(* Source: Giles Fitzgerald *)
“Running is boring,” says Nike at the onset of Take Mokum, its new interactive graffiti challenge campaign. A fairly bold statement from a brand that makes its living from flogging running shoes.
However, this campaign isn’t aimed at everyone, just the somewhat disillusioned youth market who now want running to be more than just pounding the pavement. Running, like so many other pursuits, needs to be bolted on to other more interactive and connected experiences.
With this in mind Nike Amsterdam created a new Facebook app, Nike Take Mokum, which enabled runners to come together and create digital graffiti by manipulating satellite maps with their chosen running routes. This gave runs a new sense of purpose and a quirky creative spin, as participants converted their hard run steps into the Nike swoosh, skulls and other graphical imagery which they could then share with friends via social media.
A nifty little app in its own right, but Nike didn’t stop there, instead chosing to turn the run and the app activity into a full-blown social experience. The brand developed ‘Nike: Run House’, which operated as a form of social club where runners could plan their graffiti runs and also hang out, listen to live music acts and get their fill of beer and pizza post run.
Over 9,000 people became members of the club, notching up some 183,275 Facebook views and a total of 220 graffiti runs, covering over a thousand Nike + Killometres in the space of just 6 weeks.
There are some similarities with Nike Grid, a social gaming campaign in London based on running between phone boxes. However, the real beauty of this promotion is that it isn’t solely focused on a clever digital element. The backbone of the campaign is the club mentality and Run House – a branded environment where like-minded individuals can share and enjoy additional content outside of running – is key to engaging with this audience.
