Reebok history

Fireman bought the English-based parent company in 1984.

In 1985, actress Cybill Shepherd famously wears a pair of orange Reebok trainers to the Emmy Awards with her black evening gown at the height of the aerobics craze.

Such celebrity endorsements, as well as an advertising budget of $5 million, helped to push the company's 1985 sales to more than $300 million, with profits of nearly $90 million.

Officially an American company in 1985, Reebok had its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RBK.

Reebok launched an attempt to improve quality control in 1986, increasing its number of onsite factory inspectors from 7 to 27.

But in 1986 Reebok decides to rebrand and transition to using a vector logo.

The emphasis Reebok placed on its footwear being fashionable outside fitness resonated with consumers: By 1986, Reebok was the foremost athletic footwear brand in North America.

By the start of 1987, Reebok's backlog of orders for all its lines of shoes had grown to $445 million, indicating that demand for its products continued to be strong.

By 1988, that number had grown to $1.8 billion, with Reebok controlling 26.7 percent of the athletic footwear market and besting Nike’s $1.2 billion in revenue.

In 1988 Reebok's long and meteoric rise began to show signs of flagging as the company's historically high profit margins went into a slump.

In August 1989 the company's head of marketing, Mark Goldston, left after less than a year with the company, and two months later, its president, C. Joseph LaBonte, brought in by Fireman only two years earlier, resigned as well.

Although Reebok's market share had fallen behind Nike's, to 22 percent by the end of 1989, the seeds of Reebok's resurgence were sown in mid-November with the introduction of "The Pump," a basketball shoe with an inflatable collar around the ankle to provide extra support.

In the mid-80s, the brand began to license deals with athletes in the NFL as well as the NBA. In 1989, the company debuted their Reebok Pumps (worn by NBA players Dominique Wilkins, Shaquille O’Neal, and actor Omar Epps).

In 1989, Reebok launched the Reebok Step workout program which went on to become a popular one worldwide.

The first of those tech-infused sneakers, the Reebok Pump, debuted in 1989 and used inflatable chambers to offer a custom fit.

The Pump Introduced in 1989

During the late 1980s sales continued to soar due to aggressive oversees marketing. It went public the same year and obtained Rockport, Avia, Frye (sold in 1989), and Boston Whaler.

In 1991, Dee Brown wore a pair of Pumps—and pumped them up on national television—while winning the NBA Slam Dunk contest.

Results were immediate--overall European sales grew 86 percent in 1991 alone.

The development of a shoe for basketball players on playground courts--branded the Blacktop--became very successful in 1991.

Reebok introduced a new line of cleated sports shoes in 1992.

In addition to its presence in basketball, Reebok also began to focus on baseball, football, and soccer, which had no major footwear company representation as of 1992.

Reebok's commitment to human rights led to the establishment of the Witness and Volunteer Programs in 1992.

“The Sneaker Wars,” Forbes, March 25, 1993.

In 1993 Reebok increased its budget for a global publicity campaign, estimated at $115 million.

Marketing momentum increased as Notre Dame's Fighting Irish captured the Cotton Bowl championship on New Year's Day, 1993, sporting the Reebok football shoes supplied them throughout the season.

During the 1993 SuperBowl, the company aired a 60-second commercial premiering "Planet Reebok," a campaign associating Reebok products with intense competition and high performance.

Reebok introduced a new line of cleated sports shoes in 1992. It sold subsidiaries Ellesse (clothing and footwear) and Boston Whaler in 1993.

Harrington joined the company in 1994 and was Reebok's senior vice president of global operations and chief supply chain officer.

A 1995 report accused Reebok and other companies of allowing products to be made by children and alleged that 80 percent of soccer balls sold in the United States are made by child labor in Pakistan.

brookes, bethan, and peter madden. "the globe trotting sports shoe." christian aid, 1995. available at http://oneworld.org/.

Step aerobics peaked in 1995 with 11.4 million people exercising in that style.

"boston chamber of commerce hosts reebok chairman; ceo seeks human rights collaboration between reebok and west coast rival." ensemble information systems' dow vision service, 26 september 1996. available at http://abwl.ensemble.com.

The company in October 1996 pulled the plug on the Boks brand, after earlier in the year gaining the rights to design, develop, manufacture, and distribute men's, women's, and children's footwear under the Ralph Lauren label.

"fbc's founder zar ni slams reebok for human rights hypocrisy and media." burma news network, 12 december 1996. available at http://www.uvi.eunet.fr/.

The company sponsors several teams and individual stars, and in 1996 sponsored the Liverpool (England) Football Club, a team with a worldwide following.

In 1996 Reebok launched an educational and marketing program, the Versa Training Program, to teach people how to achieve fitness goals such as losing weight.

During fiscal 1997, Reebok International, Ltd.'s stock sold for a high of $52 and a low of $27.

DMX was, originally, a running cushioning system and debuted in 1997 on the DMX Run.

Also introduced in 1997 were running, walking, basketball, and women's fitness shoes featuring 3D Ultralite technology, Reebok's entry into the lightweight performance footwear sector.

Reebok plans to revamp its advertising with a big campaign in the second quarter of 1998 whose slogan will be "Anything is Possible with Reebok." Some analysts believe the campaign will cost most of Reebok's $400.0-million marketing budget.

During the early months of 1998 the company had to contend with a marketplace flooded with athletic footwear, leading to inventory surpluses and price cuts.

In fact, Venus Williams signed with Reebok after she won her singles titles at the 2000 Summer Olympics.

"Terry Tate" began as a short film written and directed by independent filmmaker Rawson Thurber in 2000.

―――――――. "The Reebok Campaign Joins the California Campaign." New York Times, August 12, 2003.

1 Spot in Athletic Footwear, Reebok Cranked up the Heat in 2003." Footwear News, December 8, 2003.

In 2003 Nike held 39.1 percent of the athletic-shoe market, compared with Reebok at 12 percent, which was followed closely by New Balance at 11.6 percent and adidas at 9.6 percent.

The spot won a Golden Lion at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and was voted "Most Likable Ad of 2003" by USA Today.

In addition to becoming one of the cultural touchstones of 2003, "Terry Tate, Office Linebacker" was voted the third-most-liked commercial in the Advertising Age Top Spot poll, and the spots were downloaded more than 20 million times from Reebok's website.

For the 2004 Super Bowl, however, Reebok pulled out of the high-stakes television game and premiered a new short film on its website, which was promoted on MTV in 15-second spots and in E-mails to more than a million registered users of the website TerryTate.com.

The deal also added the Reebok vector logo to the 2004 United States Olympic basketball team's uniforms.

Reebok acquired official National Hockey League sponsor CCM in 2004.

Reebok phased out the CCM name on NHL authentic and replica jerseys, using the Reebok logo since 2005.

In 2013 Reebok announced another fitness partnership with Les Mills, a group fitness and team training program in eighty countries in more than 20,000 studios.

The most notable of these partnerships is with Vetements, which debuted as part of the Gvasalia brothers’ “Official Fake” Fall/Winter 2016 collection.

In 2017, Adidas sold CCM to a Canadian private equity firm, Birch Hill Equity Partners, for around $100 million.

That was followed by a 2018 collaboration with American designer Pyer Moss on a futuristic DMX Fusion 1 Experiment, and more ’90s-inspired sneakers are slated to drop in the latter half of the year.