New sneaker launches are always highly anticipated in China. This project sets out to enhance this experience, while simultaneously truly communicating Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ mantra. We created a first of its kind WeChat-mini-program, which unlocks the repurposed AR-Map shoe-wrapping paper inside of limited edition sneaker-boxes. The unlocked online-to-offline map showed users all the different 2019 Shanghai marathon events across the city’s many neighborhoods. It essentially invited consumers to unpack their city with Nike.

This was a proactive project, presented to the client after thorough analysis of their UX-cycle. The analysis showed that the unboxing moment is the most exciting moment when buying new shoes. This was an untapped opportunity for Nike to bring their ‘Just Do It’ mantra to life. The result was an experience which connected the offline experience to Nike’s online ecosystem, allowing Nike to build a relationship with customers after consumers purchased their sneakers.

The solution was first to elevate the unboxing moment by adding something to it. The otherwise useless wrapping paper shoes come in was redesigned to include a WeChat activatable online-to-offline AR-map. The mini-program used to activate the map is a first of it’s kind on WeChat. It invited users to participate in different sports events that took place in the different neighborhoods of Shanghai.

After dissecting customers’ post-purchase journey, Nike realised that the most exciting moment - the moment of unboxing the shoes when they arrive - wasn't actually getting people moving. So, by replacing the otherwise wasteful shoebox wrapping with a reusable, customised map of Shanghai, Nike invited athletes to 'unpack the city' of sporting events around them.

The map triggered a unique AR experience (first of its kind for a WeChat mini-program), which showed all the Nike events across different neighbourhoods of Shanghai. Through a simple online-to-offline booking mechanism, the customer could sign up to any number of different events.

The team designed a full AR city map, with clear CTAs to book spaces or register for sports events and classes that were organised around the 2019 Shanghai marathon. The 43,000 maps were directly placed inside of sneaker boxes, ready to be activated with a no-download-needed WeChat miniprogram. The activated map destinations included retail experiences, and sign-up options to join Nike Run crews. The AR experience also integrated Nike+ log-in options, a CTA to follow the Nike Official account and included personalisation options.

The work ran from 1 Nov 2019 until 31 Dec 2019.

Nike Unpack your City was the first time in this market for Nike to create a cross category, at-home offline engagement unboxing experience. Elevating the aftersales interaction consumers have with the brand. Moreover, the AR-experience directly collected and feeded 1st party data into the Nike CRM system, enabling them to get a better understanding of how to personalise their client service offering, as each of the events an individual signed up for directly showed which sports this person is interested in. Lastly, the miniprogram was activated several thousand times, and there were thousands of work-shop sign-ups received.