In the world of sneakers and sportswear, ADIDAS ranks two and Of course the number one is NIKE. According to Forbes, it is 68th biggest brand in the whole world. Their sales have been growing from the last five years and now ADIDAS has become a very big name.
How did ADIDAS became so big??
Most of the people who do sports or watch sports shows definitely know about ADIDAS. Even you know nothing about sports, there is a big chance that you know the name ADIDAS. You can take my example, I know a little about sports but I am familiar with the name ADIDAS. That’s how this name has become big within past years.
Like most companies, it didn’t start out big. In the 1920s, in a small town in Germany, Adi Dassler and his brother Rudolf Dassler started the company when they began producing shoes in their mother’s laundry room. At that time, it wasn’t even called ADIDAS yet it was called the Dassler brothers shoe factory. Now, obviously there’re numerous factors that are responsible for transforming that little business into the giant one that we know today.
There are three things that have made the greatest impact and are most responsible for their growth.
The First thing is a man named Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens was an American Athlete. In his time, he probably was the fastest man on the planet.
In the 1936 ,Olympics held in Berlin, Germany. He won four gold medals and track events breaking records along the way. A very impressive performance. You know ,how in every Olympics there tends to be one or two people who become really famous and are just the star of the whole thing well in 1936, it was Jesse Owens.
These Olympics were in 1936 held in Germany, at the time the country was led by Adolf Hitler. He was planning for these Olympics to prove how the Aryan race was superior and obviously Jesse Owens ruined that Plan.
These Olympics took place in Germany and the Dassler Brothers shoe company was from Germany. Somehow, Adi Dassler convinced Jesse Owens to wear a pair of shoes during his historic races and it looks like he didn’t specifically target Owens rather he was just kind of trying to convince all the athletes but the one that paid off was Jesse Owens.
You can imagine the demand that it created for them and it really helped bring the small shoe company to the next level.
After the second world war, the two brothers that were running the company found it impossible to work together and they split apart.
Rudi left so that he can form his own shoe company. The company he started is now known as Puma that you probably know.
Adi stayed put and redesigned the existing company that’s where the name was changed to ADIDAS and he came up with the three stripe signature look and it really just started taking shape and to the company that we are familiar with today.
In 1954 World Cup final it’s been called the miracle in Bern that took place in Bern , Switzerland and showcased a very strong Hungarian team against the underdog team from West Germany. The game started with two early goals from Hungary which solidified their victory in the minds of many people but Hungary didn’t score for the rest of the game while Germany scored three times making them the winner by three to two. There were a lot of politics tied to this game as well. It was the second World Cup following the war. The first one was held in Europe since the war. It was held in Switzerland because they were neutral during the war and mostly unaffected. It involved a newly formed and weak German team.
The Winning German team was famously wearing ADIDAS shoes.
They called it “dassler boot” , with all its features that make it superior to the traditional boot.
You can imagine how being attached to such a big event like this could help the brand. The success with Jesse Owens was linked to the old brand before all the changes. So this helped bring the new brand into the mind of the public. It was where many people first saw their signature stripes and learn the name ADIDAS.
The third thing that I’d like to highlight may not be as significant as the first two but it’s worth mentioning Run DMC, it’s a really popular rap group from the 1980s. They were pioneers in the genre. They had a song called my adidas.
It was one of their most popular songs. They sang about how they wore adidas and they were known for wearing adidas.
Unlike the first two contributors to their success, this one started independent from adidas meaning Run DMC wasn’t approached by them to create the song or anything like that.
They made it on their own. The story goes that they invited an Adidas executive to one of their concerts and before they sang their song, they asked the crowd to raise their Adidas sneakers in the air and thousands of people did it showing the executive how influential they were.
It motivated them to sign Run DMC to an Endorsement deal which is said to be the first-ever endorsement deal in rap.
Here we have a popular rap group singing about them and wearing them not just the shoes a head to toe adidas and they were obviously influencing their fans to buy them or at the very least familiarizing them with the brand.
All three of these contributors have something in common. It was someone famous and influential wearing their shoes which is a very common practice for companies like these.
ADIDAS continues to be reliant on their marketing and continues to be aggressive with this type of marketing a few years ago they had a big campaign labelled “Impossible Is Nothing” involving David Beckham and Muhammad Ali .
Today they have some of the top athletes in each sport signed to endorsement deals.
For soccer, they have Lionel Messi. For Basketball, they have James Harden. For Football, they have Aaron Rodgers. For baseball ,they have Kris Bryant.
Almost half of their marketing budget every year goes to paying all these players from different sports to wear and endorse their shoes.
Today, ADIDAS is the largest sportswear manufacturer in whole Europe and the second largest in the world with nearly 20 billion Euros in annual revenue!!
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