Addias Sneakers

Adidas AG, headquartered in Herzogenaurach, is a German sports goods manufacturer with the brands Adidas, Reebok, and TaylorMade. According to Nike, the Group is the second-largest sports article maker in the world. Since 1998, the company has been listed on the DAX.

Story

One day of the 1920s, the Dassler brothers produced sneakers in the old laundry room of their mothers, which were optimally adapted to the athletes' feet. However, there were always differences between the brothers. Rudolf, the accomplished businessman, was the extrovert of the two; Schuhmachermeister Adolf, on the other hand, was more introverted and more talented. 

In 1928, Dassler shoes were used for the first time at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam, in athletics. In the mid-30s, several different sports shoe designs were created for various games. At the Olympic Games in 1936, Jesse Owens won four gold medals in Dassler shoes. 

Adolf and Rudolf Dassler were NSDAP members from 1933 onwards. Toward the end of the Second World War, the Panzerabwehrwehr Panzerschreck was established in their shoe factory, for which French forced laborers were also employed. 

After the war, Adolf Dassler and his brother Rudolf finally split up and went separate ways. Rudolf Dassler founded Puma in 1948, which for a long time was one of the sharpest competitors in sport's shoes. Both herbalist companies produced the entire range of sports shoes for a variety of sports.

Today's Adidas AG was founded on 18 August 1949 by Adolf Dassler.  Name of the company is, made up of Dassler's nickname Adi and the first three letters of his last name. Dassler's football shoes used among other things the German football national team, whose victory at the 1954 World Championships in Switzerland - the so-called Miracle of Bern - finally made the shoes with the innovative screw-ups from the Adidas company world-renowned.

 Adidas also increasingly produced other sporting goods, initially soccer balls, and from 1967, by co-operating with the French clothing brand Le Coq Sportif, sportswear. When Adolf Dassler died in 1978, the company, which was now the world market leader for sports articles, was taken away by his family. Although production has increasingly been shifted to low-wage countries, Adidas came into a financial downturn in the mid-1980s; The family business had to be opened to family-minded investors.

Sales and stock exchanges

On July 7, 1990, the Dassler family sold 80 percent of its shares to French entrepreneur about 470 million DM. In the following year, Tapie sold 20 percent of its shares to the British Pentland Group, which in turn made a takeover bid for Adidas in 1992, withdrew it in the summer of 1992 following auditor reviews, and finally sold back the 20 percent share to Tapie at the end of 1992. After the insolvency of Tapies, the shares were held by his bank, the Crédit Lyonnais, and subsequently sold to the French entrepreneur Robert Louis-Dreyfus in 1994. After the company first had acted as Adidas International Holding GmbH, it was renamed Adidas AG in 1993 and converted into a stock corporation. In 1995 the Adidas shares were placed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. On March 18, 1996, Adidas was included in the MDAX and on June 19, 1998.  

In 1997 Adidas took over the French sporting goods manufacturer Salomon for 2.4 billion DM, from then on called Adidas-Salomon. The merger with the company, which is primarily focussed on winter sports, should increase the range of the product line, but the acquisition proved to be a loss-making business. Salomon was repelled in 2005 for 485 million euros at Amer Sports. Subsequently, Adidas took over Reebok, the number three in the sporting goods sector, for 3.1 billion euros.

Reebok takeover

With the sale plans of Salomon, the merger with the competitor Reebok was accompanied, with the goal to get closer to the world market leader Nike. On January 31, 2006, the acquisition of Reebok International Ltd. completed. Reebok shareholders received $ 59 per share. Herbert Hainer continued to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the new Adidas Group, while Paul Fireman, from his position as CEO of Reebok International Ltd., And now works as Hainer's consultant. 

In contrast to Reebok, Adidas did not have a significant market share in the US shoe business. In Europe, the relationship between the market positions of both manufacturers is reversed. There Reebok is in a weaker market position. With the merger, Adidas intends to gain market share in the shoe business and strengthen its position against the world market leader Nike, which posted sales of 11.6 billion euros in 2005. In November 2006, Adidas had to correct its earnings forecast for the coming year, since Reebok needed additional money. 

In the interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Herbert Hainer admitted at the end of December that Reebok is a rehabilitation project. In  2007, the company expected a further decline in revenues, which should begin to reduced in the second half of this year. From 2009 onwards, cost savings of 175 million euros should then "fully hit on the result." 

In the year-end financial data for 2006 on March 7, 2007, a diffuse picture for Reebok is still visible. The order backlog, an industry-leading indicator of future sales, was consistently in the red with Reebok: 14 percent in the first, 13 percent in the second, 14 percent in the third and 12 percent in the fourth quarter contracted.  

In December 2007, Herbert Hainer told the Reebok acquisition of the club in Munich that "it was harder than expected." Reebok's sales in the first three-quarters of 2007 had declined steadily. The trend reversal was postponed by another year. Reebok is projected to grow again in the second half of 2008. Traders also refer to Hainer's statements on Reebok, which would be "wrongly read." The bought US, daughter, apparently still further problems. "We know that the brand is no longer so popular," Hainer had said. Reebok has focused too much on the music and lifestyle segment and has neglected the sports sector. Moreover, the sales strategy was not right.

Trademark

 The hip-hop group Run-D.M.C. Made the Adidas products its trademark

The well-known brand is the three stripes and the three-leaf (Trefoil / Three-Leaf) logo symbolizing the Olympic spirit that connects the three continental panels. At the beginning of the 1990s, the singer Madonna and later also athletes such as David Beckham or Jelena Issinbayev helped the three stripes become a success mark. Even before the band Run-D.M.C. In 1986 with My Adidas a musical monument set in the rape scene very favorite model superstar. The rock group Korn, who appeared in the first years of her career in Adidas suits, had the song "Adidas" released. Previous models, such as the tennis shoe Stan Smith, were reissued as Adidas Originals.

The brand - the stripes

For the 1974 World Cup, the national football association of the Netherlands KNVB had signed an agreement with Adidas. The national team played in orange jerseys, on the sleeves the three stripes, the label of Adidas. However, Johan Cruyff, the captain, and star of the team had an exclusive contract with the rival Puma at the time. Puma equipped him with Puma King Boots. Cruyff refused to play in an Adidas outfit. Subsequently, Adidas commissioned Erica to produce a custom-made Dutch jersey. This version only decorated two strips. Cruyff's team-mates, the Kerkhof twins, who had also signed a contract with Puma, joined Cruyff's idea. Thus the jersey with the two stripes at the world championships 1974 and 1978 was worn.

Adidas nowadays deals with the two lines in different ways: in recent years, Adidas sued some companies in Europe to ban them from making clothes with two strips as a design element. The reason for this was that the similarity to the Adidas trademark would lead to confusion. Larger brands hit their pieces to the last resort - with success. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg rejected an action brought by Adidas against the Dutch company Fitnessworld Trading in October 2003. In 2000, Adidas had already lost a similar litigation against Marca Mode before the ECJ. The judges in both cases said: There is no risk of confusion. In Europe, the strips are free - as long as they are not three.

Known models

Adidas Rome from the year 1970

At the 1970s and 1980s, there were various shoemaking models, which at that time had cult status. Here are the linen shoes Nice and Adriatic, the white leather shoe Rome with the blue stripes. Later (circa 1984) followed the cloth boot Spirit, which was already the time of pastel colors. From 1985 the models Lucy, Twister, Jolly and Sweety came on the market, which was likewise available in various pastel colors and a today hardly any well-known spread achieved. They were not yet as sophisticated as today's sports shoes, but they were extremely light and comfortable, so they were so popular with the fashionable colors. Standard colors were, among other things, light yellow, light blue, delicate pink and white. By the end of the pastel era, the shoes disappeared from 1987 onwards from the streets and from the sports halls. Today, the shoes of this era are almost no longer applicable, and even in the course of the Retrowelle, it was not yet a re-issue of these models.

  

Adidas store in Tokyo

 Breathe & Stop Tour, Bangkok 2011

Other well-known models from the 1980s are Allround, Attitude, Country, Ewing, Gazelle, Grand Prix, Handball Special, Jeans, Samba, Titan, Trophy, and Vienna.

 Emblem and Olympic Games

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided that Adidas should not be able to present its stripes more clearly than the competition's logos in a dispute over the size of the manufacturer's logo when it was placed on Olympic athletes' clothing. Only 20 squares are allowed on the sportswear.

Popular Adidas sports pants of the 1970s

The competitors Nike and Puma, along with the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry, complained that the Adidas logo was more eye-catching. Adidas explained that the strip was not a trademark, but a design element. For the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Adidas was granted an exception.

The IOC justified its decision by avoiding an excess of company advertising on the sportswear, and that all manufacturers should be treated equally. However, despite the incidents, Adidas continued to remain loyal to its "tradition as an Olympic brand."

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