Thread regarding Adidas layoffs

Recent promos should be embarrassed. If you’re managing a brand that has taken 3 years to release nothing. What are you being promoted for?

Big G stepping in to save FOG...?

lol. Laurel Salem

Good thing LM was taken off fog. There is hope, indeed.

Plenty of experienced people on the product side…Some have been with the brand or industry for years. There have been hundreds and hundreds of prototypes. But if JL just refuses to sign stuff off…? That‘s where I can‘t understand why we let the partners hold our business hostage.

At least that‘s how the story is landing in Herzo.

Indeed - 4/19 will be a critical day.

Development team in LA is incompetent. Two years in and there is no concept of understanding production lead-times or TNA urgency. JL has been a catastrophe due to lack of experience and zero competence. You can only bite the margin and place blame on marketing for so long.
4/19 will be telling.

Understatement

Seems like the leadership in North America has no idea what they're doing.

$9 million in liability - celebrated

Current LA directors couldn’t tell you the definition of a GTM let alone how to follow it. It is 0% wonder how partnerships are failing and still 100% wonder how this office exists at all.
LA OFFICE = House of rejects.

JLO has fog and essentials at PacSun, not new to either market. Undoubtedly, a cause for JLO to feel slighted.

Near 3 years later and all that has been shown is a dropshipped yellow hoodie. Now adi released premium product at outlet price point (ignore the margin). Twitter/Reddit/Google will show no one is buying the timeline and hype died a long time ago.

The business model was never complex. Demote those who had a hand to play till now. Promote within and allow those with real know how to make decision. This might recoup respect from JLO, debatable if whats in the works now will gain respect from the consumer

Another way to think about it… JL partnership is what, 2 years old? And still no new product? At least in FTW, the lifestyle line definitely didn’t need 2 years to develop. From what I’ve seen…just classic silhouettes with premium materials. That’s the kind of thing that could hit the market in 6-8 months if you do it right.

BUT, if JL is expecting our supply chain to deliver the same quality, fit and finish as his existing production in Portugal, but at more commercial price points…it’s a complete waste. That’s not our game. No wonder he never signed off on anything.

The entire business model is broken from the jump. No excuse for that after two years…and NO one is making any money. At what point do we force some decisions to get marketable product on the shelf?

The truth of JL, developers were forced by directors to sign off and go into production with no approvals necessary, including JL’s. Creating double digit-million$ in liability and multi-million in RM wastage. Thus, chapter was introduced as a way to save themselves. The result, JL released an official statement the same day as launch announcing FOG has nothing to do with basketball or the campaign. It clearly is (was meant to be) FOG.
Leadership praised this launch as if the margin hit and excessive inventory does not exist.
Good luck following up with anything similar for price point and quality.
Goes to show that even at bottom level leadership, you can get away with anything.
They just blab on and on and on.

The office is real! I know the guy that ran the buildout and he gave me numerous tours. The issue is the city of LA not giving final sign off.

Conversations not about the talent of JL. Rather timing and reality of layoffs/stability at adi.
JL is capable, sure, he has FOG-non/adi presence to prove it. Teams doing good work after two years and teasing a release of basics and essentials yet again, is questionable.
Adi can’t post on IG without being flooded with #cancel. yet another scandal with Balenziaga and P--OPHILIA and adi remains silent, again.
What can JL and the teams bring to change this?

I seen the work JL has done w basketball footwear and it is quite promising. Very specific language to each player (mitchell, Young, Dame, JH) and looks like Kobe Aud shoe vibe. the team has done great work

OK - good point… but I’m speaking more about the footwear. Why hasn’t this seen the light of day?

The PacSun range is tees and hoodies, under the “Essentials” label, yeah..? adidas also released only ONE FOG hoodie!

FOG has pacsun ranging from $15-100 and has done by numerous collabs. JL is not new to the business or scale w/ adi. If there is no sign off from the partner at this stage, there is something fundamentally wrong internally.

I think that comment is a coded way of saying “we’re looking at how we can compartmentalize the partnership, and minimize the explore of JL to our commercial business.”

From what I hear…. JL just isn‘t signing off on the FOG product… He could have! The product is NOT complicated, and samples have probably been on hand for 2 years. If he’s allowed to gatekeep the commercial basketball range, we’ll never bring anything to market again.

He‘s expecting our Asia source base to produce the exact same quality, fit and finish as his existing European suppliers have done until now. That‘s just not going to happen…. We produce $100-200 shoes, and FOG is a $600 brand. You get what you pay for. The collaboration only makes sense if both sides recognize that we bring scale, but that comes with trade-offs. We can also sell a he-l of a lot more shoes at the lower price.

What‘s silly to me is that we seem unable to influence or control the business reality. The partners need to be happy, sure, but we have a business to run. NO ONE is making money if we can‘t sign-off on the product….

Maybe I’m a dummy….but I really don’t understand how we talk ourselves into this.