Bring Fun Back to Nike
Project: My team built 10 AR lenses on Snapchat over the course of eight months in support of three priority global marketing campaigns. The lenses used a new (at the time) technology termed ‘AR for Movement’, which enabled movement from a Snapchat user to be replicated by an avatar within a Snapchat AR lens.
We started with an idea that I pitched to my leadership: two lenses set at Nike WHQ that invite the Nike audience into an environment that felt too cloaked in mystery. I wanted Nike to feel more approachable to our audience.
The pitch that I made was based on a strategy I had written that focused on Nike’s opportunity in augmented reality. Snapchat’s advancement in AR provided a chance for Nike to exhibit a fun, playful energy grounded in a content medium that Nike hadn’t fully explored.
Ultimately, the AR lenses supported the “You Can’t Stop Us”, “Play New” and “Best Day” campaigns, the latter two of which were Nike’s campaigns for the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
My Role: As noted above, I pitched the project. I led every piece of development for the first two AR lenses (Training and Running) including the brief, creative direction, content gathering, prototype development, measurement strategy, publishing and recap.
Eight more AR lenses were produced to support the Tokyo Olympics. I informed the brief for each lens, feedback into creative direction and prototypes and co-led content development for the paid media strategy to drive awareness and engagement of the lenses.
Project Superpower: We achieved 2 billion-plus Impressions across all 10 lenses, for one thing. Beyond the success in presenting a fun, playful way to engage with Nike in celebration of the world’s biggest sporting event, the close partnership that Nike and Snapchat formed led to serious discuss about long-term goals. Soon after the end of the campaign, Nike and Snapchat agreed to a trial joint business agreement. Following that, we signed the first-ever annual joint business agreement between Nike, Inc. and Snap, Inc. The two companies continued to sign annual joint business agreements, building an even stronger partnership.
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Nike Running Lens
This lens was created to support the “You Can’t Stop Us” campaign and is set at the Michael Johnson track at Nike WHQ.
The avatar runs and jumps hurdles based on the user doing high knees and jumping, respectively.
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Nike Training lens
This lens was created to support the “You Can’t Stop Us” campaign and is set on the Bo Jackson field at Nike WHQ.
The avatar does three drills that were taken from the Nike Training Club app - each drill lasts for a certain number of seconds and the user is supposed to replicate the movement of the avatar in order to successfully complete the drill.
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Alex Morgan lens
Built to motivate girls and women, specifically, to play with Alex Morgan. This lens featured U.S. Women’s national team star Alex Morgan in anticipation of the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
The lens supported Nike’s “Best Day” phase of the Tokyo Games campaign.
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Nike Skateboarding
Built to inspire people to try skateboarding through AR, this lens supported Nike’s “Best Day” phase of its Tokyo Summer Olympics campaign.
The environment for this lens was taken from the real skate park in Tokyo.
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Wheelchair Basketball lens
Built to support the Tokyo Paralympics Games, which followed the Olympics Games.
This lens was special to me and my team because we accomplished a shared goal with Snapchat by creating an AR experience that could be enjoyed by people from their seat. This was unlike many other AR lenses using Snapchat’s ‘AR for Movement’ technology, which usually required people to stand.
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Nike Football lens
Built for the “Play New” campaign in support of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, this lens requires users to move their feet so that they can take a shot and score a goal.
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Nike Boxing lens
Built for the “Play New” campaign in support of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, this lens asks the user to move their hands and feet in order to land a punch on their opponent.
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Nike Surfing lens
Built for the “Play New” campaign that supported the Tokyo Summer Olympics, we wanted to make Surf a sport that was apart of our content mix. It is fun, aspirational and it challenged Nike’s audience to use physical balance while standing as a movement to practice in order to play the AR lens.
