- Title: In Olympics launch, Adidas seek to broaden sport appeal
- Date: 18th April 2024
- Summary: VARIOUS OF ATHLETES ON STAGE, CHEERING
- Embargoed: 2nd May 2024 19:06
- Keywords: Adidas Olympic Games Paris 2024 athletes outfits
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- City: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Europe,Olympics,Sport
- Reuters ID: LVA002616118042024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Adidas launched new shoes for 41 Olympic disciplines at an event in Paris on Thursday (April 18), alongside sponsored athletes including climbing gold medallist Janja Garnbret, as it uses the Games to hone its focus on sports rather than celebrities.
Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden wants the brand to make shoes and apparel for a wider variety of sports, a departure from its previous strategy of focusing more deeply on fewer sports.
Sportswear brands such as Adidas, Puma, and their bigger U.S. rival Nike, are betting that their marketing spend and sponsoring of Olympic athletes and national teams will pay off as more consumers engage with sports and buy products like running shoes this summer.
Adidas also launched kits for the Olympic teams it sponsors, including Germany, Team GB, Poland, Bahrain, Cuba, Hungary, and Turkey. Its kits included apparel specially designed for athletes competing in a wheelchair.
Nike last week invited influencers to a slick show in Paris, where sponsored athletes, including U.S. sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson, British sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, and Kenyan marathoner Eliud Kipchoge, showed off the brand's new Olympics kits, moonlighting as models.
(Production: Ardee Napolitano) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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