Consumers perceive Nike Inc. Latest from The Business Journals Coliseum: Portland thinks it has a dealNike 'Back to the Future' shoes raise .7M for Parkinson'sLi Ning loses another top executive Follow this company shoes as higher in quality than its competitors, but more expensive, while Adidas Adidas Latest from The Business Journals Li Ning loses another top executiveLevi ships millions of 'sustainable' jeansAdidas websites up and running following cyber attack Follow this company is considered a better value. In the end, the rival brands scored evenly in the American Consumer Satisfaction Index's annual look at the athletic shoe market.
The index, founded at the University of Michigan University of Michigan Latest from The Business Journals Duke, Durham receive M grant to fight diabetes Measuring success in ways other than power of the brainWolverines seeing the light, thanks to LEDs by Cree Follow this company's Ross School of Business, culls data from interviews with 70,000 customers and measures their responses to more than 225 companies across 47 industries using a scale of 0 to 100.
Nationally, the index went unchanged in the third quarter, reaching 75.7 on the 100-point scale, mirroring the nation's stalled economy.
Athletic shoes as a whole, however, inched up 1.3 percent to an overall satisfaction score of 81.
Only the industry's two biggest brands, Washington County-based Nike Inc. and Germany's Adidas, which keeps its North American headquarters in Portland, were given separate scores by the index. The rest of the brands are scored cumulatively.
An aggregate score of smaller brands in the space -- including Skechers Skechers Latest from The Business Journals Skechers planning new shoe store in San AntonioSKECHERS planning new shoe store in Northeast San AntonioIntracoastal Mall hit with M foreclosure Follow this company and New Balance New Balance Latest from The Business Journals Red Sox tarnished image can throw strikes at brand appealNew Balance sole bidder on Newell name rightsFive Mass. billionaires on Forbes list Follow this company -- led the way, rising 1 percent over last year to 81.
Adidas last year combined with Adidas-owned Reebok Reebok Latest from The Business Journals Within Adidas' strong Q3, Portland division posts record numbersNew Era Cap fashions new look with NFL dealAdidas eyes Russia growth Follow this company to lead all athletic shoe brands with a score of 82. This year it dropped to 80, matching Nike -- globally, the market leader -- which went unchanged from last year.
For Adidas, it was just the third time in the survey's 17-year history that it scored 80 or above and just the second time for Nike.
Claes Fornell, a business administration professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, said the athletic footwear category overall shows little differentiation in consumer satisfaction among individual brands, large or small.
