The Dassler Boys – One Family Two World Brands
Personally Adidas and Puma has always been a huge part of my
live, it was practically unavoidable for me since I grew up in the capital of
the sports-world, Herzogenaurach.
It is the beginning of the 1920s and two very innovative and
eager brothers with the names of Adolf and Rudolf Dassler were producing sports-shoes
in their mother´s washroom in Herzogenaurach, a little town in Bavaria,
Germany. What makes their shoes outstanding and conquer the world within couple
of years is their strive for innovation, creating shoes that fit each
sportsmen perfectly and that are supple and light weight. They were one of the
first ones that proposed a business that would only focus on shoes to be worn
for sports.
Rudolf Dassler the extroverted businessman took care of
closing deals and marketing their products while Adolf “Adi” Dassler was a very
handy and genius shoemaker. Together they perfectly complimented each other and
had their big breakthrough in 1928s Olympic Games, when designing shoes for the
German athletics team. Their quality and functional modifications in the sports-shoe
world helped them to achieve a progressive image (Dibb et al., 2005), which was
how they got this deal and connections to the German Olympic team.
Inspired by Joe Foster who made lightweight spikes and
marketed them as Joe Foster´s Running Pumps, which became famous among runners
in 1904 when Alf Shrubb broke three world records in a single race, Adi Dassler
was eager to pull off a similar coup.
When Jesse Owens, an American athlete, broke three world
records in 1935, Adolf Dassler knew that he had to equip him with Dassler shoes
for the Olympic Games in 1936. Owens won four gold medals wearing Dassler shoes
and the word spread quickly among coaches and athletes. By then the brothers
had already been Germany´s leading sports-shoe suppliers, but also achieved
international attention through the Owens coup.
Business was booming and pushed their sales up to 200.000
pairs until the start of WW2, when the Nazis and the war started interrupting
the business.
After several disagreements, the brothers finally split
after the war and Rudolf Dassler established Puma in 1948 and Adolf Dassler
founded Adidas the following year. After that Herzogenaurach was called the town of bend necks since everyone was looking down to see who was wearing which brand.
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