Inspiring Success Story of Adidas - Youth Motivator (2024)

Adidas is a world-renowned sportswear company, well-known for its sportswear and sneakers.

It is the world’s second biggest sports brand only after Nike.

Adidas and Puma brands are the biggest competitors in the sports industry but the founders of these well-known companies were actually brothers.

Adolf Dassler was the founder of Adidas.

Whereas Puma was founded by Rudolf Dassler, the elder brother of Adolf Dassler.

In order to completely know the success story of Adidas, you should also know the story of Adolf Dassler.

The story of Adolf Dassler is very inspiring, even though he was a poor cobbler, he worked hard to build Adidas into a billion dollar sportswear manufacturer.

So read on to get inspired.

Introduction-

Adolf“Adi” Dassler was born on 3 November 1900 inHerzogenaurach, German Empire into a poor family.

His father, Christoph Dassler was a shoemaker whereas his mother, Algirdas ran a laundry service.

Theyalso sold homemade slippers to supplement their income.

Adolf Dassler completed his formal education in 1913.

Hefollowed his father’s footsteps to become a shoemaker.

By 1922, Herzogenaurach town became the hotspot for shoemakers, as many of the town’s textile mills had been converted into shoe workshops.

Duringthat time, there were 112 shoemakers for just 3500 residents of thetown.

Struggles-

World War I had a severe impact on the economy and made the lives of the cobblers difficult.

Dueto severe poverty, Adolf Dassler could not afford a decent workingarea, so he produced shoes in the back of his mother’s laundry.

Duringthose times, the supply of the electricity was very undependable, sohe often used to power his machines by connecting them with astationary bike.

AdolfDassler used to generate electricity by pedalling the stationarybike.

And he used to scavenge the debris of the military equipment employed in the war in the hope of finding materials which can be used for shoe making.

AdolfDassler used to repurpose anything he could find which includedmilitary uniforms, helmets, automobile tyres, parachutes, etc.

Sportive spirit-

AdolfDassler always longed to make sport shoes as he himself was a ferventsports fan.

So,he always experimented with the shoes he made in hope of makingbetter sports shoes.

Hedid many experiments; one of them was adding metal spikes to theshoes.

InJuly 1924, his elder brother, Rudolf Dassler joined the business.

Rudolf Dasslerwas two years elder to Adolf Dassler and possessed good workexperience as he previously worked in a porcelain factory and in aleather enterprise in Nuremberg, Germany.

AdolfDassler and Rudolf Dassler joined hands to start a new company, byname Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory (Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik).

Complementing each other-

Thesetwo brothers complemented each other as Adolf Dassler was anexcellent shoemaker and a quiet craftsman whereas Rudolf Dassler wasan excellent marketer, salesman and an extrovert.

Theirbusiness bloomed as they were the perfect partners with Adolf Dasslerhandling the production part and Rudolf Dassler handling themarketing part.

Eventually,their sports shoes became quite popular.

In 1926, they moved out of their mother’s laundry as they were in a position to afford a dedicated workshop to make the shoes.

Theirfather, Christoph Dassler also joined them and they employed a dozenpeople in their new factory.

Inthis factory, they were able to produce a hundred pairs of shoes perday.

Association with sports-

As their company grew in size, Adolf Dassler decided to expand the business outside Bavaria.

So, he travelled to almost all the major sporting events and persuaded many athletes to try the shoes.

Thanksto his efforts, in the 1928 Olympics held in Amsterdam, many topGerman athletes sported the shoes of the Dassler Brothers ShoeFactory.

AdolfDassler later decided to sponsor a top most athlete in the 1936Olympics held in Berlin, Nazi Germany.

Heselected the best shoes and went to the Olympic Village in Berlin andconvinced U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens to wear the shoes of the DasslerBrothers Shoe Factory.

Luckily,Jesse Owens agreed with Adolf Dassler and wore the shoes in theOlympic events.

Atthat time, he was probably the fastest man on the planet.

Thiswas a legendary move as Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the trackevents in that Olympics and broke many records.

Thefame of the company sky-rocketed and the company got internationalexposure because of his success.

Afterthis success, their shoes were known to be the shoes which JesseOwens wore to break many records in the Berlin Olympics.

Risky move-

This was a very risky marketing move as during that time, Germany was ruled by Adolf Hitler.

AdolfHitler wanted to prove the supremacy of the Aryan race through theBerlin Olympics.

Butwhen Jesse Owens won many medals, his plan got ruined.

Luckily, the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory, a small business operating in Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler, escaped his attention, even as they provided shoes to Jesse Owens which was thought to have helped him to win the races thus ruining Hitler’s plan.

In 1930, both Adolf Dassler and Rudolf Dassler joined the Nazi party.

World War II-

World War II erupted on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

Andby December 1943, Germany was losing the war.

So,Germany needed more weapons to sustain the war.

Asa result, the German government repurposed many factories in thecountry to manufacture weapons.

So,the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory was re-modeled to manufactureweapons for Nazi.

Thisfactory made anti-tank weapons and panzershreks.

In April of 1945, the American troops started to invade the Herzogenaurach village.

Initially, the American soldiers decided to destroy the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory because they thought that the factory was producing weapons.

Fortunately, Adolf Dassler’s wife, Käthe Dassler convinced the soldiers that they only make sports shoes.

International clients-

Afterknowing the association of Jesse Owens, an American athlete with theDassler Brothers Shoe Factory, the Americans were glad to becometheir clients.

So,the American stations established near the town became theinternational clients for the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory.

World War II-

Even as this company was able to survive World War II, the German economy was badly hit.

So,to survive, the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory initiated manycost-cutting strategies like scavenging the old war materials, etc.

Andsometimes, due to lack of funds they were unable to pay theirworkers, so they provided them barter with items like yarn andfirewood.

How Puma was born?

Duringthese difficult times, the brothers parted from each other because ofsome quarrels between their families.

And eventually, in 1948, Rudolf “Rudi” Dassler left the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory.

He took a large portion of the workers with him and started a new company, by the name, Ruda.

RudolfDassler took the first two letters from his name, Rudolf and Dasslerand named his company as Ruda.

Later,he realised that the name Ruda was not so athletic, so he changed itto Puma.

RudolfDassler vowed to never speak to Adolf Dassler again in his life.

Slowly,the people of Herzogenaurach took sides with the brothers as most ofthe town’s citizens were employed by one of the Dassler brothers.

Theworkers of one company hated to socialise with the workers of theother company.

Andthe people of the town remained separated for 60 long years.

The town of bent necks-

Herzogenaurachtown was known as the town of bent necks, as the people used to bendtheir necks to see what shoes the other person was wearing and thendecide whether to greet them or to ignore them.

Asthese two companies were located on the opposite sides of the AurachRiver, their admirers became very territorial.

Also, Adolf Dassler and Rudolf Dassler sued each other many times on various trademark and design issues.

Fighting spirit-

The rivalry between these brothers provided them with the fighting spirit by which they were able to become one of the best players in their fields.

Adolf Dassler renamed the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory to Adidas by combining the first two letters of his name, Adolf with the first three letters of the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory and added a letter-i in between them.

Andthe three stripes became the logo of Adidas.

Somepeople believe that Adidas stands for All Day I Dream About Sports(or Soccer) but this is completely incorrect.

Adidasfocused heavily on the sponsorships and technical innovations, bywhich it designed specific shoes to a wide variety of athletes.

AdolfDassler also provided the best shoes of the Adidas to variouschampion athletes and Olympians.

Moving forward-

In 1954, the World Cup final match was also known as the miracle of Bern.

This World Cup was the second World Cup to be held after World War II, the first World Cup after the war was held in Europe.

ThisWorld Cup was held in Bern, Switzerland, as Switzerland stayedneutral during the war and also this country was mostly unaffected bythe war.

Duringthe finals, the very substantial Hungarian team fought with theunderdogs, the West German team.

Many thought that Hungary would definitely win the match, as they scored two goals during the initial phase of the match.

Butthey did not score any goals for the rest of the match.

The match took an unexpected turn, when the German team scored three goals and thus won the match.

So,the newly formed frail German team won the match against the muchstronger Hungary team 3-2.

This German team wore Adidas shoes, also called the Dassler boots.

Itwas believed that these superior boots facilitated the German team toscore victory.

Adidas became very famous because it got associated with the victory of Germany in the World Cup.

Thevictory of Jesse Owens popularised the old Dassler Brothers ShoeFactory, whereas this World Cup victory popularised the new Adidasshoe company and many people noticed the signature three stripes ofthe Adidas.

Rapport with rappers-

Inthe 1980s, Run-DMC was a very popular American hip-hop (rap) group.

Theywere the first ones in the genre to have an album certified gold andthey were also nominated for a Grammy Award.

Theirsong, My Adidas became very popular and in that song they mentionedthat they loved the Adidas brand and they wore the Adidas from thehead to toe.

Asa result, the fans of Run-DMC were motivated to buy the Adidas goods.

Unlike,in the case of Jesse Owens and the German football team, this rapgroup was not contracted by Adidas to market their products but theyindependently marketed the Adidas brand.

Once, the Run-DMC team invited an Adidas executive to one of their concerts and before singing, the team requested the people to raise their Adidas shoes in the air.

TheAdidas executive was very impressed as he saw thousands of Adidasshoes and as a result Adidas signed a $1,600,000 endorsem*nt dealwith the Run-DMC and this became the first ever endorsem*nt deal inthe rap.

Effective marketing-

The marketing strategy of Adidas paid off very well as this brand was associated with the successful athletes and rappers.

Theother notable marketing campaign run by Adidas is Impossible IsNothing.

Footballicon David Beckham and boxing legend Muhammad Ali were involved inthis campaign.

Now,Adidas has endorsem*nt deals with numerous top athletes in thepopular sports like in soccer they have Lionel Messi, in basketballthey have James Harden and in baseball they have Kris Bryant.

Adidasspends almost half of their marketing budget on the athletes toendorse their products by wearing them.

Theyentered the U.S. market in the 1950s.

Initially, Adidas was known to be involved with professional sports but they eventually succeeded to become a part of the every day’s lives of the people.

Theynever reconciled-

Eventhough the Puma was doing great, the brothers never got together.

Adolf Dassler died on 6 December 1978 and after his death, Adidas lost its market share in North America to other companies like Nike and Reebok.

RudolfDassler passed away on 27 October 1974.

Even their death failed to cement their ties and they were buried on the opposite sites of the Herzogenaurach cemetery.

In 2006, a sculpture of Adolf Dassler was unveiled in Herzogenaurach.

In 1989, Adidas went bankrupt after they lost nearly 80 million dollars.

BernardTapie, a French industrialist brought Adidas for ₣1.6 billion andhe shifted the production to Asia.

Eventually,Adidas re-captured the market share in America in the late 1990sdespite facing stiff competition from Nike, Reebok and Puma.

Acquiring Reebok-

Adidas never looked back again from that time and in 2006; they also acquired Reebok for 3.8 billion dollars.

Anotherreason for the success of Adidas can be attributed to its tendency tobe up-to-date with the latest trends.

In August 2015, Adidas acquired Runtastic for approximately $240 million as it realised the growing importance of technology in the sports field.

Runtasticis an Austrian mobile fitness company which combines the power oftechnology with the sports.

So,despite facing countless challenges on its way Adidas became one ofthe most successful companies in the world.

Now, Adidas is much bigger than Puma, as Adidas employs over 59,000 people whereas Puma employs over 18,000 people.

According to Forbes, in 2020, Adidas is the world’s 51st most valuable brand with a brand value of a whopping $12.9 B.

Whereas the brand value of Puma is $4 B.

Rivalry ends-

Therelations between Adidas and Puma greatly improved when on 21September 2009, a friendly football match was arranged between theemployees of the two factories.

Thismatch healed the decades of enmity between the two brands.

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