• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, March 14, 2015

Jon Werner, Innovation Explorer at Adidas, goes on "trend walks," where he goes on walks through Los Angeles and New York to see what people wear. It's about making the experience better, so recently the brand launched a pilot in London. By tapping a mobile near field communication (NFC)-enabled phone to the shoe. It would provide a mobile marketing message if you're inside a retail store. The shoe learns more about the wearer and the experience, sending her to clubs or shops around town. Werner called it a "shoe with benefits." A concept idea would put an NFC tag in a jersey t-shirt that provided more information about the team or the sport. Tapping on the item would give Adidas information the consumer. It creates one-to-one relationships with consumers. "We look at it not only as a way to communicate with consumers, but a way to track product thought the supply chain before it gets to the store, similar to the way Intel director of retail analytics Daniel Gutwein, Intel director of retail analytics, spoke about Friday at OMMA SXSW.