Adidas aims to position itself as the No 1 sports brand in China next year by capitalizing on its relationship with the organizing committee of the Beijing Olympics, said Wolfgang Bentheimer, managing director of adidas in Greater China.
"As a brand, we have seen a very positive development in the China market," he said.
"The Beijing Olympics is another very important milestone for our long-term development in China. It will certainly elevate our business further. With the campaign we have launched, it will help us to achieve the No 1 position for a sports brand in China in 2008."
After joining adidas in the late 1990s, Bentheimer has since taken the brand to new heights across several markets.
Before coming to China, he was the managing director of adidas Korea, where his team won a regional award for its 2006 FIFA World Cup activities.
Before moving to South Korea, he filled a similar role in Hong Kong, the No 1 adidas subsidiary in terms of retail operations and its No 2 in terms of retail marketing.
He also once served as vice-president of marketing for adidas Asia Pacific, during which time he oversaw the highly successful 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan campaign that locked adidas in as Japan's favorite sportswear brand.
After moving to China early this year, Bentheimer now oversees a tightly-knit team of over 620 staff who maintain adidas Greater China as one of the best-performing subsidiaries in the adidas Group.
Now he has his eyes firmly set on the Beijing Games.
"The Beijing Games is going to be the biggest and most important Olympics to date, and China is a very important market for us," said Bentheimer, who launched a marketing campaign of unprecedented size and scale for adidas at the end of last month.
"The concept is to rally the nation of Chinese people behind their Olympic athletes and heroes and to give them support and to involve them in the athletes' journey towards the Olympics," he explained.
Entitled "Together in 2008, Impossible is Nothing," it is an integrated marketing campaign aimed at engaging Chinese consumers on a new level. Through a combination of TV, print, outdoor media, public relations, digital, point-of-sale and road show activities, it provides various platforms enabling consumers to get closer to the athletes and to the Olympic Games.
Bentheimer's earliest memory of the Olympics dates back to the 1972 Munich Games, when he was just 14 years old.
"I can still remember them," he said. "Just imagine what kind of spirit you have in watching the Games and athletes. I mean, almost everything stands still for weeks because everyone in the country is focusing on the Olympics, even those people who are not always interested in sport, because it is such a special event."
"Our brand attitude is 'Impossible is Nothing'. Every athlete has at some point said to themselves, 'I can't do this'. But this word 'impossible' -- for athletes as well as for our brand -- does not exist. They always try to overcome the impossible."
As the Official Sportswear Partner of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, adidas will supply sportswear for all staff, volunteers and technical officials at the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Under its agreement with BOCOG, adidas outfitted the Chinese Olympic teams for the Turin 2006 Winter Games and will do so again next summer in Beijing.
Adidas has finished designing the clothes for the Chinese sports delegation at the 2008 Games and will display them with the Chinese Olympic Committee next year when it names its Olympic squad.
With a network of 3,550 adidas and Reebok stores spread over 400 cities, adidas is on track to achieve 1 billion euros ($1.47 billion) in net sales by 2010. This benchmark will make China, together with Japan, the second-largest market for adidas outside the United States.
"China will be the biggest market for us in Asia next year and probably very soon the biggest market for adidas worldwide," he predicted.
