As Adidas Ziggs Nike Zaggs

During this week’s Friday news dumb a story roll through my feed with some details on adidas’ efforts to restructure their outdoor business unit Terrex and their plans to fold it into their main business channels. This inevitably creates some turbulence and unfortunate personnel adjustments which I have no insight on and therefore can’t comment on. But I wanted to take a moment to ponder how this all came to be and where adidas might be heading next.

A brief (much abridged) history:

• Back in the 70s adidas supported Reinhold Messner with gear for his Himalaya expeditions.
• When adidas Outdoor launched in the US in the 2010s it was an entirely separate business unit, had it’s own website (adidas-outdoor.com I believe) and focused on ‘outdoor in general’: they offered hiking and snowboarding gear and bolted trail running onto that.
• Eventually this effort got folded into the main online store, but the Terrex brand remained.
• In trail running they were one of the first ‘classical sports brands’ to really invest into the sport.
• They cultivated the first real ‘trail team’ with cohesive kits and training camps for their athletes.
• In the fashion world adidas took a huge financial hit with their busted Kanye West partnership.
• They revive their brand, and return to growth by going down nostalgia lane with the reintroduction of shoes like the ‘Samba’ and the ‘Gazelle’. Focusing on the classic lines and the Three Stripes – one of the most iconic brand image ever created.
• At TRE this year I noticed that the new trail shoes on display boasted the three stripes prominently with the Terrex wording seemingly relegated already pointing into the direction we now see unfold.

Okay, there are some holes, I admit but my main takeaway here is that adidas, at a time when they were one of the largest and most well-known athletic and streetwear brands decided that entering the outdoor space seemed reasonable – we know how to make clothes and shoes, why not do it for that space too – but they wanted to offer a differentiation and not just bring the Three Stripes into a space with plenty of tradition, massively beloved incumbent brands, and a culture that seemed decidedly ‘counter to the fashion brands worn on city streets’. I reckon the thinking was: “We can win on quality and price but no one wants to wear the same look on the trails than what folks wear in the city and on the soccer fields. Fast forward to 2026 and the European business landscape looks pretty gloomy, which often results in business restructuring and “going back to the basics” and “do what we know best” efforts. And I do want to acknowledge this, as this might all seem like following a grand strategy but it also could just be panic induced.

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Alright, what this mean for trail running: The sport currently experiences growth, there’s momentum, and this leads to running (tradition and mainly on the road) and trail running moving closer together. At my first TRE Terrex and adidas had separate booths, not anymore. Gorpcore brought trail running to the streets, now running brands are at Paris Fashion Week and are considered trendsetting. There’s no need for the Terrex sub-brand anymore, in fact, with the success of the ‘Samba’- line of shoes it feels like a distraction and adidas wants to present a unified front.

The entire strategy of ‘sub brands’ is a fascinating business strategy. It works for some players, some of the time. Some of these brands grow out of fashion partnership, or athlete branding, but many are hedged bets – “we don’t want to bring our core brand to an effort that might fail, let’s just dabble with a sub brand”.

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This brings me to Nike’s polar opposite strategy here. They have famously dabbled in trail several times before, to not much success. Now they are investing heavily and everyone claims and hopes that this time they will get it right. But their move is again through a sub brand: ACG. There’s no doubt that everyone knows Nike and that famous ‘Swoosh’ – that brand had value, but I hardly anyone knows what ACG is. They are choosing to enter a market – and not just the trail running space, but the outdoor space – as can be seen by their line of Winter Olympics gear, which boldly boasts the ACG logo but not the Nike logo – and they have to do the extra work of introducing ACG to the masses. So, seemingly what Nike is doing here is what adidas had already tried a few years ago: entering a space they previously had no market share in through the door of a sub brands. And just at a time where Adidas seems to be sunsetting their sub brand Terrex, Nike decides to follow the same playbook. I am curious to see how this will play out. Running is hot right now, and trail running is – especially visually – the most desirable segment of that market. For these big brands, who have their fingers in every sport now’s the perfect time to invest to gain momentum in that space. It will be interesting to see if that extra layer – by going through a sub brand – is the correct move or another bet hedged that can be easily discarded if it doesn’t work out – again.

As to adidas, we need to wait for their next move. How will they emerge from this restructuring? Empowered and focused, or diminished and in retreat from the trail space? Right now Nike, ahem ACG, are on the move. Their logos are everywhere. ACG seems to be sponsoring every big trail event on the West Coast and their ACG products have arrived at REI, just in time for the Winter Olympics to kick off in Milano/Cortina.