In 2018 LeBron James signed for the Los Angeles Lakers. We celebrated the launch of the new Nike LeBron 16 King Court Purple, by rewarding LeBron’s new fans and sneakerheads of LA with an exciting commerce experience which would enable customers to explore their city, and unlock exclusive access to the product.

LA is known for its passion for sneaker culture. By creating an exciting scavenger hunt that culminated in the Foot Locker store in the heart of Santa Monica, we were able to reward fans for that passion while driving foot-traffic in-store.

We launched “The Hunt” - an AR-enabled scavenger hunt which led fans on a tour of hotspots in Santa Monica’s urban culture, culminating in the Foot Locker store where participants had exclusive access to the Nike LeBron 16 King Court Purple.

Instead of camping out in line, “The Hunt” let fans use their Foot Locker app to unlock geo-targeted AR clues throughout the city that led them to the coveted limited edition shoe.

Clues were brought to life as stunning, interactive, AR art installations - each installation containing the clue to the next stop in the scavenger hunt. The final stop in “The Hunt” was the flagship Santa Monica Foot Locker store - fans who found every clue were guaranteed the hyper-exclusive Nike LeBron 16 King Court Purple.

We were tasked with driving foot traffic into the Santa Monica flagship store, increasing engagement with the Foot Locker ecommerce app, and injecting emerging technology into the Foot Locker purchase experience to create an exciting product drop for real sneaker fans. All within a hyper-localized market - Santa Monica, LA.

Starting with the cultural insight that sneakerheads were getting tired of the product drop, with decreasing foot-traffic instore around key release dates, we decided to create a scavenger hunt that would drive only the biggest fans into the store for the release of the new Nike LeBron.

Our audience of young, fashion-forward sports fans are early tech-adopters, so we activated with AR, placing AR clues at relevant cultural hotspots around LA.

We seeded "The Hunt" to hyper-local streetwear micro-influencers to amplify the drop, and to get Santa Monica's sneakerheads into the flagship store.

“The Hunt” was built into the existing Foot Locker commerce app. Push notifications were sent to hand-selected micro-influencers and fans in a geofenced area around the Santa Monica Foot Locker store, with a call to action to “Join The Hunt”.

Those who accepted the challenge were served four clues that would lead users on a unique hunt for AR installations placed at LA’s cultural hotspots - each installation a stunning perceptual art piece containing a clue to the next location.

“The Hunt” culminated at the Santa Monica Foot Locker store, where only fans who collected all of the clues were able to purchase the new Nike LeBron. “The Hunt” was a one-day activation, taking place on October 10th, just before the start of the new NBA season.

By leveraging the latest in native AR technology, we generated press pickup in Campaign, The Drum, and Forbes —just to name a few.

“The Hunt” was seeded to 173 streetwear influencers in Santa Monica, of which 53% completed the experience. An additional ~4,000 fans geofenced in Santa Monica were invited to participate in this beta, of which 55% explored our new take on the drop.

Our brief was to create an exciting new way to drive fans to convert in-store. We did just that: the only way to purchase the new Nike LeBron 16 King Court Purple at the Santa Monica Foot Locker location was to complete “The Hunt” - the sneaker sold out within 2-hours.

We were tasked with injecting technology into Foot Locker’s business. By leveraging cutting edge AR we positioned Foot Locker as tech-innovators, generating 169M earned impressions through social shares and press coverage in mainstream, advertising, tech and fashion publications. And along the way we created a platform that can be easily extended to other stores.