Adidas

Adidas is a German sports apparel manufacturer, part of the Adidas Group. The company was named after its founder, Adolf (Adi) Dassler, who started producing shoes in the 1920s in Herzogenaurach near Nuremberg with the help of his brother Rudolf Dassler who later formed rival shoe company PUMA AG. It registered as Adidas AG on 18 August 1949 (with lower-case lettering: "adidas"). The company's clothing and shoe designs typically include three parallel stripes of the same color, and the same motif is incorporated into Adidas' official logos.

Adidas perfumery and personal care products are manufactured by Coty, Inc. under license worldwide.

Corporate history

The Tapie affair

The history of the company as presented by its official web site is incomplete, perhaps because it is indirectly linked to financial scandals.

After a period of serious trouble following the death of Adolf Dassler's son Horst Dassler in 1987, the company was bought in 1990 by Bernard Tapie, for 1.6 billion French francs (now €243.918 million), which Tapie borrowed. Tapie was at the time a famous specialist of rescuing bankrupt companies, a business on which he built his fortune.

Tapie decided to move production offshore to Asia. He also hired Madonna for promotion. In 1992, Tapie was unable to pay the interest from his loan. He mandated the Crédit Lyonnais bank to sell Adidas, and the bank subsequently converted the outstanding debt owed into equity of the enterprise, which was unusual for then-current French banking practice. Apparently, the state-owned bank had tried to get Tapie out of dire financial straits as a personal favour to Tapie, reportedly because Tapie was a minister of Urban Affairs (ministre de la Ville) in the French government at the time.

In February 1993, Crédit Lyonnais sold Adidas to Robert Louis-Dreyfus, a friend of Bernard Tapie (and cousin of Julia Louis-Dreyfus from the Seinfeld TV series), for a much higher amount of money than what Tapie owed, 4.485 billion (€683.514 million) francs rather than 2.85 billion (€434.479 million). Tapie later sued the bank, because he felt spoiled by the indirect sale.

Robert Louis-Dreyfus became the new CEO of the company. He is also the president of the Olympique de Marseille football team, to which Tapie is closely linked.

Tapie went bankrupt himself in 1994. He was the object of several lawsuits, notably related to match fixing at the football club. He spent 6 months in La Santé prison in Paris in 1997 after being sentenced to 18.

In 2005, French courts awarded Tapie a €135 million compensation (about 886 million francs).

Post-Tapie era

In 1997, Adidas AG acquired the Salomon Group, and its corporate name was changed to Adidas-Salomon AG.

In 1998, Adidas sued the NCAA over their rules limiting the size and number of commercial logos on team uniforms and apparel. Adidas withdrew the suit, and the two groups established guidelines as to what three-stripe designs would be considered uses of the Adidas trademark. ^*

In 2003, Adidas filed a lawsuit in British court challenging Fitness World Trading's use of a two-stripe motif similar to Adidas's three stripes. The court ruled that despite the simplicity of the mark, Fitness World's use was infringing because the public could establish a link between that use and Adidas's mark. [http://www.davenportlyons.com/www/legal_services/ip/articles/adidas.htm

In 2005, Adidas introduced the Adidas 1, the first ever production shoe to utilize a microprocessor. Dubbed by the company "The World's First Intelligent Shoe" it features a microprocessor capable of performing 5 million calculations per second that automatically adjusts the shoe's level of cushioning to suit its environment. The shoe requires a small, user replaceable battery that lasts for approximately 100 hours of running. It currently retails for $250 (USD). The latest edition Adidas 1.1 has been selling since November 2005. This is considered an upgrade of the version 1, claiming to be better, faster and stronger.

Also in 2005, on May 3, Adidas told the public that they sold their partner company Salomon Group for 485 mn Euros to Amer Sports of Finland.

In August 2005, Adidas declared its intention to buy Anglo-American rival Reebok for $ 3.8 billion (US). This takeover was completed in August 2005 and meant that the company will have business sales closer to those of Nike in North America. The acquisition of Reebok will also allow Adidas to compete with Nike worldwide as the number two athletic shoemaker in the world. ^*

On April 11 2006, Adidas announced an 11-year deal to become the official NBA apparel provider. They will make NBA, NBDL, and WNBA jerseys and products as well as team-colored versions of the "Superstar" basketball shoe. This deal (worth over $400 million) takes the place of the previous 10-year Reebok deal that was put in place in 2001. When Reebok was acquired by Adidas, the NBA was allowed to find a new apparel provider, which would turn out to be Adidas.

Criticisms

In April 2006, Adidas came under fire from Asian groups for releasing a limited edition Y1-HUF shoe that contained a typical early 1900s Asian caricature. Adidas responded by labeling the criticisms as a misinterpretation, and declined to pull the line of shoes. The artist, Barry McGee, is half Chinese and had drawn the caricature intending it as a younger self portrait. McGee thought it would be cool to have a picture of himself on a shoe.

World Cup 1954

When West Germany won the 1954 World Cup, their footwear was supplied by Adidas. These shoes introduced a technological breakthrough: studs with screws. When the weather was good and the pitch was hard, the shoes were equipped with short studs; when it rained, longer studs were screwed on the bottom of the shoes. As the final game against the highly-favoured team from Hungary was played in heavy rain, this gave the German players a firmer hold on the slippery pitch.

This anecdote was a plot device used in the successful German film, The Miracle of Bern, which was a movie version of the 1954 World Cup.

Official World Cup supplier

Since the 1970 FIFA World Cup with the football Telstar, Adidas has been the FIFA official match ball supplier for every FIFA World Cup and designs the official match ball for every edition of the event.

Tournament	Name of the match ball design
1970 and 1974	Telstar Durlast
1978	Tango
1982	Tango España
1986	Azteca México (aztec)
1990	Etrusco Unico (etruscan)
1994	Questra
1998	Tricolore
2002	Fevernova
2006	Teamgeist

Partnerships with football federations

Adidas holds the rights as Official Partner, Supplier and Licensee for the FIFA World Cup™ in 2006, 2010 and 2014. Adidas has partnerships with football federations such as Germany, the host of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, South Africa, the host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™, European Champions Greece, Asian Champions Japan, Olympic Champions Argentina, China, Denmark, France, Nigeria, Spain, and many others.

Former management

CEO (1993-2001): Robert Louis-Dreyfus.

"Impossible is nothing"

"Impossible is nothing" is the current mainstream marketing slogan for Adidas.

TV Commercial

Adidas' worldwide line of commercials showcase events that are truly impossible, such as José + 10 with two boys in a rundown lot gathering many world football stars to play a pick-up game. These stars include present players like Steven Gerrard, Djibril Cissé, Kaká, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Jermain Defoe, Oliver Kahn, Frank Lampard, Arjen Robben, Michael Ballack, Alessandro Nesta, Raúl, and Juan Román Riquelme. They also include past stars Franz Beckenbauer, Zico and Michel Platini. ^* However the commercials do not only focus on football: for example, another TV ad featured long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie.

Name

There is a false assumption that ADIDAS means "All Day I Dream About Sports (or Soccer)"

Popular culture

The nu metal band KoRn released a song by the name of "A.D.I.D.A.S." in 1998 which stands for " All Day I Dream About Sex"
The hip hop group Run DMC released a song entitled "My adidas" on their 1986 album Raising Hell
Rapper Killer Mike released a song entitled "A.D.I.D.A.S" (featuring Big Boi & Sleepy Brown) on his debut album Monster released March 11 2003 on Sony Records

External links

Articles

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Adidas