BACK TO All Work

Adidas Infinity

Data Visualized Wardrobe service contribute to overconsumption and overproduction

MA 2022
Keywords
Behavior change, Gamification, Avatars, NFT, Overconsumption, Nudges
Overview

For better-disciplined purchasing behaviour and to actually see the environmental impact of our consumption, Adidas INFINITY is a data visualization wardrobe service that directly supports manageable fashion consumption and brings joy through gamification.

While our customers can better manage their overconsumption, their avatars in our service enjoy more digital fashions, which also accelerates their personal well-being and a better understanding of the environment through Adidas’s existing assets such as sports engagement, brick-and-mortar stores and their market power.

Collaboration

Our powerful partner Adidas has a long history and deep-rooted connection with sport. Its broad and diverse portfolio in both the Sports Performance and Sport Inspired categories ranges from major global sports to regional grassroots events and local sneaker culture. S&P evaluated Adidas as one of the leading brands for sustainability.

To amplify Adidas' sustainable contributions to the end-user layer, as service designers, we academically researched psychological behaviour change and applied them to the human-centred service design approach, resulting in this innovative service. Thanks to the signposts of Adidas professional members, we reached the intersection between technological feasibility, economical rationality, and human-centred ideality.

BACKGROUND

What caused fashion sustainability stagnant?

According to a UK government report, we will need three planets to cover all fashion production in 2030. We need to think about sustainability on this huge scale. As the researcher said, the key is not just technology but education and human behaviour. The current business model in the major fashion industries is encouraging over-consumption, over-production, and generating excessive waste. In addition to the short usage of purchased clothes, there is £30 billion worth of unused clothing in our closet in the UK. The specialist mentions that the demand for repairing, recycling, and reusing products is still limited. Do we want to sustain the fashion industry as it currently is, or do we want to live on the planet earth? If we want, we do need to take a more eco-centric perspective.

Opportunity

People need the education to build their environmental awareness before going into the Adidas three-loop strategy (Recycled, Circular and Regenerative Loop).

We had spent a lot of time visiting dozens of fashion shops such as fast fashion stores, kilo sales, charity shops and independent sustainable stores, with the aim of gaining a deep understanding of modern people's awareness of sustainable consumption and the mentality behind their consumption behaviour. The people we met have inspired us a lot with three insights below:

First, sustainability is not a priority for them. People said sustainability has value for myself, such as fashionability, emotional rewards, and durability. People who do not have sustainable habits talk about sustainability is for the environment, which is far from their own business.

Second, sustainability is nurtured by their family and social circle. Not a direct advertisement.

The last one is most interesting. While non-sustainable people can not remember what clothes they have, sustainable consumers easily remember what clothes they have

Especially, The woman we met at the sustainable store, who has long maintained sustainable consumption habits, was able to tell us the exact location and features of every item in her wardrobe.

It is obvious that Adidas' three-loop strategy is effective for sustainability; however, as human-centred service designers, we believe this strategy could be more customer-centric. To convey real mass consumers to the three-loop smoothly, we assume that modest education is important to build awareness in customers' current shopping life. 

Vision

How might we help the consumer to transform their focus from during usage to before purchase, to be aware that they already have enough clothes, by developing a wish list and incentivizing them to enjoy this transition?

service Journey

Through the entertaining journey on the Adidas INFINITY app, our users can enjoy the smooth transition from their real purchase desire into more opportunities to get virtual clothes by gaining a good habit of being conscious of their purchase behaviour. 

With more participation in the offline Adidas Infinity events, our users are inspired in their social circles, which accelerates their understanding of sustainability and well-being.

By educating people to have a habit of reviewing and understanding their closets, customers will stop blind purchasing. Furthermore, the Wishlist also gives a good chance to make discipline for their future purchase of what they really need as well as refocusing what closes they already have. As a result, we could make changes to overconsumption.

Validation

We prototyped with the Adidas profession team and got valuable feedback to refine for actual delivery:

"I really like this approach so it's not about solving the problem directly but trying to make them not happening so that's positive feedback. well done."

 "I really liked the fact that you provided this opportunity for action that you build this platform. It's not about purchasing only about where you might give the consumer a feeling that the brand cares about what they already own. So I think that could have a nice impact on how consumers perceive your brand."

"I think you can tap more into some psychological effects of belonging. Because that is quite interesting what is a motivator for a user, why do we buy fashion? Because we would like to belong to something and we belong to a group, we would like to belong to a tribe."

"That would help actually your educated approach quite well. Social belonging such as a football team or another group of people in an urban tribe would be a strong motivator for me, I think you could really go into it."

"On-demand production is something very, very helpful and I think that's an element in your thinking which is very positive, as well."

Our business model will contribute to Adidas's financial perspectives. We aim to develop a new revenue stream by applying NFT with the collaboration of artists and advertisement income. In addition, our service will have customer real demand in advance, then use them for Adidas's supply chain management, resulting in improving its cash flow in the near future.

SPECIAL
THANKS

Special thanks to Anna, Jeff, and many professionals from Adidas Headquarters and UK Team for guiding us throughout the project, our tutor Dr. Nicolás Rebolledo for his unwavering support, and our Head of Program Clive Grinyer for pushing us to think further. We would also like to give special thanks to the independent sustainable shop in London, charity organizations, and people who gave us time out of their busy days to help make this service impactful.

Team
No items found.