• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, November 13, 2014

With its acquisition last year of MapMyFitness, UnderArmour is looking to redefine itself as a technology company, bringing a million workouts per day into its universe of data collection.

In a presentation at the 4A’s CreateTech conference in Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday, Doug Ziewacz, senior director of UnderArmour Connected Fitness, and Jeff Malmad, mobile and Life+ lead at Mindshare North America, addressed the ways wearables are evolving beyond the three screens. 

For UnderArmour, it’s powered by the ability to harvest the millions of workouts transmitted by its users, through MapMyRun and MapMyRide, to make recommendations that will help them crank up their fitness levels.

“Our mission is to make all athletes better,” Ziewacz, says, “and to be largest globally,” adding that its open platform now works with 40-plus device brands and more than 400 actual devices. “And our CEO, Kevin Plank, has said he will not cede technology to Silicon Valley, just because we’re an apparel company.”

“We take in 1 million workouts per day, collecting things like BMI, speed, calories burned. This data is all voluntarily submitted, in the spirit of equitable value exchange.” Consumers are willing to do so, he says, “because they are in return getting what they need.” While Fitbits and Nike FuelBands are the devices du jour, “the $300 devices we see now will be antiquities, and data will be in t-shirts.”

Recently, it partnered with Zappos in a program that allows it to make shoe recommendations as runners begin to approach the 300-mile mark on their running shoes.

“This is just the beginning,” he says, “and an eyes-wide-open example of consumers’ willingness to hand over data.” He says the company plans to unveil a new partnership with American Family Insurance in January. “We’re fostering a high level of trust. Consumers are willing to share data, as long as they get something back in return.”