Nike
Bringing Nike into the Metaverse.
NIKELAND is more than a game—it’s a strategic initiative to bring the Nike brand to Gen Alpha, and launch Nike into the metaverse.
As Director of Strategy at Skylight, I led the new business outreach for this project, RFP response and pitch, consumer insights research, positioning, game concepting, naming and launch campaign messaging and strategy.
Nike faced a challenge: Kids today are the least active in history. They think sport is too competitive, too rule-focused, and just not that fun. Nike knew that in order to get Gen Alphas moving, they’d first need to reach kids where they spend the most time: in Roblox.
The brief was wide open: How might Nike best enter the metaverse, and turn screen time back into playtime in real life?
We began by interviewing kids, game designers and psychologists to truly understand what was happening with Gen Alpha?
Next, we facilitated stakeholder work sessions with Nike, game developers and the Skylight team to define the game’s kid-centered design principle, zero in on key priorities, establish requirments, and explore ways we might bring the Nikeland experience to life across IRL and vitual touchpoints.
Together we developed insight-driven game concepts with clear guidelines for a must-play experience on Roblox that could help show kids the positive elements of sports, and get kids moving in real life.
From there we crafted every aspect of the game—from its name, NIKELAND, to its look and feel, world design, core gameplay loop, music, easter eggs, currency and more.
Finally, we parnered with Nike to develop the GTM campaign strategy, including messaging and storytelling activations across all touchpoints, and creative for web, out-of-home and retail.
Our approach also informed a broader strategy for engaging Gen Alpha in real life, in storefronts and playgrounds across the country, and lay the foundation for a larger Nike move into the metaverse.
Nikeland attracted over 31.5 million accesses and generated more than $1.39 billion billion for the brand.