Why adidas wants to be a “brand in beta”

Stephen Whiteside

This event report details how adidas, the sports and lifestyle brand, is ensuring it remains fresh and relevant to consumers.

For adidas, the brand playbook is constantly revised and refreshed – the very opposite of a month-in, month-out boiler-plate program for developing, launching, and promoting products.

“We firmly believe this idea that we are a ‘brand in beta’. We are never finished,” Paul Gaudio, Global Creative Director at adidas, told an audience at the 2017 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Paul Gaudio, Global Creative Director, adidas

Such thinking, he suggested, resembles a philosophy favored by technology companies: constantly pursue (and roll out) innovations, rather than issuing occasional, major product updates. In fact, these digitally-driven firms are so committed to...

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