adidas
A read on how a generation forms attachment before it forms allegiance, and what that does to belonging.
METHODS
24 depth interviews, stakeholder interviews, concept testing, card sorting, competitor evaluation, panel discussions
DELIVERABLES
Member bond typology, grouping members by the driver that actually brought them in
Rational and emotional membership value maps
A moment model for sequencing value across the member lifecycle
Competitive loyalty-program teardown
Concept-test and card-sort readouts
Prioritised activation recommendations and content architecture
MARKETS
United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, France, Poland
THE SHIFT
Started with a loyalty giant's hardest growth question: how to activate the large, quiet base of members who sign up, take one benefit, and rarely return. Landed on a different definition of loyalty for that segment, and a working architecture to act on it, member bond types, value maps, and a moment model, so activation could be built around real motivation and the right moments rather than brand love.
THE SIGNAL
A generation that attaches to the product before the brand, reads identity-and-community overtures as staged, and gives loyalty only where membership stays relevant in the moment. Belonging can't be assumed. It has to earn its way in.
→ Fieldwork
Twenty-four in-depth interviews with low-engagement members across six European markets, plus panel discussions, concept testing, card sorting, and a hands-on evaluation of adidas and competitor loyalty programs.
→ Analysis and frameworks
I coded the material into two working frameworks the team could act on: a member bond typology, grouping members by the driver that actually brought them in, and a value-mapping framework separating the rational benefits members respond to from the emotional ones.
The Stakes.
adiClub is one of the largest loyalty programs in the world. But the growth question behind this study wasn't about its most devoted members. It was about the large, quiet base of low-engagement ones: people who sign up, take an early benefit, and rarely return. Every major loyalty program carries this segment. The brief was to understand who they actually are, and what would make membership matter to them.
The Tension.
Loyalty programs rest on an intuitive premise: that loyalty is brand love, and that community and shared identity turn a casual buyer into a committed member. That fits the enthusiasts at the top of the pyramid.
Low-engagement Gen Z members aren't a smaller version of that core. They're a different consumer: over-stimulated, sceptical of anything staged, conscious about consumption, and attached to the product before the brand. For them, a community-and-identity story isn't aspirational by default. It has to earn its way in, and arriving too early can quietly signal the program is meant for someone else.
So the emotional proposition that works beautifully for the core is not where this segment enters the relationship.
The Approach.
Before any fieldwork, I invested in reframing the question itself, so the study would open new ground rather than restate what a large body of prior research had already established.
The Phases.
→ Synthesis first
A structured scan of the existing internal knowledge base, plus interviews with membership stakeholders across strategic and tactical vantage points. This mapped what was known, what needed revalidating, and where the real gaps sat, and let me shape the hypotheses with the team rather than for them.
The Turn.
For the members a program most needs to grow, loyalty isn't brand love. It's relevance in the moment, and rational value has to come first to earn the right to emotional value later. The wider signal, and why it matters beyond adidas: this is an early read on how a cohort is redefining belonging, attaching to the thing before the brand, and treating community and identity as something a brand earns, not assumes.