adidas

What they do

adidas designs and markets footwear, apparel and equipment for football, running, training and lifestyle. Its headquarters remain in Herzogenaurach, the Bavarian town where Adolf "Adi" Dassler and his brother Rudolf founded the Gebrüder Dassler shoe factory in July 1924. After the brothers split, Adi registered his own company in August 1949; Rudolf founded Puma across the river.

Why it matters

Dassler was a cobbler who thought like an engineer. He experimented with spikes, studs and lightweight materials and built close relationships with athletes, a model of product development that the wider industry later copied. The company's football heritage remains central: boots such as the Predator, introduced in 1994 with rubber ridges on the upper to add grip on the ball, became reference points for a generation of players. Away from the pitch, low-profile indoor shoes such as the Samba crossed into fashion and have enjoyed repeated revivals.

Products to know

• Samba: a gum-soled indoor football shoe dating from the 1950s, now a street-style staple.
• Predator: the football boot line launched in 1994.
• Running and training: performance footwear and apparel.

The German angle

The rivalry between adidas and Puma turned Herzogenaurach, a town of modest size near Nuremberg, into one of the world's sportswear capitals. adidas also shows how a German manufacturer can become a global brand house: much manufacturing is carried out by partners abroad, while design, research, marketing and athlete relations remain anchored in Franconia. The Three Stripes remain the core of the brand's identity.