Digital PR Lead (EMEA) - Adidas

Location: London (Hybrid - 3 days per week)

Duration: Until end of calendar year

Reporting: EU PR Director (based in Germany)

Role Purpose & Overall Relevance

As consumer discovery rapidly shifts toward AI-driven search experiences (LLMs such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude), the way Adidas appears in earned/third-party sources is increasingly shaping brand preference and product consideration.

This role develops and implements a Europe-wide Digital PR approach that improves Adidas's Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) performance through earned and supported owned media, as well as maintaining and growing SEO visibility through local PR efforts. The role bridges a capability gap created by reduced local PR capacity in markets and ensures that Adidas product and brand information is surfaced accurately and prominently in AI-driven results and more traditional publishers.

Top Day-to-Day Tasks

• Strategic Prioritisation: Working with the SEO team on Adidas calendar priorities.
• Market Support: Maintaining up-to-date publisher lists per market and category for Adidas market teams.
• Link Building: Finding linking opportunities within BAU PR.
• Stakeholder Management: Reporting to senior Adidas stakeholders on the impact of PR-GEO/SEO.
• Local Coordination: Supporting local country teams in Europe on getting links and earned media coverage from priority publishers.
• Toolkit Development: Working with Global Adidas category teams (e.g. Running, Football, Lifestyle) on refining/stress-testing GEO-minded PR toolkits and creating tools where relevant.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy Ownership: Own the Europe GEO / SEO Digital PR (earned & owned) strategy and plan for Adidas, from approach definition through to implementation roadmap.
• Market Leadership: Bridge the GEO performance gap to #1 in Europe by identifying priority topics, franchises, and search/category areas where earned media can most impact Adidas AI-driven discovery.
• Publisher Influence: Build a publisher influence plan for LLM visibility, identifying media outlets, reviewers, listicle publishers, and communities influential in LLM sourcing for the sports and lifestyle sectors.
• Local Enablement: Guide and enable local Adidas PR teams across Europe with clear priorities, briefs, toolkits, and best practices.
• Product Seeding: Drive coordinated Adidas product seeding and editorial opportunities to increase inclusion in "best-of", comparison, and review content.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Partner with SEO, Global PR, Publishing, and Analytics to ensure Adidas content is structured, credible, and easy for AI systems to read, trust, and cite.
• Content Direction: Influence content direction for platforms that shape Adidas discovery signals (e.g., YouTube, Reddit, creator ecosystems).
• Analytics: Define success through the creation of measurement and reporting frameworks, utilising tools such as Profound and Adobe Analytics.

Requisite Education & Experience

• PR Expertise: Strong experience in PR, media relations and/or digital PR with an understanding of how earned media shapes search and discovery for a global consumer brand.
• Implementation: Demonstrated ability to create strategy and drive implementation across multiple stakeholders and markets.
• Digital Ecosystems: Strong understanding of digital publishing ecosystems (reviewers, listicles, creator platforms, community channels).
• Technical Knowledge: Understanding of the fundamentals of SEO and GEO and specifically how offsite factors like backlinks and citations drive visibility for Adidas in Google and LLMs.
• Analytical Mindset: Experience working with measurement teams and translating data into actions.

Randstad Business Support is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.