Reebok History

Reebok is a United Kingdom based company founded by Joseph William Foster. The company started because Joseph added spikes to his running shoes, and this led him to start his own company, JW Foster and Sons in the late 1800's. The company wasn’t well known, but their shoes were seen in the Olympics in 1924. Later down the line Joseph’s grandsons came up with the company Reebok in 1958. Paul Fireman was able to get the rights to sell Reeboks in the United States in 1979.

Reebok USA jumped into the market with their running shoes that were the most expensive shoe at the time.

Reebok then changed the game and starting gearing their shoes towards the aerobic and fitness crowd. Near the end of the 80's Reebok gained huge success with Reebok Pump shoes along with the well known slogan "Pump it Up". Although, Reebok was doing excellent in sales during the 80's and early 90's business slowed up in the late 90's. They lost around 7 million dollars during this time period and had to lay off many workers. After many struggles Reebok was trying to get back in the market. In 2002-2003 Reebok came out with the Rbk line. The RBK line was mainly geared to the younger Hip Hop crowd.

This was a wise move for Reebok, because they were doing something very different. The RBK line proved to benefit the company with the G-Unit collection and the S. Carter collection which really helped put them back in the game. Everyone knows Reebok is definitely not the #1 company, and many people will say that Reebok is over doing it with the Hip Hop stars. Regardless to what we think, Reebok is still here doing what they do best and that’s selling shoes. Reebok has signed their first skater "Stevie Williams" and he has a skateboarding shoe available called the DGKs. 

Owner

Reebok International Limited, a subsidiary of the German company Adidas since 2005, is a producer of athletic shoes, clothing, and accessories. The name comes from the Afrikaans spelling of rhebok, a type of African antelope or gazelle. In 1890 in Holcombe Brook, a small village six miles north east of Bolton, Greater Manchester, Joseph William Foster was making a living producing regular running shoes when he came up with the idea to create a novelty spiked running shoe. After his ideas progressed he joined with his sons, and founded a shoe company named J.W. Foster and Sons in 1895.

In 1958, two of the founder's grandsons Joe and Jeff Foster renamed the company Reebok in the United Kingdom, having found the name in a dictionary won in a race by Joe Foster as a boy; the dictionary was South African edition hence the spelling. The company lived up to the J.W. Foster legacy, manufacturing first-class footwear for customers throughout the UK. In 1979, Paul Fireman, an American sporting goods distributor, saw a pair of Reeboks at an international trade show and negotiated to sell them in the U.S.

The world headquarters is located in Canton, Massachusetts; with regional offices in Amsterdam (EMEA), Montreal (Canada), Hong Kong (Asia Pacific) and Mexico City (Latin America).

Logo 

The original Reebok logo depicts the Union Jack, portraying the company’s humble beginnings in Bolton, England in 1895. In 1986, Reebok unveiled a second emblem, often termed as “the vector”. The emblem was introduced to symbolize a new era of “performance” product. Its design was inspired by the cues on the product, often called the “side stripe – cross check”.

In 1996, the Reebok logo underwent only a few minor changes. Reebok took a big step in 1998 and took away their logotype, while using only the “cross check” which appeared on their products very aesthetic. In 2000, the company once again took out the logo and used only logotype, which was further modified and made more modern in 2002.

In 2004, the logotype, too, was discarded, and the cross check was reissued. To attain a bigger link to the youth market, the company brought in a new tier of product called “Rbk” in 2001. The wide success of this rebranding made Reebok to look at its overall branding scheme and learn that the future of the brand would be more effectively depicted by this new logo. The “Rbk” logo was created by the Arnell Group.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the brand name in 2008, Reebok brought back its brand identity from Rbk to Reebok. While Rbk worked for their brand identity, the culture and the business, Reebok is timeless and manifests the company’s high values. The current Reebok logo design features a new font that is modern yet simple, complementing the brand identity and reflecting the brand values.

Source : Wikipedia | theshoegame.com | famouslogos.us