Nike launches a game changing approach to trialling football boots.

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Nike has changed their strategy around how they connect with consumers in-store considerably in the last 12 months

One of the critical areas of interest being to drive consumer loyalty and conversions through membership to the Nike App.

A new approach to trying on football boots.
Nike wanted to reinvent the experience of purchasing football boots in retail by enabling consumers to trial them in a fun yet authentic manner using digital technology. Our task was to create a digitally forward football boot trialling system for the launch of the brand new Phantom boot with Nike membership at its core.

By running a series of workshops alongside Nike’s Direct retail team, we engaged with young football-obsessed consumers and found out what they wanted in a Football Trial Zone at Nike Town London. And where they felt the purchasing process could be improved upon

Key Takeaways:
The trials must be genuine and reflect how professionals train.

The experience must be long-lasting and maintain interest and encourage the ongoing involvement and use by young and old consumers alike.

Consumers would enter the space, get kitted out by a Nike store Athlete and enter the trial area to take on either the Phantom Precision or Mercurial Speed trials. The trials themselves were designed in collaboration with one of Nike’s Master Trainers to ensure authenticity, and each revolved around key benefits of the new Phantom football boot. Depending on how well a consumer played, they would receive points for each trial which would them be aggregated at the end to produce a final Trial score, allowing them to improve each time they returned.

Seamless engagement
A key consideration was the ability for consumers to have a seamless and easy shopping experience. To achieve this OMM worked with Nike’s Global Experience Team to ensure a smooth integration into the staff’s Nike Assist mobile payment solution. Staff obtain consumer’s details via a QR code in the Nike App on their mobile device, scan the boots they wish to try on and after the trials are completed enable a sell-through via the Nike Assist units. All activity such as this is tracked via Nike internal system so we can not divulge this information.

Extra time
Upon completion of each trial the consumer would receive their final score via email and if they were good enough, not only get the chance to be seen on the top 10 leaderboard instore but represent their London borough in future Trial competitions.

Other activations planned throughout 2019/20 included the Women’s World Cup and London Borough vs Borough trial zone playoffs.

The Trial Zone System
The final experience consisted of an iPad app, a custom-built LED net capable of weathering high-speed impacts from footballs. A marker-less motion tracking system to capture movement in the trial area, an invisible Infra-red net system that would register hits from a football at high speed and 3 digital kickboards mounted with custom vibration sensors.

VR productivity pipeline
Throughout the project OMM used new techniques to plan and execute the project. One such example was the creation of a Virtual Reality Showroom of the experience. This enabled Nike’s Leadership to step inside the trial space and accurately see what it would look like from the perspective of the consumer before anything was even built.

This was also an essential tool in providing realistic feedback to visualise how motion graphics would look in the space allowing OMM’s creative and motion graphics teams to adjust and test in advance of the final installation.