Famous Sports Brand Adidas World Cup Suspense

In 1998, the French team, adidas soccer shoes, climbed the world championship.

In 2006, will the German team, which also wears Adidas football shoes, win this world-famous Hercules Cup? It is still a suspense.

For Adidas, there is only one suspense: whether to surpass Nike through the World Cup and regain the title of the first manufacturer of sporting goods.

On July 6, 2000, when FIFA President Blatter announced at Zurich's FIFA headquarters that Germany defeated South Africa with 12 votes to 11 votes to win the right to host the 2006 World Cup, the cheers of the capers rang out loudly over Germany. And the aroma of beer seems to be overflowing in the air...

Now, six years have passed, and it is only less than two months since the opening on June 9th. In the streets of Germany, the flags of the World Cup can be seen in almost every corner of the country, while the whole country is divided up and down from Germany. To the market, Xiaomin enthusiastically looked forward to this grand event that allegedly brought about a 0.6% growth for the German economy.

Although economists poured cold water on Germany at an exaggerated rate of 0.6%, at this time, a German named Herbert Hainer did not calm down. Adidas chairman and CEO, he seems to have seen the 2006 World Cup is forging the wealth of the Adidas Kingdom.

Earn 1 billion euros!

Adidas is now the second child in the sporting goods industry. Once a former boss, it was more than two decades ago. Since the late 1970s, American Nike has been at the top of the industry.

On August 3, 2005, Adidas, a German brand, acquired all the shares of Reebok Corporation of the United States for 3.1 billion euros. This acquisition is known as the “challengge of the oldest second-chance merger”. It is also this merger that will expand Adidas' annual turnover to 9 billion euros, and the gap with Nike is only about 1 billion euros, and its share in the global sports goods market will reach 20%, keeping up with Nike 34% of the share.

Going beyond Nike is Adidas's goal all the time, but when Nike took a leading position in most sporting goods, Heiner put his treasure on a small "football" because Adidas was able to raise his breath in this area: In Europe or the United States, Adidas’s football supplies market share is greater than Nike (Adidas 36% in Europe, Nike 32%; Adidas in the US market 48%, Nike 32%).

Adidas relied on football instead of inheriting traditions. It would be better to see this vast business opportunity. In the whole world, the number of viewers watching the World Cup football matches through television and cable network is as high as 28 billion people, which is much higher than that of the Olympic Games and the American Super Bowl football game. When Heiner said "occupy the World Cup", everything is so natural.

Even though the acquisition of Reebok and the previous expenditure for the World Cup event caused Adidas to lose 4 million euros in the fourth quarter of last year, its total sales revenue for the whole year reached 6.6 billion euros, up 13% from the previous year; Profits reached 700 million euros, an increase of 21% over the previous year. After seeing such success, it is no wonder that Heiner will be happy: "The 2006 World Cup, Adidas is expected to set a record in annual revenue for the sixth consecutive year, achieving double-digit growth." Among them, products related to football will be Adidas has brought in billions of euros in cash.

“The sales of World Cup products are even better than we originally expected, and we are sure to be able to complete our sales goals. We plan to sell more than 10 million footballs, 500,000 German national team uniforms and more than 1.5 million adidas brands. Football shirt."

Then we might as well guess: If Adidas can really make this 1 billion euros successful, if Nike stands still, then the gap between these two giants will be very small, and the competitive situation in the sports goods market may also be completely rewritten. if……

Football is round

Adidas is very high on the game of "football" and Nike does not intend to give in to this. Nike president Charlie Denson put it out: "Our goal is to become the world's number one football brand."

Perhaps this will become a reality because Nike’s history behind the sports shoes market cannot be discounted; however, it may not be a reality. After all, the birthplace and popularity of football is not in the United States. Nike uses basketball, baseball and jogging. The trend of sports in the United States and the trend of dominating the sports shoe market cannot be cloned into football.

The most terrible thing is that Adidas has made up for the time, geographical location, and people of the World Cup. By then, Adidas will not only supply the football game, but also provide equipment for all referees, caddies, staff, volunteers and flag bearers participating in the World Cup. Adidas's LOGO will also appear in the game wear of the national teams of Germany, Argentina, France, Spain, Japan and Trinidad and Tobago. Even well-known players including Beckham and Zidane will use Adidas' equipment.

This is not yet finished. As a supplier and sponsor of the World Cup, Adidas also achieved the goal of squeezing out Nike's World Cup advertisements in the United States, and drove straight into the Nike backyard.

what does this mean? There is no doubt that this World Cup has become Adidas's biggest stage. In order to revitalize their football career, Nike must go ahead with the sword.

Nike turned to cooperate with the most popular search engine, Google, to create Joga.com, the world’s first football fan’s social network. The site has cloned the famous blog site MySpace.com, allowing football enthusiasts to share their favorite players and teams, watch and download video clips, information and advertisements for Nike star athletes. This new site, which includes more than 140 countries in 14 languages, is expected to register millions of registered members. "Everything in football has received great attention from people. There is nothing that can make Joga.com more noticeable."

The purpose of Nike is very clear, is to make Adidas regret, why spend so much money in a simple advertising? And also judging the young people who make up a large part of the Internet users, they will be potential users of Nike products, Nike also understands: To successfully market, you must “grab the baby”.

Although from the current situation, Nike in the World Cup this "big article" by Adidas accounted for a lot of limelight, but after all football is round, who will become the final winner? And just as Adidas competed with Nike, another competitor joined the team. Puma, the German sporting goods company, provided the required sporting goods for the 12 participating World Cup teams, ahead of Nike (8 teams) and Adidas (6 teams).

It seems that in this World Cup, not only is the number of goals scored on the field, but also the success or failure of competing outside the stadium.