The Brand with the Three Stripes Essay

Sports have been a major component in our world’s culture for multiple centuries, changing many young people’s lives and serving as a thrilling hobby for people of all ages. Beginning multiple centuries ago, the first Olympic Games took place in 776 B.C.E. and introduced the world to the first major sporting event. Sports were around before this of course, but with this occurrence, they truly gained ground around the world. From this first Olympics, sports have grown immensely with the creation of multiple new technologies, rules, and even new sports. Football, basketball, soccer, etc. have all become major pastimes in the majority of people’s lives and with this growing popularity, numerous brands have emerged including names such as Adidas, Nike, Puma, and many more. When Puma was created in 1948 and Adidas shortly followed in 1949, the race to become the best brand began and in 1964, Nike was created and furthered this race even more. The competition continues to this day with Adidas and Nike as the superpowers and brands including Puma, Under Armour, and Reebok still up there. To all of the Adidas fans out there, this presentation will strengthen your liking of the brand and to all of the other fans out there, this presentation will conceivably alter your viewpoint and prompt you to become an Adidas supporter. I am here to argue that Adidas is the finest sports brand as it has some of the greatest athletes, appeals to the younger generation, and has some of the greatest sales.

First off, Adidas has signed some of the greatest athletes to this date including FC Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard, and numerous more. They have also acquired celebrities such as Kanye West who has created one of the largest shoe lines seen to the world in his yeezy boosts. However, the other brands also have many established athletes including Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo for Nike, golfer Rickie Fowler for Puma, or Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry for Under Armour. What I am trying to say is that each brand has their respective superstars, but one particular person stands out. James Harden is an NBA guard for the Houston Rockets who has acquired multiple accomplishments in his 9-year professional career. Just this week, he earned the title of the 2018 Most Valuable Player and did this under the sponsorship of Adidas. However, he was not always signed with Adidas and made the move from Nike to Adidas in October of 2015. He signed with Adidas and accepted the offer of $200 million and his own signature shoe. However, this is not the only reason that he made the switch. He wanted to have his own voice in the production, design, and marketing of his products and Nike could just not do that for him. He stated that “it’s always great when you have a brand that wants you and will do whatever it takes to get you and market you the right way,” showing that Adidas and Harden would work well together and “grow as one”. Although Nike has outstanding superstars, some are leaving to work with Adidas. Although I only mentioned James Harden, Kanye West also made the move from Nike to Adidas and has been doing very well with the company with his personal yeezy line. Adidas offers their stars the ability to “have a voice” in their designs and this is what makes their products so appealing and also what makes the company appealing to so many of these celebrities.

As seen with the superstars, Adidas is very flexible and allows multiple creators to design the products that are marketed to consumers, making it more appealing to the younger audience. Although Adidas is much smaller than Nike, bringing in only $5.3 billion compared to Nike’s immense $15.2 billion, they are growing at a much more rapid pace with sales up 25% compared to Nike’s measley 3% increase. Although $5 billion is not even half of $15 billion, it is still a very large number and with a 25% increase, Adidas will catch up to Nike soon enough and truly be the giant of all brands. These sales also show how the younger audience is beginning to identify more with Adidas than other brands and this is another reason why Adidas is the best brand out there. Another example of how the younger audience is identifying more with Adidas is through their designer shoes for “hypebeasts”, which is the name given to teenagers and other people who wear trendy, fashionable items. One of these shoes are the multiple variations of the Yeezy Boost designed by Kanye that I talked about earlier. Although Adidas does not release their individual sales of these shoes, I have done some calculations for the average sales of this shoe. If there are truly 280,000 yeezy shoes currently in the world and each retails for about $250, this means that the yeezy line has produced at least $70 million in sales. This also does not take into account resale of the shoes which goes for much more than retail price, adding even more onto the $70 million. Another shoe that has done extremely well is the UltraBoost. Although it is unknown how many of these shoes have been sold, the company has said that the UltraBoost Uncaged model is the brand’s “fastest selling performance shoe ever in America.” These shoes have become a major part in our younger culture and is beginning to diffuse to everybody else in the athletic community and even beyond that.

Adidas has become a major part in many people’s lives and will continue to grow as time goes on. Not only in shoes but all across the spectrum with athletic clothing and gear, ranging out to clothes and shoes for everyday life. Adidas does it all and does it all with fashion and diversity. This is why the brand appeals to so many people, why sales have been increasing and will continue to increase, and why Adidas is indeed the finest brand out there for consumers of all needs.