My first trip to Munich was to attend ISPO an international sports fair in Germany, where the whole sporting world met to show off its latest creations and make deals. Hall one of the show was adidas, the whole hall! Without invitation or appointment you could only gaze at the exterior, a massive white wall with the trefoil and adidas, in lower case emblazoned in royal blue. These were the days of Horst Dassler who ran the company his father had founded.
Next door in hall two was his uncle Rudy’s creation ‘PUMA.’ Black capitals on a similar shinny white wall. The two companies were the titans of the European sports business, they had shoes and clothing in every sport you could name as well as some you couldn’t.
Hall three was filled with adidas’ other brands, ‘Le coq Sportif’ and ‘Arena’. I crossed over the courtyard to hall five the top third of which was swallowed up by the Jonny come lately, American upstart, Nike.
On the far side of the hall in a six by two metre shell scheme was Reebok. The stand was mainly decorated with the latest running styles from the UK and Korea, but centre stage was the new Freestyle Hi-top developed by Paul and Steve the previous autumn. It had debuted at the super show in Spring and now it was our turn. Dave put up his hand carried, framed poster ‘Sizzlin’ Hot Reebok’.
That evening the US team came in, led by Paul, with Angel, Steve, Sharon Cohen and our superstar Denise. That night we all ate together in the Sheraton, except for Paul Fireman, my Dad, Steve Liggett and Paul Brown who sat tightly in a little group away from us. They decided that evening, Paul Brown would move to Reebok USA. I just lost my boss!
We were entertained by Angel recounting the latest success of the aerobics shoes which now included Charisma, Princess and the new Hi-top. The introduction of new tennis phase series and how the no break-in’ all leather Phase I was a winner. Denise enthused about the new Hi-top and how ‘HOT’ the solid red colour was. Sharon who I first met that night talked us through the advertising campaign, how and where it had been placed and the effect it was having on sales, thanks also to ‘Denise’ who now wore them every day on TV.
Next day we were up and at them early a.m. getting ready for ‘Denise’s first set at 10am.
Paul Arrived with her, Angel and Sharon in tow just before she was due to start.
Paul looked visibly shocked: “Joe, we got have a bigger booth!”
“We’re the it company, we should be centre stage!”
My dad and Dave explained this had been booked the year before and was double what they had then.
Paul turn to Denise “You gotta’ give it all you got!” “Really sell it!” he gesticulated with a little upper cut and clenched teeth.
She just smiled, hit play on the ghetto blaster, slipped off her sweat top and BANG, the Denise Austin show.
Within five minutes we had a crowd.
By the time she finished 15 minutes later she had stopped the isle. Then proceeded to sign flyers of her to all the middle age men who had stopped to watch.
We were inundated with enquires from around the world, we were on fire, Reebok was Sizzlin’ Hot.
© David Foster 2020
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