The Story of Adidas

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In 1920, German-born Adolf Dassler (A.K.A Adi) started making sports shoes in his mother's kitchen

Adi's vision was simple:

- Produce the best shoe for the requirements of the job,
- Protect the athlete from an injury &
- Ensure the product lasted

Four years later,
In 1924, His brother Rudolf joined him

Rudolf handled Sales & marketing
Adi designed and created shoes

The same year they registered the company as
“Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory”

A handful of employees had joined and they were producing 50 pairs of shoes per day

In 1925, Adi obtained his first patent:

1. A Running shoe &
2. A Football boot.

Interest picked up through word-of-mouth and

by the mid-1930s Adi was making 30 different pairs of shoes for 11 types of sport,

and employing almost 100 people

[...]

1936 Olympics was held in Adi's home country

Dassler shoes were worn by most of the German athletes and realized

"The athletes are the best advertisement"

Adi started endorsing top celebrated athletes

“Adi became the first entrepreneur to use sports promotion to raise awareness”

Adi took a risk and persuaded US sprinter Jesse Owens to try Dassler shoes

The gamble paid off when Owens won 4 Olympic gold medals

Next 3 years, around 600,000 shoes were sold

Just when things were going great

WW2 happened :(

The Factory was seized by the military

Rudolf and employees were enrolled in the army

Adi remained and manufactured products for the army
The factory was seized by the military

After the war,

Adi regrouped under 50 people and started making sports shoes again.

He made shoes with the materials leftover from the war (Army tents, Canvas, Rubber from US fuel tanks)

He never gave up :)

As the business developed the brothers grew apart

Eventually, in 1948, They split.

Rudolf took half of the co's shoemaking machines and started another shoe biz across the river

Here comes the shocker

“The company eventually became Puma,

one of Adidas' biggest rivals.”

In 1949, the term Adidas was coined

Adi (Adolf) + Das (Dassler)

All my life I thought it was:

A.D.I.D.A.S - “All Day I Dream About Sports”
But anyway

A new logo was designed (Iconic three stripes)

Also, Adi decided to focus on football shoes and produced his first shoes with moulded rubbers studs.

Adidas and Puma both went heavy on endorsements

In 1954, Adidas kinda won the battle when the entire German national football team wore Adidas during the world cup

The shoes with screw-in studs (A new feature)

[...]

West Germany won against Hungary

Final was played on a Wet & rainy day (The screw-in studs helped them win the match)

Adi was featured in newspapers with the team = World attention = 450,000 shoes sold that year

The Olympic Games 1960 (Rome)

75% of all track and field athletes were wearing Adidas shoes

"Fight of the Century (1971)"

Both Muhammed Ali & Joe Frazier wore Adidas
(Designed by Adi himself)

Now the downfall starts

Adi died in 1978 & Rudolf fours years earlier (The brothers never worked out their differences)

The year Adi died, 45 Million shoes were sold.

His wife (Kathe) continued to run the business

She passed away six years later.

His son, Horst took control in 1985

He had big plans for a global restructure but he died 3 years later too

Without a leader, Adidas was heading towards an uncertain future.

Adi's four daughters kept fighting, causing Adidas to lose direction & market share

In 1989, the daughters sold the business for $512M
(Real value was around $1B)

Adidas was sold to French Businessman Bernard Tapie

[...]

He did a few changes but was unable to revive Adidas.

In 1992, Adidas was near bankruptcy with just 3% of the market share

French bank Credit Lyonnais found a new buyer

Robert Louis Dreyfus (Harvard graduate) took over in 1993

Dreyfus wasted no time

- Targeted young market
- Outsourced production (to cut costs)
- Fired senior mgmt
- Invested heavily in marketing
&
- Acquisitions (Comeback plan)

Dreyfus bought Sports Inc, Hired two former Nike executives and got in retros which became an instant hit

They even got Run DMC to write a rap song "My Adidas" in 1996

By the 50th Anniversary in 1999

Adidas did $5 Billion in sales with nearly 13,000 employees

That's crazy right.
Almost bankrupt in '93 & $5B in sales by '99

Current Adidas is producing over 448M pair of shoes every year and over $32B in sales

Damn this was a big thread

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I'll be writing 5 threads this week and this is my 3rd

Much love,
Prado

Thread one of the week https://twitter.com/pradologue/status/1328336620588658689?s=20

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