Jul 20, 2016 Mobile Marketing 0 comment

Nike: The Nike SB App

To reach its skateboarding target, Nike created an app to help skaters learn new tricks in unprecedented ways and connected them with peers and pro riders, creating a community where they truly belonged. App designers wanted the look and feel to remain true to the skateboarding culture, so several cameras were fitted to a specifically designed dolly that wrapped around the board and was used to shoot pro skaters as they attempted and landed tricks.

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STRATEGY

Objective and Context:

Nike needed to create a tool that was fun, useful, and authentic enough to earn the respect of skateboarders — a notoriously hard-to-reach culture. The brand created a never-before-seen digital skate experience, collaborating with pro riders and changing the way skaters participate in the world’s largest action sport. It helped skaters progress in their sport, connect with their peers and pro riders, and earn respect for one another with features like video posting, challenges, and personal skate histories.

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Target Audience:

Skateboarders are a notoriously hard-to-reach audience, so whatever Nike created needed to be authentic in order to earn riders’ respect. Nike’s audience uses social media religiously: they consume and create more content than their peers and rely on mobile for almost everything. The tools they use to get better, however, have failed to keep up with this advanced, connected consumer. Nike needed to create a tool that could.

Creative Strategy:

The Nike SB app helped skaters learn new tricks in unprecedented ways and connected them with peers and pro riders, creating a community where they truly belonged. Through the pro rider fan base and the skating community, the Nike SB app grew organically, making the authenticity of the app apparent.

App designers wanted the look and feel to remain true to the skateboarding culture while remaining clean and not distracting from the app’s functionality and ease of use.

EXECUTION

Overall Campaign Execution:

Several cameras were fitted to a specially designed dolly that wrapped around the board, which shot pro skaters landing tricks. The footage was presented through a playback system that allowed users to view the action like never before. The technology gave users the tools to explore the precise movements and coordination involved from whichever angle they chose, including the ability to adjust speed and playback direction at any time. This technology pushed the Nike SB app to the next level and powered Nike SB’s main branding effort for the year. The launch was a success and the app continues to flourish.

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Mobile Execution:

In October 2013, Nike SB was launched as an iOS mobile app. Shortly after launch, the brand held The Berrics Lock-In event where 28 of the world’s best skaters came together for 24 hours to land the 616 tricks in the Trick Tree — the first ever taxonomy of almost every skateboarding trick ever attempted. The entire event was broadcast live on YouTube, and skaters around the world watched and tweeted the tricks they wanted performed by their favorite skater.

The technology developed especially for the Tilt Control feature in the Nike SB app — a proprietary shooting rig — changed the game for Nike and the skateboarding community, allowing the capture of multiple angles and minute details of a trick in one pass.

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RESULTS (INCLUDING CONTEXT, EVALUATION, AND MARKET IMPACT)

To remain true to the target’s grassroots culture, Nike decided not to go with a traditional mass media campaign and instead relied on word of mouth and endemic media to reach its goals.

The campaign has been a success. In the app’s first four months, skaters uploaded more than 60,000 videos and played more than 10,000 games of S.K.A.T.E. on the tool. During the launch event, 17,000 tweets were generated and 178,000 skaters watched the YouTube live broadcast.