- 75 years of Adidas: How three straps became an icon
When US showman Noah Lyles ran to Olympic gold on August 4 in Paris, becoming the fastest man in the world, celebrations also rang out in a small town near Nuremberg. For the first time since 1996, an athlete wearing shoes with three stripes had won the Olympic 100-meter final. And this happened in the very year that the Franken sportswear giant is celebrating its 75th anniversary.
On August 18, 1949, the legendary founder Adolf "Adi" Dassler registered his "Adolf Dassler Sportschuhfabrik" in the commercial register - just a few months after his brother Rudolf ("Puma"), with whom he had separated in a bitter dispute. Together, they had already founded their joint shoe manufactory in 1924 - if it had continued, it would have been 100 years old this year.
As early as 1928, Lina Radke won Olympic gold in Dassler shoes over 800 meters in Amsterdam. Many more were to follow. In Herzogenaurach, they are convinced that it was only the competition in the same place that made the success of the two global players possible.
Adidas took off like a rocket. Today, the company employs 59,000 people on all five continents and generated over 21 billion euros in sales last year. Many coincidences helped. That the three stripes on the side that the trained baker and later shoemaker Dassler gave his shoes for lateral foot stabilization would later become an iconic brand symbol, he probably could not have foreseen.
But it was also the tenacity and diligence of the post-war entrepreneur Dassler that made Adidas big. When the football national team achieved the legendary "Miracle of Bern" in 1954, Dassler himself was sitting in the cabin, checking the fit of the new screw studs that helped Helmut Rahn and Co. to the final victory over the favorites Hungary in "Fritz-Walter weather".
Like no other manufacturer, Adidas has succeeded in creating products that have shaped the spirit of entire generations. Freddie Mercury wore wrestling shoes with three stripes at the legendary Band Aid concert in London. Madonna performed in Adidas boots. Shoes like the "Handball Spezial" or the retro-reborn "Stan Smith" transcended the boundaries of their intended sports.
Smith, who was once the number one tennis player in the 70s and was still personally known to company founder Adi Dassler, is only known to current generations through the eponymous sports shoe. His book is titled "Some People Think I am a Shoe" ("Some people think I am a shoe"). Today, it's shoe models like "Samba" or "Gazelle" that influence fashion far beyond sports.
The current management, led by CEO Bjørn Gulden, who was poached from competitor Puma, benefits from the seemingly inexhaustible Adidas archive. However, the problems of the day-to-day business have become much more complex in the context of globalization and worldwide growth, as they were in the time of company founder Dassler. Recent difficulties include wrong decisions during the Corona pandemic, fluctuating markets, for example in China, or problems with questionable brand ambassadors like rapper Kanye West.
In 2023, Adidas reported a loss for the first time since 1992. In the 1980s, the company was even on the brink of ruin. The founder's widow Käthe Dassler and her son Horst had died in quick succession, and the company was in foreign hands, not always good ones. It was only when the Frenchman Robert Louis-Dreyfus took the company public in 1995 that it began to rise steadily again.
Lastly, even the German Football Association proved to be a disappointment. Despite the national team setting up their Euro base in Herzogenaurach and players like Manuel Neuer celebrating the anniversary with thousands of Adidas employees in June, the DFB succumbed to the allure of US dollars and signed with industry leader Nike as their new supplier, bringing an end to a decades-long partnership.
CEO Gulden, dubbed the "Bolzplatz-CEO" by the "Manager Magazin" for his often casual yet respected style in the sports world, aims to change the strategy of his predecessor Kasper Rorsted based on such experiences. Instead of focusing more on popular sports like football, running, or basketball, the former football pro plans to give more attention to lesser-known sports, including new Olympic trend sports like breaking or BMX.
At the recent Paris Games, Adidas equipped ten Olympic teams, a number they aim to increase in the future. They have signed a contract with the German Olympic Sports Federation until 2032 and have also committed to the German Hockey Federation for the long term.
The success of Adidas in sports clothing and footwear has extended beyond traditional sports, with icons like Freddie Mercury and Madonna wearing their products during iconic performances. The company's retro-reborn "Stan Smith" shoe, named after the former number one tennis player, continues to influence fashion trends beyond sports.
Adidas' strategic focus under the leadership of CEO Bjørn Gulden is shifting towards lesser-known sports and new Olympic trend sports, such as breaking and BMX, in an effort to diversify their brand and expand their customer base.
