Companies such as Adidas make sportswear and leisurewear and export them around the globe. You can buy adidas products anywhere from Egypt to the USA as they have a worldwide reputation for selling quality goods. They have earned this reputation mainly by advertising in many forms. Adidas use a lot of celebrity endorsement, paying famous people to wear their products to earn them a decent reputation, so if a young child sees Steven Gerrard wearing Adidas football boots, he may go out and buy them to be as good as him. This is called product association. The most successful brands are more famous than the products themselves, like you think of mints with holes in them, you think of polo’s, or you think of crisps in a tube, you think of Pringles.
If you walk into a sports store nowadays, you will notice that ¾ of the trainers and sportswear will be Adidas or Nike. This shows how successful the brands are at mass producing and advertising their products. In 1997, Adidas AG bought out the Salomon Group, and its corporate name was changed to Adidas-Salomon AG. Then in 2005 it bought out its rival Reebok, giving it enough creditability to challenge Nike its biggest rival to become the Worlds Number One sports shoe brand. Nike is now the worlds biggest sports make earning over $200 billion a year through sales alone. Named after the Goddess Of Victory, Nike spends most of its profits on advertising and celebrity endorsements, most notably Tiger Woods.
Adidas’s slogan is “Impossible is nothing”, reversing the well known saying nothing is impossible, to promote belief amongst people that if they wear adidas, then nothing is impossible. The values that adidas have, is that if you try hard and have commitment then nothing is impossible and you can win. Nikes slogan is “Just Do It”, it has different values to adidas and the slogan bares resemblance to he who dares wins, both companies values are that if you wear their product and have belief you have a chance to win at your sport. Both of my chosen products USP's are you can do it if you wear our products. There is nothing unique about Adidas and Nike products, it is just the way they aim their marketing campaign.
Adidas and Nike advertise in every aspect possible where you can find sports. Like television advertisements inbetween sports programs such as football matches, sponsoring events such as the World Cup, Champions League and Ryder Cup. Billboards on busy road junctions are another way, as well as radio and advertisements in sport-related magazines.
People have suggested that Nike and Adidas have had a lot of their goods manufactured at sweat shops in places like Indonesia, where the workers are kept in awful conditions that don't apply with the code of conduct. Nike and Adidas have constantly denied this but the majority of investigators remain unconvinced. It has been well documented that a lot of the worlds top brands such as GAP and Reebok have had awful working conditions in these sweat shops.
It is my belief that it is immoral and unethical to portray the fact that if you wear this brand then you become better at this sport. It promoted matierialistic values which are not correct in society. I also believe that any company that exploits the poorer countries for their workforce is immoral and should be shut down.