To usher the legendary Tiempo boot into a new era, and to announce its new ambassador Jamal Musiala, Nike needed to highlight the skill that best reflected the product’s DNA: touch. However, touch is hard to envision: it’s more like a feeling.

So the need was to find an immersive way to involve Germany’s football lovers and showcase how essential touch is to the game.

This meant engaging with the local football community through different touch points, allowing a group of selected players to directly interact with the initiative and spreading the exhibition to a broader audience.

The goal of the activation is to explore the aspect of 'touch' in football, elevating it from technical skill to an art form on display.

In order to do it, Berlin’s Kindl art gallery has been entirely repurposed to host a football-themed interactive exhibition.

“The Art of Touch” is a data-driven football playground designed to capture touch in real time and turn it into a unique artwork that represents the interaction between each player and the ball.

Kitted out with a fresh pair of Tiempo, Germany’s best young ballers were invited to put their skills to the test and see their touch come to life by entering an obstacle course and dribbling past delicate artefacts. Each customised work of art representing their performance appeared in real time on a giant led screen at the end of the course. Players were also provided with a digital NFT of their personal artwork.

The goal was to capture data that would be key in defining the peculiar touch of each player. In order to do so, cameras mapped each participant’s performance. Players engaged with the obstacle course one by one and each individual experience lasted approximately 2 minutes per player. Timing, body movements, dribbling style, interactions with the ball and the obstacle course: all these data were fed into an algorithm that developed a real-time visual representation of each player’s touch.

On the days leading to the event, the Berlin Nike Members community was activated through targeted content.

“The Art of Touch” went live on 09/03/2023, when the Kindl contemporary art gallery in Berlin opened its doors to a crowd of football fans for an exhibit centred on Nike Tiempo.

The event was kick-started by a meet & greet session with Bayern Munich star and Tiempo’s new ambassador Jamal Musiala, then the visitors could admire several Tiempo-inspired art pieces, entertain themselves with e-sports challenges and finally engage with the main activation: the obstacle course.

Its goal was to capture data that would be key in defining the peculiar touch of each player. In order to do so, cameras mapped each participant’s performance. Capturing the metrics of the participants' movements was a robust algorithm designed by data artist Kirell Benzi. The algorithm tracked everything in real-time, from joint extension to precise angles between hips, knees, and ankles.

The final artwork took form before the eyes of the players at the end of the course: a large-scale particle design, shaped by the captured data of each participant. The visual choices, from the color palette to the particle behaviour, were developed in line with the Nike Tiempo boot design and the overarching "MAD READY" theme.

Jamal Musiala and Tiempo made their debut in front of a sell-out crowd selected among the Nike Members community. Twitch star Amar live-streamed the event to his 1.6 million followers and hosted a live Q&A with Jamal.

With 24.5m IG views, 955k Reach and a 9.9% engagement rate, Art of Touch truly shifted the perception of Nike Tiempo into a new era for a massive audience of Germany’s football fans.

Jamal Musiala and Tiempo made their debut in front of a sell-out crowd selected among the Nike Members community. The rest of Germany’s football enthusiasts weren't left out; Twitch star Amar live-streamed the event to his 1.6 million followers and hosted a live Q&A with Jamal Musiala.

With 24.5m IG views, 955k reach and a 9.9% engagement rate, Art of Touch was pivotal in relaunching Tiempo as an iconic symbol of control and finesse, shifting its perception into a new era for a massive audience of Germany’s football fans.