Blog: Conti, adidas collaborate on Get Your Grip campaign

AKRON—At the tail end of March, Rubber & Plastics News kicked off our first installment of our Science in Sports blog. The goal of this series is to highlight different uses of rubbers and plastics in sports, because they are everywhere.

From safety components to the core of equipment to accessories, the sports we know and love would not happen if it weren't for rubbers and plastics.

For this second installment, I reached out to Alexander Bahlmann, head of media and public relations, passenger and light truck tires at Continental A.G.

Conti has been working with adidas since 2007, but it recently launched the Get Your Grip campaign. What I thought was so interesting is that when I started working for Rubber & Plastics News' sister publication, Tire Business, in 2012, one of the biggest comparisons that I heard was tires and shoes.

This was the first thing that really struck a chord with me because it was a simple analogy. A car depends on tires like a person depends on shoes. You need support, grip, comfort and much more for both shoes and tires.

When I discovered this new campaign, I was intrigued. After hearing this analogy so many times, it seemed like a perfect fit: a tire manufacturer and a shoe manufacturer.

“Everything started with a meeting of our compound experts with adidas experts and discussed about requirements tires and running (shoes) do have,” Bahlmann said.

After the first workshops, Bahlmann said “the potential to increase the performance of running shoes by designing specific rubber compounds according to the needs of different shoe segments was evaluated as rather high.”

The companies then took the next steps of testing procedures to find out which compounds would work best for shoes.

“Obviously the maximum grip level is not the best one for marathon athletes because a certain flexibility and stability need to be maintained to prevent them from injuries,” he said.

This collaboration shows that it sometimes is worth looking for the best solution outside of a company's industry. When comparing shoes and tires, the biggest analogy is that both are the contact pitch to the road, Bahlmann said, so from a technical standpoint, there is not much of a difference between driving a car and running, at first glance.

However, another analogy with tires and running shoes are the specific requirements they both must adhere to, especially regarding wet and dry grip.

“Imagine what happens if you have a winter tire with a summer compound in the tread pattern mounted on your car—the braking and handling performance under wintery conditions (snow, ice) would be very, very poor,” Bahlmann said.

“Therefore the compounds vary according to the requirements. One of the outcomes of the further exchange between our experts and adidas experts was that they agreed on tests with different compounds on different shoe models.”

Another outcome was that Conti chemist Konstantin Efimov became the liaison between adidas and Conti's compound developers.

“Grip physically happens in the contact pitch between tire and the road as well as the shoes and the road/surface,” Bahlmann said.

Ultimately, the Get Your Grip campaign is designed to explain the benefit of this technology transfer from tires to adidas shoes.

Fun fact: the last three marathon world records (2011, 2013 and 2014) have been achieved on adidas running shoes with Continental Traction Compound, Bahlmann said.

These records show that “this cooperation is not a marketing campaign; it is about technology that delivers performance,” he added. “Nothing can prove this better than a world record—three of them—and several course records from male and female athletes on top are even better.”

In total, 80 different shoe models have the Continental Traction Compound, especially in the men and women running segments where several models are positioned for their light weight, stability or being neutral. Additionally, in the outdoor shoes segment, mountain sports shoes are available for men and women.

As long as this collaboration is beneficial for Conti and adidas, Bahlmann said he expects the firms will continue to explore means to improve grip performance.

We all know tires are important, and shoes are important. Continental and adidas are bridging a gap between two industries to provide cutting-edge technology, which I think is pretty cool.

To watch Conti's promotional video for the Get Your Grip campaign, click below: