How Adidas Caught Up to Nike

It’s 2014 and Adidas is struggling. The once-dominant sportswear company is now lost and directionless suffering through declining revenue and profits three years in a row. Outside of football, consumers don’t care for the brand, retailers are giving their most valuable shelf space to Nike, new products are flopping, and activists are threatening a hostile takeover if the CEO is not replaced within the year.

In this episode, we’ll cover Adidas, the fatal mistakes that its former CEO made which toppled the German brand to a distant third behind Nike and UnderArmour, sparked an investor battle, and ultimately cost him his job. We’ll also cover the winning strategy that revolutionized Adidas and the new CEO’s moves which have since taken the company to new heights.

🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf

0:00 Impossible is Nothing
6:47 A Global Multi-Brand Portfolio
9:37 Ascent Before Misfortune
12:32 Fabled German Efficiency
16:07 Another Doomed Five Year Strategy
22:47 The Beginning of the End
26:55 Hainer's Redemption Arc
35:49 The CEO Who Was Promised

[ModernMBA]

0:00 Impossible is Nothing
0:47 The Hainer Era
6:47 A Global Multi-Brand Portfolio
9:37 Ascent Before Misfortune
12:32 Fabled German Efficiency
16:07 Another Doomed Five Year Strategy
22:47 The Beginning of the End
26:55 Hainer's Redemption Arc
35:49 The CEO Who Was Promised
39:38 Comeback of the Three Stripes

[ruijies]

I like how he says both football and soccer so he can piss off everyone instead of picking sides

[Evanrholloway]

As a fan of the price:quality of Reebok it’s always killed me to see how mismanaged the brand is for such a reasonable product.

[HolloVVpoint]

I think a lot of these videos are US centric, because Adidas has always been big worldwide, especially in South America and Europe. Under Armour has never been a “big” make in Europe. Always been Adidas and Nike.

[ALFO]

As a fan of Bayern Munich, a German football club that Hainer now runs, this video has been realization of how poor his management really is even when he was at Adidas

[caplife]

Excellent analysis. It’s amazing to me that Hainer didn’t hyperfocus on existing Adidas and Reebok users and on what would make the product better for them. Not entering e-commerce early was arguably the biggest mistake made followed by paying such a high premium for Reebok.

[kamikazelombardo]

The e-commerce mistake was the biggest and most head scratching of all... Also the creation of brands like Adidas Neo which sponsored Justin Bieber was weird. You have originals already, why having a youth brand just for remakes of originals models?

[brimmusic]

This is a great documentary! Thank you very much. For me Adidas was always with Nike at the top, but its interesting to see, that this direct competition was not always this close.

[fiskedunser]

It can really only be understated imo, how much value and growth Kanye West has brought Adidas as a brand. Not just because of his name and photos, but because of his designs.

No matter what you think of him as a person, and his politics aside - He's a creative powerhouse. And even though he has had a few misses (or a lot, depending on who you ask) ...that's to be expected when your design work is so far away from the norm. But when he swung and finally hit a home run...

Oh man! I mean, not only does it portray Adidas as a forward-thinking and trend-setting brand as a whole, but suddenly you'd see 60+ year old grandmas wearing Walmart copies of his Yeezy 350 shoes.

[reaper]

I will always love Ultraboost to be my daily wear. Comfy, Reasonable price and even good designs.

[Canuck]

People need to realize that Boost/Yezzy era was just that, era. People in North America should open their eyes to see that Europe has always embraced Adidas. Superstars, Stan Smiths, Gazelle, Samba, Campus, Forum, Rivalry, Top Ten, etc are signature Adidas staples. Not just Boost and Yeezy, when you get older you look for comfort and style. I switched over from Nike to Adidas back in 2008.

[ROCKSTAR]

I remember before 2015, very few sneaker channels talked about Adidas, it was all about Jordan, Foamposite etc... well the big channels anyway. Boost and Yeezy really changed the game for Adidas.

[arabidaif]

You're gonna have a very succcedul channel with a very niche yet very broad audience if you keep the good quality keep it up bro

[jordan]

One of the best business videos I’ve ever seen on YouTube. Thank you for your work 🤝

[floridaman]

As a sneakerhead and an MBA - I greatly appreciate this video.

[areksoo]

Great video. I 100% agree. They do need another visionary. For example, the direction to push UltraBoost to performance running shoes was and still is a terrible idea. People love the UltraBoost for the comfort and/or fashion. But Boost technology just can't compete with the modern foams out there in the market. It's too heavy and not as responsive. Even the vast majority of Adidas running shoes in the market right now have switched away from Boost and into LightStrike (and LightStrike Pro). UltraBoost 21/22 and even the monstrosity that is the 23 version are all heading in the wrong direction. The focus should be put back to lifestyle. They are doing that somewhat with the original model, but new models should also be lifestyle.

[benmth]

Looking back the history and the momentum that adidas gained on 2015. Im interested to see how 2023 onward goes for adidas. With cut off yeezy deals, oversaturated sneaker market with boost technology this surely would be a fit to watch.

[Henricus-]

Wow this is certainly well made and informed. I worked for Adi for 7 years during the periods you've laid out in this video. For sure it was noticeable at the time what was happening!

[ca-ke]

I remember buying Reebok shoes way back in 2014 and it was really nice to have a lifestyle atheleisure brand dedicated to comfortable walking that was not overpriced. It was not the pure comfort atheleisure nowadays but it was on to something. Nowadays Skeckers has definitely dominated that market in Asia.

[lightxgrenade]

These are great videos, filled with good info and told in a very entertaining way. Keep up the great work!