We made an entire runner community felt the main benefit of the new Nike Invincible 3 shoes without even having to go to our stores.

How? By doing an innovative use of media: filling the potholes all around runners routes with a material that simulates the cushioning system of our new shoes.

It was an idea in a never used before media that stole all the looks and made thousands of runners interact with the brand in a never seen before experience.

In Peru, like in any Latin American country, the sidewalks are full of potholes. This is something that runners experience everyday, they see them in all sizes and shapes and is part of their landscape because they run in the sidewalks, it's really uncommon to see special routes for runners in countries like Peru.

Nike wanted to launch the new Invincible 3 in Peru, the shoes for runners with the best cushioning system on the market, they wanted to make runners feel the main benefit of their new shoes, but in this country the Nike Stores are few (only 13 stores nationwide).

So, how do we make runners try the main benefit of the product without having to go to the stores?

We took advantage of an element that is in the running training routes all over Peru: the potholes, and turned them into an unconventional mean of advertising.

We identified all the potholes in the paths of the main runner routes, we made a material that simulates the softness of the Invincible 3 soles and we filled in the potholes with that material, drawing attention of our specific target: runners, at the exact moment of training, making them step the patches and feel the main benefit of the product without having to go to a Nike store.

Usually a new product release is all about inviting the consumer to try it in store, unless you just have 13 stores all around the country, so we focused our strategy into go where our consumer is to make them try the main benefit of our product.

We found that in the main running routes potholes were everywhere, so we saw in them an opportunity to put all the cushioning of our shoes for runners to feel it in the exact moment of training.

Instead of spend millions in expensive media to make runners go to our few stores, we put the main benefit of our shoes in their running routes reaching an entire runners community.

Once we identified all the potholes in the main running routes, we started working day and night in a material that replicates almost exactly the cushioning and soft feeling of Invincible 3 sole's.

We tried with a lot of different materials until we found that a sophisticated form of polyvinyl chloride was the one.

Once we had the material we had to cut it into different sizes and shapes because every pothole was unique and different.

We printed different messages in every path inviting the runners to step into it to feel the cushioning, and we putted a QR code for them to be able to separate the shoes in Nike's web.

With the help of specialists we filled in all the potholes and the next morning every runner was stepping into the paths and feeling the cushioning of Nike's new shoes.

In the month our patches where in the potholes of the main running routes we impacted a whole runners community several times achieving a 5.6M in reach, five times the reach our Nike stores achieve in more than two months.

Thanks to the QR codes in the paths we increased the web visits in 883k, which help us put the Nike's Invincible 3 in the TOP 3 of Nike shoe sales, and all of this without even inviting the consumers to go to our stores.

This work is relevant in the small-scale media channel because we used the potholes in a never done before way: we filled them all around runners routes with a material that simulates the cushioning system of our new shoes.

We saw an opportunity in something small that runners see everyday and we takeover all sizes and shapes of potholes to put our campaign message.