pain to market their product.
Case Analysis/Conclusion
On April 17, 2017 Adidas sent themselves directly into a sudden crisis with their email
subject line reading “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!” Adidas is one of the largest
sportswear providers in the world and has a strong customer and fan base. Taking into account
the amount of people that were watching and involved in this crisis, Adidas made the decision to
take immediate action. They responded the next day on Twitter, via email and news media so
they could cover all areas where their publics would be listening. Once they apologized, the
company took no further steps to handle the situation.
Although the response time which Adidas responded in was quick and effective, there is
more the company could have done to repair their reputation. To ensure this issue would not be
a problem in the future, Adidas could have reached out to those they directly offended. One way
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to do this would be to financially give to those who lost loved ones in the Boston Marathon or
who were injured and now face chronic health issues. Establishing a relationship with these
people would show that Adidas does truly care. Although the words they chose to use in their
email subject line were packed with unintentional offense, they still had an impact. If Adidas
was as sorry as they claimed to be about what they said, they should have taken a tangible action
to repair the damage done. Helping those effected by the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing would
be the perfect action to take. Not only would this be beneficial to Adidas’ reputation, but it
would also be a blessing for those wounded and hurting because of the bombing.
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References Adidas. (2017). Adidas at a glance. Retrieved November 26, 2017, from https://www.adidas-
group.com/en/group/profile/#/adidas-and-the-badge-of-sport/ Adidas. (2010). Retrieved December 4, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas Calfas, J. (2017, April 18). Adidas apologizes for 'you survived' Boston Marathon email.
Retrieved October 18, 2017, from http://time.com/4745066/adidas-boston-marathon-email/
Flaherty, Bryan (2017, April 18). Adidas apologizes for email congratulating runners who ‘survived’ Boston Marathon. Retrieved October 19, 2017 from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/04/18/adidas-apologizes-for-email-congratulating-runners-who-survived-boston-marathon/?utm_term=.f811eed2235d
Peterson, Hayley (2017, April 18). Adidas apologizes for congratulating winners
who ‘survived’ the Boston Marathon. Retrieved October 19, 2017 from http://www.businessinsider.com/adidas-apologizes-for-boston-marathon-tweet-2017-4
Slotkin, Jason (2017, April 19). Adidas apologizes for congratulating 2017 Boston Marathon
‘survivors.’ Retrieved October 19,2017 from http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/19/524692534/adidas-apologizes-for-congratulating-2017-boston-marathon-survivors
Boult, A. (2017, April 19). Adidas apologises for 'you survived Boston Marathon' email.
Retrieved October 18, 2017, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/19/adidas-apologises-survived-boston-marathon-email