Adidas

Adidas is a Germany-based world renowned manufacturer of sports apparel, footwear and accessories for over 80 years. It was founded by Adolf (Adi) Dassler after whom it was named. In the early 1920s in Herzogenaurach near Nuremberg, Germany, Adi first started making shoes along with his brother Rudolf Hassler, who later founded Adidas’s rival company PUMA AG.

The company was registered as ’adidas AG’ (in lower case lettering) on 18 August 1949. All Adidas apparels and clothing feature a motif of three parallel lines that form an integral part of three official logos- the classic trefoil, modern performance and sport style. In 2005, the company’s profits were recorded at 6.6 billion euro, which is about 8.4 billion U.S. dollars.

Adidas supplies sports gear including trainers and football boots to some of the biggest domestic and international football teams like Real Madrid, Germany, France, Chelsea and Bayern Munich. Besides, Adidas provides footballs for the renowned UEFA Championship League games. Adidas has been the official sponsor of the Boston Marathon since 1998 and the FIFA World Cup in 1954, providing breakthrough shoes that had studs with screws. Adidas also sponsors the Australian Cricket team, New Zealand’s Rugby Union and Pilipino basketball teams, both San Beda Red Lions and the Red Cubs.

The current campaign slogan of Adidas is ’Impossible is Nothing’. All of their advertisements screened worldwide star football players like Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham, NBA greats like Tim Duncan and Rugby Union heroes like Daniel Carter.