Title	NIKE ON DEMAND
Brand	NIKE
Product/Service	PERSONALISED MESSAGING PLATFORM
Category	C04. Use of New Technology
Entrant	R/GA LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	R/GA LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Placement	R/GA LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	R/GA LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Kathryn Chalmers	R/GA London	Strategy Director
John Wilson	R/GA London	Group Account Director
Harry Peacham	R/GA London	Senior Strategist
Rob Kent	R/GA London	Senior Producer
Anthony Baker	R/GA London	Technology Director
Nick Paget	R/GA London	Creative Director
Paris Lawrence	R/GA London	Creative Director
Josh Yee	R/GA London	Designer
Dami Kelekun	R/GA London	Associate Producer
Steve Viglione	R/GA London	Associate Director, Analytics

The Campaign

The hardest thing for athletes is to stay focused and committed to their goals. So we created Nike On Demand: a human-driven 1:1 service on WhatsApp that keeps athletes engaged over the course of their training, adapting to their needs on the fly and connecting them with any part of Nike’s vast ecosystem that would help them achieve their goals. From a user’s perspective, they simply message Nike on WhatsApp and then get help from an expert who gets to know them personally and who does everything in Nike’s power to help them crush their goals: everything from setting up personal training with professional athletes to getting them in the backdoor of sold out Nike live events and experiences. Nike On Demand is no stale, automated chat bot. It is real human interaction. Because nothing changes people’s behavior like other people

Creative Execution

Nike On Demand delivered truly bespoke personal creative in the form of conversation, images, playlists, etc. 1:1 via chat and it placed Nike’s network of athletes, coaches, experts, clubs, experiences etc. literally at athletes’ fingertips. Nike On Demand served up: Bespoke training plans; Personal advice from elite coaches and athletes; Meaningful reminders; Motivating kicks in the ass; Personal congratulations; General chit chat; And lots more; All delivered on their terms, through chat. This gave Nike the ability to talk to individuals like individuals, and create output that was truly unique and human. No generic drills, attaboys or badges. No two conversations or user experiences were the same.

Because Nike was talking like a real person, users responded naturally, sharing their goals, their streams of consciousness, their moods, emojis, even their holiday photos! Over 6 weeks, Nike On Demand enabled 240 athletes to take their game to the next level, exchanging over 22K messages and serving up pacers, trainers, run coaches, reminders, private classes, 1:1 sessions, training plans, playlists, app challenges, product trials, VIP bookings, coaching tips, and a whole heap of ass-kicking motivation. Here’s what users thought: 83% would recommend Nike On Demand to a friend. 81% would use the service again. 70% expect this type of service from Nike.

Nike’s mission is to inspire and innovate in order to unleash every athlete’s potential. So Nike has continuously innovated its business - from sneakers and apparel, to entirely new platforms like Nike+, apps and wearables – in order to serve athletes better. And so, as our Young & Fast audience (men and women, 19-24) moved from social media into private chat channels, Nike invented a new way to enable athletes to overcome their obstacles and crush their goals. The result is Nike On Demand: a category-leading innovation that leverages athletes’ activity data and harnesses the power of messaging to connect athletes

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Nike is in the business of unleashing athletes’ potential. For millennials, it was no longer enough for Nike to tell them to Just Do It – we had to enable them to do ‘it’ on their terms. And whilst Nike’s suite of apps, including NTC (Nike Training Club) and NRC (Nike Run Club) were great at bringing consumers into the world of Nike, Nike was unable to harness user data from these platforms to create truly personal content and experiences. We knew that millennials were expecting more authentic, personal, relevant experiences from brands. We also knew our audience was migrating from social media-based conversations to the private world of messaging and stories, vis a vis Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. And we knew that people are more compelled by social accountability than by robots. Our strategy therefore was to unleash every athlete’s potential through a truly human 1:1 service.