Just do it!
We’ve been pushing the limits for Nike for over 25 years. To keep up with the pace of the U.S. sporting goods company, you have to understand and internalize the brand down to its roots and be willing to push boundaries. We have and do. Time and time again. Over the years, we’ve adjusted to Nike’s extremely fast pace, converted many locations, some of them completely unsuitable, into trendy, sporty hospitality lounges, modernized sanitary facilities all over the world, converted school buildings into hotels, made stores like the former NIketown in NY campaign-ready every four to six weeks, and traveled extensively. The cooperation with Nike has always been uncomplicated and relaxed, but at the same time there is a high demand. In order to meet these demands, we have always been as flexible as possible, because everything can quickly be thrown overboard and redesigned. Nevertheless, the fun was and is always there.

First address for sports and brand fans
What we have learned in the years at the side of this company: When Nike tackles something, it moves quickly and commands attention. Few companies drive their innovations forward at a comparable pace. The latest “crime scene”: the illustrious Champs-Elysée boulevard in Paris, a place to store, to see and to be seen. Here, Nike has acquired a building from the 1920s, the most expensive on the boulevard. Not a bad setting for the U.S. sporting goods giant’s first European House of Innovation. As in the two other flagship stores in New York and Shanghai, the Paris brand temple offers an impressive end-to-end journey for loyal brand and sports fans on four levels and around 2,400 square meters, including a digitally networked shopping experience.

Attracting customers to the store through a holistic brand experience
For us, the project, which fell in the middle of the pandemic and required rethinking on all sides, was one of the challenging kind. First things first: it wasn’t our job to build out the store. Others were responsible for everything that was permanently installed. Rather, as a partner of Nike, we were or are responsible for the implementation of the monothematic retail experiences, which usually change on a monthly basis. That means we always come into play when it comes to building new pop-up installations around new product campaigns in the store. Because Nike is pursuing one goal above all with the House of Innovation: to offer the sports community a unique shopping experience by addressing them personally in a targeted manner, in order to lure them and also regular customers into the store again and again and to motivate them to experiment with new products. To this end, the huge pop-up area, the “action area” in the entrance area, is used time and again.

Focus on digital experiences
In the run-up to the event, Nike collaborated with the Hotel Creative agency in London to develop immersive, digital experiences that tell the company’s stories of innovation and design. For example, through manufacturing sketches, anecdotes and installations scattered throughout each of the four floors, visitors learn more about the innovations that went into the products; how the bubble has evolved since the first Air Max; more about the extraordinary achievements of Nike’s great athletes; how Nike recycles plastic and more. In addition, there are numerous technologies for customers to discover; for example, thanks to Shoe Fit and Bra Fit algorithms, visitors receive fitting recommendations for their sneakers or bras, get their matching styles delivered to the store without having to wait for a salesperson, and can even pay for their purchases without going through a checkout. The House of Innovation – a shopping experience that realigns the future of brick-and-mortar retail by transferring the digital shopping experience into the real world.

For the shop window, satis&fy made pedestals for the mannequins from LED panels. The name of each shoe model was automatically inserted via ticker tape. The shop window was also equipped with two 95 inch monitors.

“Flying” mannequins in the entrance area hang above a virtual running course made of LED floor with 1.9 millimeter pixel pitch: To emphasize the feeling of speed, the floor was played with a heat map and underlaid with a special sound.

Eluid Kipchoge ran a marathon in under two hours last October with the Alphafly. Therefore, an exhibition zone with analog and digital solutions is dedicated to his success, his best times, his development stages, his shoe models.

Nice to know: satis&fy also accompanied the world record run in Berlin and the world record run in Monza, Italy, as a technical partner.

Back to the future x Air Max: The Nike Air Innovation Timeline Wall, a permanent installation, shows the history and innovations of Nike Air Max in a timeline. Our custom-built, digitized shoe pedestals, various screens, displays and graphics adorn the exhibition display.

Nike aims to reduce its CO2 emissions by 30 percent by 2030. More than 85 tons of environmentally friendly materials were used to manufacture the store fittings in Paris, and the store is powered by wind energy generated in Spain. This alone shows the retailer’s willingness to implement sustainable solutions at the POS in the long term. The manufacturer provides clear information about the Move to Zero initiative via an installation implemented by satis&fy, which visually shows that the brand’s sports bras are made from recycled PET bottles.

Children love to play. In the store, they have the opportunity to do so at the interactive Move to Play column, which we implemented and which encourages them to run, jump or even let their arms circle.

Fit recommendations for the optimal and personalized Nike sports bra are available thanks to machine learning in the Bra Fit by Nike Fit area. Ticker tape is used to display the bra designations on the presentation displays built by satis&fy.