Adidas 1996 Annual Report Download - page 7

7
ADIDAS PLAYS THE GAMES
brand mission as “the best sports brand in
the world” in the eyes of the world’s cham-
pions. Outside the Olympic arena, a major
advertising campaign featured all-time favor-
ite Olympic champions, bringing images of
adidas’ unique Olympic heritage to millions
of homes around the world. The campaign
struck a chord of the continuity of adidas’
Olympic heritage. It did so by linking Olym-
pic legends like Jesse Owens, Al Oerter
or Teofilo Stevenson with contemporary
Olympic athletes including Canada’s
sprinter Donovan Bailey, Cuba’s boxer Felix
Savon, or Ethiopia’s 10,000m runner Haile
Gebrselassie, all of whom won gold.
A triumph for adidas. adidas, along with its
champions, triumphed with a volley of
medals. All in all, over 220 medals (including
more than 70 gold medals) were won,
making adidas’ athletes the single-biggest
group of winners among all equipment
manufacturers. Of course, adidas is more
than proud to have contributed to historic
Olympic moments of true athletic grace,
including Donovan Bailey’s unforgettable
world record run in the men’s 100m final,
Lars Riedel’s next-to-last throw in the discus,
Felix Savon’s brilliance in boxing and Fatuma
Roba’s dominance in the women‘s marathon,
to name a few.
As a legacy to the Games, adidas has made
permanent the house in Atlanta that was the
site of its winning presence at the Summer
Olympic Games. So, the adidas House in
Atlanta, a meeting point for Olympic-class
athletes and coaches, team and sports
federation officials, as well as business part-
ners and journalists, has become the head-
quarters for adidas in the region, as well as
an adidas international meeting facility.
There couldn’t have been a more striking
demonstration of adidas’ continuing commit-
ment
to excellence in sport than the three-
stripe brand’s vivid and visible presence at
Atlanta’s Olympic Games in the summer of
1996. The Games also provided an ideal
podium for adidas’ Olympic champions’
product testimonials in the truest sense of
the word.
The challenge we faced at Atlanta was
unprecedented. The results were also unsur-
passed. With 33 Olympic delegations and
some 6,000 athletes in virtually all sports
categories wearing adidas shoes and/or
apparel, adidas was all over the champion-
ship territory – on the tracks and fields at all
of the Olympic sites in and around Atlanta,
and for the entire duration of the Games.
Triumph for the products, triumph for the
adidas brand.
A triumph for the products. In footwear,
adidas successfully developed an entire
range of new, technically-advanced shoes,
specifically designed for each category of
athletes. At the Games, adidas was the
brand with the broadest range of functional
footwear – the choice of top athletes in a
multitude of sports. The top athletes
selected our shoes, and we were delighted
with their performance. On the apparel side,
two years of lab and on-site testing and
development
led to the creation of a range of
performance-
enhancing apparel featuring
innovative new fabrics and cuts.
A triumph for the brand image. The Games
provided adidas with unrivaled opportunities
for exposure to build brand and product
image. In the sports arena, the omni-
presence of adidas footwear and apparel
worn by the Olympic athletes was a perfect
testimonial that adidas was achieving its