INTRODUCTION

Adidas is a German multinational company and is one of the largest sportswear

manufacturers in the entire world. According to their official website, Adidas was founded in
1949 by Adolf Dassler, an avid soccer player of his time, who initially only made sports
shoes in his mother’s laundry room. However, today, Adidas has turned into household name
known and loved by many across the world. The key product categories under Adidas are
mainly for the sports; soccer, basketball, track and field, workout gear, and mainly any other
outdoor activities. Adidas is said to work with around 800 independent factories from around
the world that manufacture products in more than 55 countries.

HISTORY

The history of Adidas is one of consistently meeting the evolving needs of the athlete.
Focusing more on function and less on fashion, Adidas strives to provide atheletes with shoes
that can make a noticeable difference in their performance. Meeting athletes need is what
makes Adidas the best. Adidas was founded in early 1920s as Gebruder Dassler Schuhfabrik,
in Herzogenaurach in Germany. Adolf Dassler designed a pair of sports shoes in 1925 and
few years later he and his brother Rudolph were selling special shoes for tennis player and
began design specific shoes for different sports. The family company split in 1948. After the
split, Adolf Dassler founded Adidas and his brother Rudolph founded puma. The three-stripe
logo was designed in 1941 by Adi Dassler and he registered it as a trademark for Adidas after
the split. The strength of Adidas was its product innovation. Adi Dassler registered more than
700 patents. Adidas began selling its shoes in the United states after 1968 and in few years
the company dominated the American Market. The most important marketing breakthrough
was the active promotion of the Global sporting events, especially for Olympics. The
connection of Adidas to the Olympics has a rich Heritage. At the 1972, Olympic game in
Munich, every official wore Adidas. Adidas has 107 subsidiaries in 20 countries, and exports
to 160 countries.

ADIDAS AND THEIR CONSUMERS

Adidas customers are mainly comprised of upper class and upper-midle class social groups.
More specifically, they target young adults and children who have a keen interest and passion
for fitness and sports. However, Adidas acknowledges the fact that in order to be successful
across various customer segments, they need to go above and beyond the act of mass
production and mass marketing. To do this, they aim to identify and understand individuals
consumer motivations and goals related to sports, consumer lifestyle and fitness, and a
consumer involvement in Adidas as a brand which can help them create meaningful products
and experiences for their consumers that can build a lasting impression and in return create
brand loyalty.

Adidas aims to fulfil a consumer’s product specific goal in which the purchase of their
product can help the consumer see themselves as a better athlete capable to do anything and
in turn improve their self image. Consumers might be interested in how the quality of the
products by Adidas differs from its competitors, how much they cost and how much risk is
entailed depending on the purchase. To please these kind of customers, Adidas creates
advertisements for high involvement purchaser’s which require cognitive thinking and so
they have a lot of information present regarding functionality and specifications of the
product. However, those who see Adidas as a low involvement product, or purchase the
product solely for its image and prestige rather than functionality follow a more peripheral
route to persuation. Adidas targets these type of consumers mainly through packaging,
celebrity endorsements, and by creating advertisements in which the figure is the attractive
celebrity wearing a pair of Adidas products.

MISSION AND VISION

VISION

To nurture a financially strong, growth oriented group through leadership and innovation and
to widen future options by entering newly emerging industries where the potential seems
enormous. Adidas group continues to seek opportunities where they can leverage their
resources.

MISSION

Mission at action group them mission is to work together, respecting each other, their skills
and knowledge to:-

 Build higher quality of products and services Continually strive to enhance customer
satisfaction. Improve customer retention and loyalty. Gain a competitive advantage
and larger market share.
  Elimination of scrap, waste, defects and errors. To create a great place to work. Be
welcomed in the communities in which they operate.

VALUES

How they accomplish their mission is as important as the mission itself. Fundamental to the
success for the company are these basic values. Teamwork Learning and Innovation Energy
and Passion Employee involvement in process improvement. Integrity and accountability.

OBJECTIVES

Adidas' main objective is to become the best sports brand in the world. The company aims to
be a leader in developing the sports industry, and also set high standards for other similar
companies. Adidas also aims to help athletes perform at their highest level, and make
innovative products modelled on the athlete's needs.

Objectives are extremely important in managing a business because it gives the business a
roadmap of what to do and it unites the staff and workers of the company because everyone
has a common goal. Within Adidas, cooperation is a important factor because products that
are made aren’t created by one person but by many in a team. There are many executives
within Adidas that possibly have their own mindset of what to do.

By implementing objectives within Adidas, different departments of Adidas will be able to

strive for the same goals so there will not be confusion within the company. The growth of
the Adidas Group largely depends on the objectives that they implement because without the
objectives there wouldn‟t be any drive for improvement and everything would always be the
same. Objectives are the drives, unifications and the key to Adidas Group

BRAND VALUE

Brand value and strategy of Adidas as a leading producer of sports apparel. In 2006, Adidas
owned another big brand Reebok for more than 3.5 million dollars. The leading leisure wear,
sports footwear and equipment producer across the globe is currently almost 2748 million
dollars. The company’s brand name is Adidas and it is displayed with a trefoil logo. This
logo, a very popular one, is a signature of Adidas brand. It had been launched in 1972.The
new Adidas logo, three stripes running across its several products, was introduced in 1991. In
2006, Adidas acquired the Reebok brand for 3.8 million dollars. In 2007, Adidas repositioned
its Reebok brand to attract the consumers of athletics apparel. Moreover, the company
adopted several plans to expand its brand name. Adidas has given lot of emphasis on
advertising. The strong brand management has successfully branded the company over the
world. Adidas has introduced several market campaigning ideas, for example, the "Run Easy"
campaign for the Reebok brand. After acquisition, the main challenge was to avoid the
competition between the past two rival brands, Reebok, the producer of athletics sneaker, and
Adidas. But Reeboks brand managers have not only successfully done that but also they
increased the brand value of both Reebok and Adidas.