Alarm bells are ringing at the headquarters of the German sportswear giant. Adidas stumbles again with its three iconic stripes, house brand, due to a racial issue.
A few months ago the company was forced to break a fruitful pact with rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye, to produce the Yeezy sneakers designed by the artist. They lost hundreds of millions of dollars with their decision.
It was very unethical to maintain that collaboration. The things West said are prohibited in the German Penal Code.
The African-American musician woke up all the ghosts of the past by showing his rejection of the Jews, whom he accused with the cliché insult of usury.
As if that were not enough, and after rejecting that slavery was something bad – he described it as “choice” and “opportunity” – he exalted Nazism with his apology dedicated to Hitler, to whom he showed his total admiration. “I have seen that he did good things,” she said in an interview. Too much for any soul, not even a sensitive one, no matter how fat the benefits.
Other reasons have led him to finalize his dealings with another benchmark in the black community, this one positive for his ability to overcome. Adidas and Beyoncé decided to end their collaboration on a fashion line. Sales are not going well and it is clear that business is business regardless of the image sought.
Bad fame led the company to act urgently this Wednesday and parked the lawsuit filed against Black Lives Matter (BLM, black lives matter), an organization that inherited the fight for civil rights that emerged in the United States in 2012 to protest against police brutality and the existence of a justice for whites and another for those who are not.
In the center, the three stripes that Adidas considers its own, despite acknowledging that this logo has no specific meaning, except for its use since 1952. Founder Adolf Dassler tested various designs with stripes and found that if he put three, he looked better in the photographs.
“Adidas will withdraw its opposition to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation trademark application as soon as possible,” it announced in a statement.
The sticking point came when the company asked the trademark office to reject the request by BLM, which became a real power in the protests after the death of George Floyd in May 2020, to use a logo with three parallel yellow stripes. The application was submitted in November 2020 to be used in clothing and bags.
The company specified on Monday its opposition to this initiative when filing its complaint in a US court. The design of the three yellow stripes would lead to confusion, especially since they were going to apply it to products similar to those that Adidas also sells. they argued.
“This badge has great international fame and public recognition,” the Germans stressed. Consumers, familiar with that currency, “will assume that these products have the same origin,” he continued in his claim.
This type of conflict is nothing new for the company. The brand has filed more than 90 lawsuits for similar issues. It has also reached at least 200 agreements to settle disputes over its iconic stripes since 2008.
This is stated in the documents provided in his complaint against the fashion firm of Thom Browne, who used a design with four stripes. Browne countered that confusion between the two marks was difficult, among other reasons because of the different number of stripes. He got away with it and a jury agreed with him last January by concluding that the designer had not violated the rights of the sports brand.
Despite the loss, Adidas persevered against BLM. The commotion that was organized when his judicial initiative was transcended, in a time of contrition for the damage caused to African-Americans, which does not cease, led to reconsidering the lawsuit. His fight for the three stripes could only be bad publicity.
