Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 2.0, International Business School Lippstadt, language: English, abstract: The Adidas group, headquartered in Herzogenaurach (Germany) was built on 18th August 1920 by Adolf Dassler. The brand and its products celebrated their first worldwide success in 1954 after the German have won the soccer world championship. After some commercial disappointments in the middle 80¿s, the family enterprise had to open up for investors. In 1995 followed the initial public offering on Frankfurt¿s exchange market. To stay competitive to Nike on the US-market, the company had taken over Reebok in 2006. Furthermore, the company has worldwide 169 subsidiaries and had total revenue of 11.990 Mio. Euros in 2010. The company uses the image of its brand and the available amount of capital to sponsor many sports events such as soccer championships, Olympic Games or Paralympics and many more. In 2012 Adidas will be the official sportswear-partner of the Olympic Games and the Paralympics in London. Additionally Adidas¿ high-qualified experts and its international network of suppliers make the company a competitive manufacturer of sporting goods.