Adidas admits that a focus on efficiency rather than effectiveness led it to over-focus on ROI and over-invest in performance and digital at the expense of brand building.

while Adidas thought only performance drove ecommerce sales, in fact it was brand activity driving 65% of sales across wholesale, retail and ecommerce, while performance also drove wholesale and retail sales.

This was a problem because Adidas’s advertising split was 23% into brand and 77% into performance.

More @ https://www.marketingweek.com/adidas-marketing-effectiveness/