Fighting For Money: Nike ADI Puma World Cup Commercial Battle

The German World Cup ended in 2006, just a few months ago.

"That's got it!" Haina was anxious.

Since 1954, the exclusive sponsor of Germany has been Adidas.

When FIFA did not allow the team to wear sportswear with advertising signs, the West Germany players wore Adidas shoes on their feet.

So, in any case, Adidas can not let Nike copy its own home, so the German sponsorship fee doubled to 20 million euros / year in one fell swoop, and finally beat Nike's "corner" attempt.

Later, Haina laughed and said, "our defense is very beautiful."

In a twinkling of an eye, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is about to start. In addition to the 32 strong battles on the field, there is no doubt that the competition is inevitable for the big brands. The world cup is their four year old PK stage. The "dig angle" is just a warm-up before the official competition. With the coming of the world cup, the good play has just been staged.

Fight both with open and secret means

Now,

Of course, Adidas got a lot of money from these privileges, which cost US $350 million, which is not yet the expense of sponsoring FIFA and 6 top teams in 2009. It costs US $125 million.

After all, if you want to maintain long-term relationships, it's not enough to rely on temporary cramming. Nike has been looking for opportunities to "plug in third".

In fact, Adidas's life has not been very good recently. Due to the optimism of the market after the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Adidas still has a large backlog of inventory in 2009, which will affect its financial position.

In its main camp Europe, the share of Nike football shoes market has reached 35%, which surpassed Adidas's 31% in one move.

Football has always been regarded as the heart and soul of Adidas. How can it be handed over to old rivals?

Just as Adidas looked for opportunities, the world cup came again, so they saw the dawn of victory.

4 years ago, the world cup in Germany, Adidas's sales for the first time broke through the 10 billion euro mark, reached 10 billion 84 million euros, only football income of more than 1 billion 200 million euros.

But Nike can't make it.

This also determines the inevitable collision between the two giants. Compared to Adidas, which is the official sponsor of every world cup, Nike has always been a guerrilla war familiar to Chinese people.

If there were no official sponsors' seats in major events, Nike took to the streets and put up its brand notice boards in the major cities.

If there is no sign of Nike in the sports field, there will be big sports stars coming to the stadium to help.

On the European Cup in 2004, the streets of Portugal were filled with advertisements of Nike. Rooney, the star of England, was everywhere in London. He was working hard to promote Nike's new football shoes.

But this kind of tactics is also risky, because the "stars" created by painstakingly hard work are likely to destroy the teams that are heavily betting.

In the 2006 World Cup, Nike will bet on the 2002 champion Brazil and France's Henry, who was confident that Brazil would take Nike to finish the world cup.

A dramatic scene took place in the eight finals. Henry scored the goal of finishing Brazil, but failed to make contributions to the finals. As a result, Italy, who wore Puma, boarded the highest podium.

The so-called "fight between the mussel and the fish, and the benefit of fishing", Puma has become the ultimate winner.

Guerrilla warfare

Despite the error of the moment, the guerrilla way of Nike is quite effective in most of the time.

During the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, Nike invited many stars from the company sponsorship, founded the Nike village during the competition, and invited the audience to come here to interact with the idols.

We can imagine how enthusiastically the fans of the giants will be. "Nike village" has become an excellent stage to publicize Nike.

Although Adidas was an exclusive sponsor, a survey at that time showed that more than 70% of respondents thought Nike was the official sponsor of the event.

However, do not think that Adidas is always attacked by people. They can also make things that make their opponents angry.

It was also in 2002 that Adidas succeeded in enticing Beckham to wear a Adidas baseball cap to attend the news conference of the England team. At the same time, there was a great stir. We should know that the England team was sponsored by UMBRO. The agreement stipulates that all the players of England must wear UMBRO products in all competitions, but the press conference is not a match.

In fact, it is not Adidas's first who has infiltrated a football star to betray its own sponsors. On the contrary, it is the first victim.

In 1974 World Cup final, Holland star Cruyff refused to wear the jersey of Adidas, because his sponsor was Puma.

After the two sides made a compromise, Cruyff agreed to play in Adidas, but Adidas's classic three bars turned into two bars. In today's words, it seems to be a copycat version. At the bottom of it, they wear genuine Puma shoes with the logo of the puma.

That year, Cruyff won the award for best player, and Puma also became famous.

Most people know the competition between Adidas and Nike. In fact, Adidas and Puma have more and more grudges. Many people do not expect that the two companies are actually one.

In 1920s, in the town of heege, Nuremberg, in the southern part of Germany, there was a sports shoe factory of the Darth brothers. The two brothers, brother Rudolf darler and brother Adolf Dassler, who were in charge of the shoe factory, were in charge of the shoe factory.

But after the end of World War II, the family of the Darth began to split up. Adolf, the younger brother, told Rudolf about his brother Rudolf's involvement with the Nazis. Later, Rudolf went out of his way and founded the Adidas, but his younger brother changed the name of the factory to Adidas.

The war of resentment between the two brothers began from this time, and even led to the whole town of black root, which was split into a rival camp. Not only did they not marry each other, but the locals would bend their necks to see if they were wearing Adidas or Puma on their feet before making friends. If they were not the same brand, they would never speak.

Take a bus, if all the Puma seats are on the bus, then the ADI will have to wait for the next train.

Brave and cautious

In any case, Adidas, Nike or Puma, as each stage of the world cup is staged, will always collide with new sparks, and the losing side will often generate gamblers' mentality and increase chips in the next cup, hoping to regain the initiative.

For the humiliation of the German World Cup 4 years ago and the push back of Nike in recent years, Adidas sponsored the team from the last 6 to 12, including France, Argentina, Germany, Spain and so on. There are also great potential and strength teams such as Nigeria and Mexico. If the favored Spain becomes the second double champion after France, then the position of "Adi Wang" will be more consolidated.

Unlike Adidas's favorite hot or strong teams, Puma's strategy is obviously against their own feud. In addition to the last champion Italy, Puma has absorbed several African potential teams such as Algeria, Garner, Cameroon and Ivory Coast. The world cup is held in Africa. It can be said that Puma has taken advantage of its advantages, and its chief executive, zwitzo, has vowed that the two strong contenders will become the romance of the Three Kingdoms.

However, the South African team, the host of the African continent, has been heavily bought by Adidas, which is Puma's heart disease.

Of course, Nike has never been a fuel saving lamp. It also hopes to defeat the "deadly enemy" Adidas in the world cup.

It sponsors great powers such as Holland, Portugal and Brazil. After Nike acquired UMBRO in 2008, England can also be regarded as a Nike camp. If the world cup takes place against giants such as Anglo, Abba, and hod, it will still be the war between ADI and Nike.

And who is the ultimate winner, of course, only the end of the game can be known, which is the charm of football.

However, in the top 32, the sponsors of the other three teams outside the three giants of Nike, Adidas and Puma are not known.

Chile's jersey is sponsored by BROOKS, the US running shoe brand. Few people know that Honduras's sponsors are more eccentric, called Joma. If you look at the South American regional league, you may hear the name of the brand.

Of course, the most mysterious is the North Korean team. It has been away from the world cup for 44 years. When they took part in the World Cup last time, they set a record. It was the only team that wore a shirt without a brand.

This time, the North Korean Jersey sponsor still seems to be a fan until now, which is also consistent with its mysterious temperament.

The funny thing is, you can ask a few people at random now. It is estimated that it will be China's Hongxing Erke. Because during the Beijing Olympic Games, Hongxing Erke armed all Korean athletes from north to south, including the North Korean football team.

However, in March 17th this year, when the DPRK went to distant Mexico to play a friendly match, the DPRK wore Mexico's local brand Pirma. In mid May, the DPRK team was warming up in a high profile and 2 to 2 in the Greek team. They wore the Spanish sports brand Astore.

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In recent days, there has been news that the Italy sports brand Legea has signed an agreement with the Korean Football Association since February of this year, and will sponsor their shirts for free. Why, since sponsorship, why did they not wear legea jerseys in the near future? The explanation of Italy brand is that the design requirements of Chao Qing team are "too personalized: not only do they design many details, but also the fabric is not in the catalogue of Legea", and the latter will spend a lot of time explaining to the DPRK how big the trademark is and how much the national flag is printed, because FIFA has a clear stipulation.

Will the Italy sports brand really be the North Korean Jersey sponsor? Wait and see, anyway, we will know when we are playing.

But for the fans of the Jersey collection, it is hopeless to collect the top 32 uniforms before the start of the world cup, because there was nowhere for the North Korean team to play before the Korean team played in Brazil in June 15th.

This also illustrates a truth. If you want to get in touch with "mystery", you have to pay the price: besides being bold and cautious, you also need to have a strong heart.