Mass customization - an Adidas perspective

According to Piller, mass customization (MC) means the production of goods and services for a (relatively) large market which exactly meets the needs of every individual customer with regard to certain product characteristics (differentiation option) at costs roughly corresponding to those of standard mass produced goods (cost option). The information collected in the course of the process of individualization serves to build up a long lasting individual relationship with each customer. This presentation describes how Adidas is seeking to achieve this through its 'mi adidas' project, a form of collaborative mass customization, which Pine has defined as one of four possible settings for MC. 'mi adidas' products are results of hard customization (production on demand); not only making cosmetic changes to the products (soft customization), rather each pair is the result of a customer's need in regards to fit, performance and design.