Digital and the sportswear sector: stats

As some of the world’s best athletes battle it out in Sochi, another significant competition is taking place among the sports brands they use and endorse.

New research from digital innovation think tank L2 offers key insights into the digital landscape for sportswear brands.

We’ve included some key trends in the latest edition of our Internet Statistics Compendium.

By Luke Richards February 11th 2014 18:36

Which sports brands are leading in digital?

L2 looks at 56 of the leading sportswear names around the globe and analyses four key features of their digital activities to generate the index: site & ecommerce, digital marketing, mobile and social media.

Nike top the index with an IQ score of 151 and an online strategy L2 describes as ‘genius.’

Not only is the sports brand leading the way across social media (see the massive YouTube presence) and cross-channel integration (e.g. Nike’s heavily Facebook-connected running app) – but it has also pioneered with onsite capabilities, including allowing shoppers to customise more than 450 items on its ecommerce site.

The North Face, REI and Adidas also rank highly. These brands average index scores of more than 146 and are leading their competitors alongside Nike.

Social sportswear

Unsurprisingly, social media is proving invaluable to sportswear brands keen to drive engagement with their fans and customers.

For the last two years, all the companies included in L2’s index have had a presence on Facebook and YouTube, with Twitter seeing a slight drop in usage (100% in 2012 to 98% in 2013).

Alongside the big three, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Vine have all seen increases in adoption as brands such as Oakley, Vans and Speedo turn to channels which are well suited for displaying new products in action and can see such content shared far and wide almost immediately.

Moving to mobile

Mobile is increasingly becoming an important channel for sportswear brands to connect and sell directly to customers. 93% of the brands in L2’s index with mobile sites have m-commerce functionality and 85% have a store locator.

Aside from the aforementioned use of apps by Nike et al, the sportswear market is also leading development of wearables – which incorporate mobile and network technology into useful on-body items such as Nike’s own FuelBand and Adidas’ miCoach. By 2018, L2 forecasts 250m wearable units will be shipped worldwide.

Sport and digital takeaways

The sportswear market is an interesting ecosystem for observing developments in digital marketing, as well as onsite customer engagement and utilising new technologies to help customers even when they are away from their computer, tablet and smartphone screens.

Customization options when consumers are choosing products are proving useful for site visitors, and a good reason for prospective shoppers to visit brand pages rather than third-party sites. Additionally, using mobile and social technology to enrich products in action and – ultimately – the lifestyles of users is a good way to drive up engagement and spread positive brand-related sentiment online.

Not all sportswear brands are succeding in digital, however, and big name brands such as Fila, Umbro and K-Swiss should be looking to 2014 to boost their digital IQ and connect with more customers in the online sphere.

For more ecommerce, social and mobile stats from around the web and our own researchers, see our Internet Statistics Compendium. To drill down into the data in more depth download the full Digital IQ Index report here.

Article Social

How Converse uses social media: Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Vine, Instagram and Twitter

Converse operates the third most popular branded page on Facebook, with 39.6m fans and 76,000 people talking about the brand.

This is according to Socialbakers’ Top 100 brands on social media. However, Converse doesn’t seem to chart on any of the other social media platforms.

Converse is a progressive brand with a long history of cool associations through sport, music, comic books and video games. Being purchased by Nike, an expert brand when it comes to social media, over a decade ago should have helped strengthen its social media strategy.

However Converse seems to be lacking in certain areas. Let’s take a look at the Converse Facebook page, followed by Google+, Instagram, Vine, Twitter and Pinterest.

Article Social

Pinterest overtakes Facebook for UK referral revenue

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr drove an unprecedented amount of traffic to retail sites in Q4 2013 with revenue-per-visit (RPV) increasing across all social channels.

However, Pinterest is taking swift advantage of Facebook’s slowing growth by achieving a 50% quarter-over-quarter increase in RPV.

That’s not to say that Facebook didn’t end 2013 in a big way. In fact it broke multiple records as per usual.

These findings come from Adobe’s recently released social intelligence report for Q4 2013. The report reveals an otherwise massive end of year for Facebook with click-through-rate (CTR) up 365% year-over-year and 41% quarter-over-quarter.

This follows another recent report from Kenshoo revealing that Facebook ads drove a 60% increase in sales revenue in the same quarter.

However, as stated at the top of the page, things are certainly not all rosy for Facebook, with other social media networks asserting their positions and overtaking Facebook in key areas.

Let’s take a closer look at the report.

Article Social

Dissecting the ‘death of Facebook’.

Here’s the lastest stat: Pinterest’s Pin it button overtakes the Facebook Like on product pages. Another day, another report hammering a couple more nails into the Facebook coffin.

There’s a point where announcing the ‘death of Facebook’ feels more sensationalist than actual fact. Let’s take a glance at some of the most recent negative reports from the last couple of weeks.

Pinterest overtakes Facebook for UK referral revenue, this comes from Adobe’s own social intelligence report from Q4 2013.

Facebook remains top for social referral traffic globally, states the Q4 2013 Shareaholic report in a more positive tone, however according to Adobe, Pinterest is quickly catching up and is likely to overtake Facebook for referral revenue in the USA this year.

The level of active Facebook usage fell by 3% in the second half of 2013, states the latest GWI social report, with the gap between Facebook and it rivals narrowing year-on year.

These are just the three reports we’ve covered on the blog so far, each with their own tang of negativity. Please feel free to scour the internet for further pessimistic reading.

8th Bridge has joined doomsayers with its Social Commerce IQ Retail 2013 report, in which 872 brands are analysed for their effective use of social commerce. The results are mixed for Facebook. This is where the opening Pinterest Pin it stat derives.

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