Is Adidas finally seeing value in the 'quantified self’ movement?

The ‘quantified self’ movement is where people focus on self tracking for personal improvement. This is a movement that has been gathering pace for sometime now. Recently mainstream brands have heavily increased their focus on how consumers are viewing their lifestyle choices. More importantly, brands are now more focused on how they are taking action themselves to assert change.An abundance of brands have tried to enter the ring, aiming for first mover advantage in what appears to be a lucrative market, with Nike clearly establishing themselves in the ‘self tracking’ world.Now, Nike competitors Adidas are also seeing value in this movement.Adidas has recently announced a partnership with the streaming music service Spotify, inspiring runners with routes and playlists to ‘Boost your run’.The collaboration is a smart move by Adidas which is looking to leverage Spotify’s strong esteem and knowledge, adding an emotional aspect to its personality that will surely help combat Nike’s dominance. Smart and functionally astute, Adidas has struggled to keep up with the likes of Nike who have penetrated the market with a portfolio of products that amplify their emotional promise of winning.However this move looks to address the need for Adidas to add brand touch points that emotionally connect with the consumers, adopting a social integrated approach over purely individualist performance. The partnership is of course in line with a bigger attack on the market as Adidas aims to announce their Smart Run watch this fall which - wait for it - will likely feature Spotify’s boost you run application.Whether Adidas wishes to venture further into the quantified self realm is to be determined but it is still some way off of Nike’s infiltration of the market. However Adidas is hoping to take advantage of Android’s increasing popularity with Nike having already established themselves with Apple, teaming up to deliver Nike+ across a range of iOS devices.Whichever platform Adidas prefers to adopt there is sure to be a hotly contested battle for consumer preference. With Adidas now heightening consumers’ motivation to stay up beat and be at your best to perform, it is likely that other players need to stand up and take note.The writer is Tom Child, strategist at Landor.