I was just watching the adidas/Star Wars video over at 2 Ads I Cannot Stop Watching - On The Ground Looking Up and thinking about sneaker brands in my life. It doesn't show now, but I was a distance runner in high school. Ran cross country and back when I was doing this, there weren't many cross country sneakers available at the average sporting goods stores. In fact, I can only remember seeing the adidas Country sneakers in the stores by me. They were solid sneakers and I feel like most of the people ran in them. Then in '76 or '77, a guy named Gary Muhrcke started selling new brands of sneakers literally from the back of his van as he visited high school tracks across the state. That's where I was introduced to brands like New Balance, Brooks and others that I had never heard of before. I tried a variety of brands and settled on New Balance, which I wore when I ran the NY Marathon back in '89.
To me, brands like adidas became less "real" sneakers and more fashion sneakers. Brands like New Balance and Brooks were the ones you chose to run in, adidas were the sneakers you were to hang out. That's not to say that's true, that's just become my impression these days.
My point is this. back in the late 70's, I decided that adidas weren't really good shoes for running and that impression has stayed with me for over 30 years. I don't think I've even tried on a pair of adidas sneakers since those high school days.
When brand associations are made, they're pretty hard to change.