Reactland
View the case- Brand
- Nike
- Year
- 2018
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Racing & Sports
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- UNIT9
Objective
Nike China needed retail trials for the new Epic React to do more than a few aimless steps around the shop floor. Launching alongside W+K Shanghai and UNIT9, the brand wanted shoppers to actually feel what the React sole delivered — cushioning, lightness, bounce — before deciding to buy, and to walk out with something worth posting.
Solution
Instead of trying on the shoes in the aisle, the shopper steps onto a treadmill facing a big screen. First a quick green-screen photo turns their face into a pixel-art avatar; then they lace up a real pair of Epic React and start running. Running speed pushes the character forward through a Mario-style side-scrolling city, hopping over obstacles and climbing buildings with a handheld jump button, while the level's ramps, springs and soft landings echo what the sole underfoot actually feels like. The run lasts three minutes and ends with a leaderboard placement and a 10-second highlight video of their avatar, ready to share.
Results
48% of players who tried Reactland bought the shoes afterward. The activation ran across four Nike stores plus one pop-up in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu over one month in March 2018, before the format was later reused in Taiwan, Berlin and Dubai.
- 1
A shopper at a Nike store is invited to trade a normal shoe fitting for a three-minute run on an installation called Reactland: a treadmill facing a large screen, next to a green-screen capture area.
- 2
The shopper is scanned on the green screen and put into real Nike React running shoes, which they wear for the session so they physically feel the sole underfoot.
- 3
The scan is turned into a pixel-art avatar bearing the player's face and mirroring their movements, which becomes the on-screen character.
- 4
The player steps onto the treadmill facing the screen and holds a small handheld controller with a jump button.
- 5
The game is a retro side-scrolling runner in a Super Mario Bros.-style aesthetic: running speed on the treadmill drives the avatar's forward progress, and the controller button makes it jump over obstacles.
- 6
The route strings together fantastical, shoe-themed reworkings of world landmarks: a floating Chinese city, the Great Wall built in the clouds, a soft panda jungle, a bubbling Mount Fuji, bouncy Santorini rooftops, French rooftops with leaping frogs, and a soft desert around the Giza pyramids and Sphinx, ending in New York at the Statue of Liberty. The avatar collects items and points along the way.
- 7
The run ends after three minutes; distance covered ranks the player on the installation's leaderboard against other participants.
- 8
The player receives a personal 10-second video of their avatar's run in Reactland to share on social media, and is then offered the chance to buy the shoes in-store.
