Abstract
The market of sports goods and equipment is one of the most competitive in the clothing industry. Sports textile industry is ruled by three major international brands:
- German Adidas Group, founded by Adi Dassler in 1949.
- American group Nike, founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman in 19621
- Reebok International, present on the market since 1890 in United Kingdom.
In this paper we are going to focus on Reebok International, and more precisely on a particular advertising campaign based on a fictive football player called Terry Tate and his role in a company as an "Office Linebacker". We are going to explain in a first step what is the marketing strategy used in this campaign, known as viral marketing. Then we are going to focus on how, and to what extent, this viral marketing trend is taking over classical advertising media. Last but not least, we will analyze the impact of the Terry Tate - Office Linebacker campaign on Reebok.
Reebok has been manufacturing running shoes since 1890, and became popular in the United-Kingdom with the first running shoes with spikes, worn by British top athletes. Later on, the company spread its core business over the world and became international. The name "Reebok" was introduced in 1958. In 1984 Reebok became American, due to a reverse acquisition2 performed by Paul Fireman, head of the North-American distribution license. From this time, Reebok's net sales increased from $13 million to $3.5 billion (source: Reebok's annual reports).
