1948, Mr. Adi Dassler Dasslerdasier, the founder of Adidas, used his first name Adi and some surname letters to synthesize "Adidas" as a commodity brand and applied for registration; The following year, the third-line trademark of Adidas came out.
Mr. AdiDassler, the founder of Adidas, is a German with athlete status and shoe-making skills. Because he can fully understand the needs of athletes, people have superb skills and inventive genius; So in his life, he invented more than 700 kinds of patented sports-related products, and then created Adidas' sporting goods kingdom. Mr. Dassler began to make sports shoes by hand in 1920. Since then, athletes from all over the world often wear sports shoes made by Mr. Dassler to win honors at the Olympic Games. As a result, his fame gradually became louder and louder in the international sports world.
1972, Adidas launched the well-known trilobal trademark, which is widely used in clothing accessories. The success of Adidas is mainly attributed to the marketing and mass communication genius of Horst Dassler, the eldest son of Mr. Dassler. Horst realized the importance of promotion activities in establishing sports brand image and personally attended the Olympic Games held in Melbourne, Australia from 65438 to 0956 to promote Adidas brand. His innovative ideas made him the originator of modern sports marketing. With the continuous establishment of global marketing network, Adidas is becoming more and more important and famous in the sporting goods market.
In the world of sporting goods, Adidas has always represented a special status symbol, which some people call "three lines of victory". Since the establishment of 1948, Adidas has helped countless athletes achieve good results and made many great achievements. So Adidas can also be said to be the best one that has gathered everyone's trust and respect.
Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas, is not only a skilled shoemaker, but also an athlete who likes sports. His dream is to "design and manufacture the most suitable sports shoes for athletes". Under this concept, Adi Dassler designed the first pair of sports shoes in 1920. Because of his continuous research and development, his sports shoes have won the love of many top players, not only shining brilliantly in the Olympic Games, but also establishing a gold medal reputation in the sports world. With the affirmation of all walks of life, Adi Dassler founded the Adidas brand on 1948, and found from his many years' shoemaking experience that using the three lines on the side of the shoe can make the sports shoes fit the feet better and integrate into the designed new shoes, so the first pair of three-line sports shoes of Adidas brand was presented to the world on 1949. Since then, people have constantly seen the winning pictures created by the "three lines of victory" on the sports field.
Especially in the world football, Adidas has received more support than any sporting goods manufacturer. Especially when Adidas released its first pair of spikes, it was supported and loved by top football players. During the 65438-0974 World Cup in West Germany, more than 80% of the players chose Adidas football shoes, from which we can know the strength of Adidas in the world football at that time. In the 1998 World Cup in France, the landlord France played a super-level strength with the superior performance of Adidas football shoes, defeating the champion-French football star zinedine.
Zidane won the title of World Footballer of the Year with the score of 1998, which once again proved that the authoritative guarantee of Adidas' "winning by three lines" has continued to this day.
Besides football, Adidas also plays a role in basketball, track and field, tennis, baseball, boxing, swimming and the latest extreme sports. Many well-known top athletes are deeply impressed by the quality of Adidas: among the NBA stars in the basketball temple, Jabba, the famous antoine walker and Kobe Bryant; , the most promising player who has attracted considerable attention at present; In professional tennis, there are retired Swedish star Eberg, German "Yulosha Graf" who once dominated the back seat, "British New Hope" tim henman, Russian beautiful girl anna kournikova who has just been snared in recent years, and martina hingis; ; On the baseball field, there is the new york Yankees who won the American professional baseball championship from 65438 to 0998, and on the boxing field, there is the greatest heavyweight boxer Ali of this century. In the field of track and field, Adidas' reputation has expanded from Arthur Jonas in1930s to donovan bailey, ato boldon and haile gebrselassie.
Today, Adidas still adheres to Adi Dassler's idea of perfect shoemaking, constantly exchanges experiences and needs with world-class top athletes and coaches, and develops ergonomic products after a series of repeated experiments and tests, which can not only help various professional athletes improve their sports performance, but also meet the demand of ordinary market consumers for high-quality sporting goods. In recent years, Adidas has not only made new breakthroughs in design and function, but also set off another wave of representative design concepts of the three lines in the fashion trend, sweeping the younger generation, forming a new fashion style and leading the global sporting goods to a more diversified prospect.
The following are the milestones of Adidas' important products or technologies:
1920: Mr adidas created the first pair of sports shoes for training.
1948: adidas brand officially registered.
1949: The three-striped logo came out.
1970: "Telstar" became the first designated ball in the World Cup.
1972: Clover logo is out.
1979: The world's best-selling soccer shoe "Copa Mundial" went on the market.
1985: "APS" shock-absorbing running shoes came out.
1988: adidas revolutionary "twist" system appears.
199 1 year: launch a new series of professional sports shoes and sportswear.
1993: adidas invents "tubular technology"
1994: A revolutionary new product "Predator" soccer shoes was launched.
1996: "Feetyouwar" sports shoes went on the market.
1997: announced the merger of Paramount Company, which is famous for selling skiing and golf equipment.
2000: Shouting the slogan "Nothing is impossible" and successfully creating new hot topics.
2002: Launched "a3" series basketball shoes and running shoes.
2004: "Adidas 1" computer chip intelligent running shoes were launched.
2005: merged the sports manufacturer Reebok.
2006: The upgraded version of "adidas 1. 1" computer chip intelligent running shoes and basketball shoes was launched.
2005124 October, BOCOG announced in Beijing that Adidas (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. and Adidas-Salomon Group have become partners of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Wang Wei, executive vice president of BOCOG, said at the signing ceremony that as a partner of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Adidas will provide sports equipment for all staff and technical officials of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.
Adidas has also become a sportswear partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee. The China sports delegation participating in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will wear Adidas sportswear.
Ms. Sandrine, President of Adidas Greater China, said: "Since Adi Dassler, the founder of 1928, made the first pair of spikes for Olympic athletes, Adidas has spared no effort to support the Olympic Games and help athletes create good results with innovative products. At the Athens Olympic Games that ended last year, Adidas provided about 6.5438+0.4 million pieces of equipment for organizing committee staff, volunteers and athletes from all over the world. Adidas encourages and wishes China Olympic athletes to win more gold medals at the local 2008 Olympic Games, and will provide first-class advanced equipment for this purpose. "
Nike
When phil knight founded Nike for $500 in 1964, he never dreamed that it would become the largest brand of sports shoes in the world. This paper will reveal the mystery of Nike's growth process, and focus on the key to Nike's brilliance in the 1990s-new product development strategy.
Early period: 1960s-1970s.
When it comes to the history of Nike, it must be traced back to 1958. At that time, founder phil knight was only a member of the track and field team of Oregon State University. During practice, he often complained to coach Bowerman that the United States has never produced a really good pair of sports shoes. Knight majored in accounting and returned to China to teach in Portland after graduation. 1964, Knight and his coach borman each invested $500 to set up a sports shoes company named Nike, which comes from Greek and means "victory".
In the early days of the company, Knight used his relationship in sports to shuttle back and forth in various track and field venues and set up stalls to sell his running shoes. At that time, all the products were purchased from Japan, and he often thought that American-designed sports shoes must have unlimited potential. In the early 1970s, Knight began to implement his own idea of designing shoes. At the same time, after careful research and investigation, he found that the market demand was enough to support him to establish his own production line. But in the end, I decided to learn from Japanese production experience. 1972, Knight signed the first contract with Japan to formally produce Nike sports shoes completely designed in the United States.
In the following years, the yen continued to appreciate and the labor cost was high, which made the cost of producing shoes in Japan higher and higher. At this time, Nike has accumulated stable overseas production experience and extended its reach to manufacturers in more countries. In order to reduce the production cost, Nike moved the Japanese production line to South Korea and Taiwan Province Province with relatively low labor costs on 1975. After the cost is greatly reduced, Nike has more abundant resources to engage in R&D and marketing activities.
Nike expanded its OEM business from countries with low labor costs, which was a revolutionary move in the industry at that time. Nike knows that the production of shoes must inject intensive labor, so it is bound to seek overseas low-cost OEM, and there is no room for change. Nevertheless, there are still risks in overseas OEM, and the distance and cultural differences between different countries increase the difficulty of quality control. Therefore, when Nike places a large-scale order with a foundry, it often goes through a very careful evaluation process to ensure that the finished product can meet Nike's quality standards. During this period, Nike's strategic focus is completely focused on:
Establish the best overseas production and operation mode.
Explain the new design and style to the original equipment manufacturer.
Maintain the quality level
Facing Difficulties and Striving for Prosperity: 1980s
In the early 1980s, Nike made a fortune and continued to play the role of a professional manufacturer of sports shoes in the United States, but it did not own any production plants in the United States. Soon, the number one competitor Reebok followed. Founded in 198 1, under the leadership of its founder and CEO Paul Farman, it has sprung up suddenly, launched sports shoes with novel design and strong momentum, and successfully swept some markets. By the mid-1980s, Reebok had been able to compete with Nike in the fierce competition. 1987, Reebok by going up one flight of stairs topped the sports shoes market with sales of 99 10/00000 USD and 30% share, followed by Nike with 597 million USD and 18% share.
In the struggle between Nike and Reebok, the problems and opportunities lie entirely in the changeable target market and the essence of design orientation. In other words, young people (teenagers and young adults) buy not only sports shoes, but also the "fashion sense" represented by the shoes themselves. Both shoe giants realize that if they want to expand the market scale, they must transfer the original concept of professional sports shoes to a broader "fashion-seeking" youth and young adults market. Reebok Cave took the lead in entering this gold market, and gave Nike a heavy blow with superior products and aggressive public relations activities. Filmon, CEO of Reebok, once publicly criticized Nike: "Knight is just a shoemaker and always thinks he is a great athlete." . Knight responded contemptuously: "I hate Reebok, because its research and development system is simply a cottage."
In order to counter Reebok's provocation, Nike made up its mind to invest heavily in the research and development of new products. The most popular classic product is Nike air shoes in the late 1980s. John Horan, a critic, once expressed his views on Nike air shoes in the special issue of American Sports Industry: "In fact, it is an easy-to-understand shoe-making technology, which only needs to inject air into the sole to form an elastic insole, and that's all." Nike pneumatic shoes were not officially launched until the early 1990 s and achieved unprecedented success. Therefore, the 1980s was an era when Nike faced difficulties and made great efforts. During this period, Nike suffered fierce market competition, which established the strategic theme of new product development and design in the future.
Climbing the Peak: 1990s.
Nike Air Shoes went public with great fanfare, and spent millions of dollars to hire NBA superstar Michael Jordan as product spokesperson to engage in various marketing and advertising activities, setting a new high in the sponsorship price of sporting goods in history, which amazed the whole world. The attraction of advertising is linked with Nike's air-cushion shoes, Jordan's image and almost magical basketball skills. Since then, Nike has gradually recovered its lost ground in the market. Reebok, forced by the situation, hastily launched "Reebok pumps", with shaquille o'neal, the second red star in the NBA, as the spokesperson, but the general trend has gone. At this time, the share of Nike increased from 25% in 1989 to 28% in 1990, and Reebok decreased from 24% to 2 1%. The surprising success of this counterattack made Nike deeply realize that promotion is indeed the most powerful magic weapon for the brand. Therefore, in the following years, Nike continuously increased its investment in this area. For example, in 1995, Nike spent as much as $654.38 billion on sports marketing, while Reebok was close to $400 million.
Nike's Sports Marketing
Following Michael Jordan's sponsorship activities, he signed tiger woods, a golf superstar, at a sky-high price, and signed a contract with the Brazilian football team at a price of 1996 of $200-400 million, setting a historical record of the highest sponsorship activities in the world football, including the purchase of the TV broadcasting rights of five world-class championships of the Brazilian national team. Since then, the Nike hook logo has appeared on the TV of many world golf championships, 1998 World Cup and 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
Sports marketing is the main force of Nike, but it also attaches great importance to brand communication. From 1980s to 1990s, Nike firmly grasped the pulse of the target market-youth, individuality and teenagers who challenged reality. All Nike products highlight its "hook" brand logo and develop the communication theme of "Just Do It". With the advertising slogan "Win in your way", endorsed by the world's top sports stars, it quickly captured the hearts of young people around the world. Nike's products are not cheap. In America, the price of a pair of sports shoes can be as high as $65,438+000. This high-priced strategy has made great contributions to Nike, but it has also brought great trouble. Some American civil organizations protested, forcing Nike to raise the wages of shoemakers in overseas factories. Although Nike is not heartless, business is still business, and phil knight has no intention of giving in.
After the air cushion shoes achieved unprecedented success in the market, Nike increased the research and development of new products. In just one year, there are more than 300 new styles on the American market. Nike declared: "Scientific product research and development is one of the key factors for Nike's success, and we spare no effort to develop new shoemaking materials, fibers and modern designs". To put it another way, the motivation for Nike to concentrate on the research and development of new products still lies in the behavior and attitude of target consumers seeking innovation and change. In fact, Nike is not the only company in the industry that pays special attention to new product research and development. In order to catch young people's pursuit of fashion, many well-known brands have no choice but to constantly innovate their products.
During the 1990s, the research on youth marketing, the pillar of Nike's marketing, was beyond the reach of other brands in the sports shoes market, which made Nike's share increase continuously, reaching 43% in 196 (Reebok 16%), and the sales in the US market alone exceeded $3 billion.
Welcome to a new era: 2000.
Throughout the 1990s, Nike's rapid development had two main directions:
Expand global sales and achieve substantial growth.
Develop non-footwear sporting goods, such as sportswear and sports equipment.
1996 Nike is the world's largest manufacturer of sports products with total global sales of 9 billion US dollars. At the end of 1990s, Nike suffered a short setback because teenagers gradually regarded sports shoes as a kind of fashionable casual shoes. In addition, the economic recession in Asia is also a serious blow to Nike, resulting in excessive inventory and falling profits, and measures have to be taken to streamline personnel. However, Nike authorities are still quite optimistic about the future development. Phil knight stepped down as president of Nike Group, and the baton of CEO was handed over to tom clarke. The new CEO also has a wonderful description of the company's future development:
"Nike is growing rapidly. Once it encounters an economic downturn, we need some time to adjust. Please don't forget that we are a group of Nike people with high self-requirements. The company's operation is long-term and sustainable, not just to let everyone clap their hands in the next few years. "
Indeed, Nike's sports products and clothing, whether it is research and development technology or brand marketing, may set off another wave of climax in the global market at any time and continue to maintain the number one position in the world.
Analyze the key point of developing new product strategy-guide consumers, don't let consumers lead by the nose.
The first step to investigate the success of Nike's new product development strategy is still inseparable from the basic principles of marketing-mastering the market pulse, understanding customer needs, and creating new products that cater to and meet the needs. But we must understand that the biggest problem in developing innovative new products is that consumers will not take the initiative to ask for new products in advance. In other words, you must lead consumers and don't let them lead you by the nose.
You can recall that in the early 1970s, before investigating the needs of new customers, how many consumers would take the initiative to ask for products such as video recorders, fax machines and microwave ovens? Creative enterprises can often make good use of their rich imagination, dig out unclear consumer needs, and walk in the front end of consumption trends, rather than being followers of others.
In order to explore market opportunities, we must have a deep understanding of consumers' needs, lifestyles and aspirations, and we must also be creative. Who would think that there is no market for pocket translators for tourists' language barriers? How do enterprises get the initial idea of this demand? The answer is to try our best to approach and observe the most urgent customers and make further contact with them. For example, Japan's Sanye exhibited music equipment in London, allowing outstanding European musicians to personally experience the most advanced music hardware. The purpose is not only to know more about customers, but also to show advanced product technology.
Because Nike can fully grasp the demand of young people for sports and leisure shoes, understand their lifestyle and realistic psychological desire, and develop creative new products, communication demands and promotional activities, Nike has always been at the forefront of creating consumer trends, and Nike's world number one is not a hollow reputation.