Last weekend, Future Foundation was lucky enough to be invited to take an exclusive peek into the adidas psyche and its vision of the future of football, at the adidas lab in Victoria House. This was the first in a series of events showcasing adidas products of the past, present and future. Inspired by the UEFA Champions League on Saturday, the event focused on innovation in football and provided fans with the opportunity to test unseen products and engage with a range of high-tech, interactive experiences.

Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer and football legends Zinedine Zidane and Michael Ballack kicked off with a day of interactive and inspiring football innovations. Hainer stated the need to keep things ‘smart’ and ‘fast’, describing the cutting edge of football as ‘smart’ and ‘digital’, where revolutionary advances in monitoring and tracking the biorhythms of individual players will have implications for broadcasting and coaching.

Then the fun really began! We were treated to sneak previews of 4 cutting edge innovations, all designed to super-charge the beautiful game. First under the spotlight were speed enhancement technologies – the adizero 99g boot weighs less than an iPhone 5; while the 630g kit includes shirt, shorts, shin pads, socks and boots all designed to provide a lighter look with more game time speed.  A limited number of both will be available in 2015.

The base layer of the kit is also fully integrated into another innovation – the miCoach Elite team system. This is the first system of its kind to take real time physiological data and send it back to a coach’s tablet on the sidelines. Measuring everything from power, speed and distance to heart rate and field position, it provides instant insights into player performance and work rate to keep players at their peak and in the game.

The final innovation, the Smart Ball, adds another element of smart-technologies to the sport with the ability to measure power, strike point, trajectory and bend through its built-in sensors. Its automated coaching system feeds back this information to the player through an app to improve technique.

All four were on display and available to interact with. I even got a chance to experience adidas’s future by running ‘The Track’, a 15m Astroturf track providing a real time data visualisation experience to test your game. This involved partaking in 3 running challenges to measure speed, work rate and skill. The data came to life as I ran the track and provided insight on which adidas boot would best suit my style of play – the Predator (the technical wizard), f50 (the speed demon) or Nitrocharge (the engine).

So what does all of this mean for the future of sport? The training, coaching and viewing of sports are all in for some dramatic changes. Mobile Living leaves no rock unturned, and it is now making its way onto the football pitch. Players and coaches will have new, personalised, quantified ways of tracking their performance and progress. The adidas innovations will be game-changing. Literally.

At the confluence of our Performative Leisure, Photo-Phile Culture, Native Marketing, Mobile Living and Discount Forever trends is Kapture -  an app which allows merchants to reward their customers for sharing brand-relevant photos online.

Retailers and leisure venues signed up to the service can post details of rewards available  -  such as a free drink for sharing photos of a bar  -  while the app allows users to see what photo opportunities are available nearby. According to the website: "Whether it's eating your favorite dish in Little Italy or Kapturing your new outfit that you can't wait to hit the streets in, Kapture rewards you for moments all over your city".

Pictures taken through Kapture are stamped with a water mark from the merchant before being shared across social networks. By the end of 2012, the service boasted over 300 partnering merchants.

From a long-term perspective, of course, we might wonder whether the rise of the Smart Networking trend will see people growing tired of such propositions. But at least in the short term, we're bound to see far more branded energy being directed towards consumer-led sharing.

The nVision International Conference is an opportunity to explore the global factors that are (re-)shaping the consumer landscape.  The biggest story on the world agenda is of course the implications of the global economic slowdown  – but are these growing pains or temporary setbacks?  Our Economics Editor, Richard Nicholls opened the day with good news – there is some room for optimism.  Even at this time of crisis, affluence is rising in most regions – by 2013, the world economy will be 11% larger than in 2007 and the average citizen 4% richer.

Head of Financial Services, Barry Clark then went on to explore consumer interest in new forms of digitalised currency and emerging payment modes, and asking the question – is cash nearly dead?

Other topics in the jam-packed agenda were provenance, protectionism and the power of local; the global leisure parade and the heightened attention being paid not only to the quality and breadth of leisure options but also our ability to more actively broadcast our behaviours to our networks; smart consumption in a digital world; a day in the life of two consumers in 2027; and two hot new trends – Ish! and Concierge Living.

To get a deck of slides of highlights from the day, to discuss any of these topics in more detail or to get information on our next UK conference on 15 November, please contact Karen Canty on 020 3008 6107

In March, the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced plans to open a chain of Even Hotels – which it describes as mid-range venues with a clear focus on health and wellbeing.

According to IHG, the hotels are being designed to offer a Zen atmosphere in all areas – with plants and skylights in the lounge, LED mood lighting in the rooms and a gym which will boast an outdoor feel. Guests will also be encouraged to maintain a healthy lifestyle at all times, with each hotel providing nutritionally designed menus and services as well as multifunctional room amenities for fitness (for example, the coat rack will also be a pull-up bar and the luggage shelf will double as a weight bench).

Developed, IHG said, in response to its own research which showed that 1 in 4 travellers want hotels which accommodate their healthy lifestyles, the company claimed Even Hotels will be “fulfilling the so far unmet demand for healthier travel”. A sign of things to come in the hospitality sector? Or something that will always be a niche proposition? We’d love to hear your thoughts.