And Nike is currently valued at $270 billion. Where did reebok go wrong? What did Nike do right? Crazy how much more successful Nike was.
Luck and paying the right celebrities for endorsements? Also using sweatshops in the global south to extract superprofits [1]?
More and more I'm starting see branding as a way for big companies to slowly condition people to relate emotionally to some spectacle [2] (e.g. an exciting celebrity spokesperson in an advert), distracting them from an often exploitative and unsustainable production process.
How many people know about Rana Plaza? [3]
It's exciting to see new initiatives like 'Fixing Fashion' though (Alicia Minnaard and Dave Hakkens)[4].
[1] https://anticonquista.com/2019/06/29/revolutionary-reads-rev...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle
[3] https://youtu.be/OaGp5_Sfbss?t=31
[4] https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/52553/1/fixing-... - short intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buWRaffBdNM
2) Adidas is a brand that I look to for more classic styles while Nike seems to always be pushing boundaries. Adidas did have a pretty good run with some modern takes(NMDs I liked a lot) but in general I dont like the new styles. Sometimes I like the new styles, but most of the time its just too much for me.
3) Nike was the first that Im aware of to do the user customized versions of their shoes. I think Adidas is doing it now, but IIRC it was less dynamic than Nike allowed.
4) Limited supplies- while this seems counterintuitive limiting the supply of the premium shoes encouraged the collectors to step in. Now instead of hoping the public accepts a $300 dollar sneaker, they jump out and buy as many as they can so they can list them on StockX.
[0]https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bulls/michael-jordan-wante...
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2020/05/03/mich...
What Nike did right, though, is fully embrace the influencer culture, I think. That, and actually having some cool and unique designs.
Reebok always felt like "just another shoewear brand" and their clothing lines were completely generic and uninspired.
Which means that wherever they went wrong before 2005, Adidas didn't really do anything to stop them from a downward trajectory.
> Nike had won that battle before many influencers were even born.
I wish I had your superpower of determining causality going back 30 years. Must be a hoot.
Never once was influenced by… endorsements, haha.
Adidas, should have been first, since it is a European company, but they just slacked and their product line stagnated. They thought it was just a marketing problem, which it was not. Just changing their logo to something cooler, didn't make their products any better.
I was an Adidas fan, since they were the 'product of the west', of all the kids that were born under communism. They, and together with Puma made the best soccer shoes and gear. But over time, Nike started innovating hard, and releasing better engineered soccer shoes, and wear. (their Drifit Nikefit shirts are great).
See exhibits A: https://www.nikeshoebot.com/ B: https://ganeshbot.com/ C:https://cybersole.io/
And there's a lot more out there
Nike has been outcompeting Adidas/Reebok/Puma and others.
Ps. You can buy cheap soccer cleats at $40-50 price point. They are good just for casual users, but for semi-serious players, they just don't cut it as they tend to have inferior materials, and tend to be heavy and not good for people that want some edge.
Especially if you are an older player (35+ yo), the lighter shoes make a huge difference.
Their classical Samba and Copa mundial, are just too heavy for modern use, and their new fabric/material lightweight shoes are just not as good as Nike's.
Nike has innovated material wise, while Adidas hasn't, and it just has only been catching up with inferior me to products.