Nike Once Again Stepped Out Of The Lead And Joined Hands With Tencent To Excavate "Sports + Games".

The game market is a sea of unlimited potential. On the one hand, its scale is growing rapidly. In 2019, the user scale of China's game market is expected to reach 640 million. On the other hand, it faces more audiences and can connect more things.

But in turn, people who want to excavate "sports + Games" linkage play have begun to increase. This time, Nike is once again taking the lead.

In the whole August, Nike joined hands with Tencent's first AR to explore mobile games to catch the demons together, introducing the Nike running shoes launched by Nike in the same period to the AR exploring hand tour as the equipment of the Ling Ling, and through the interesting play to guide the players to participate in more interaction in the next 201 outlets of the whole country.

This is not the first time Nike and Tencent have achieved marketing cooperation through games. But for Nike, this is the first time in China to try to integrate the running shoes into AR exploring mobile games.

Nike started to play the game game field in the Chinese market this year. In the end of February, LPL reached 4 years' official clothing partner with Tencent's professional league matches, which was regarded as a milestone sponsorship cooperation in the industry.

Games and even electric competition continue to absorb a large number of young audiences every year, which is the focus of major sports brands. But in operation, how to combine sports and games and how to avoid the inherent prejudice of the outside world has always been a challenge.

According to the observation of lazy bear sports, Nike, which relied on traditional sports marketing in the past, has formed a new game marketing idea in the exploration of two years. It has two points to learn from: on the one hand, the idea goes ahead, through more positive stories and concepts to move and get through different groups; on the other hand, through more abundant forms and carrier selection, it emphasizes the transformation from online to offline, so that users can really move.

Breaking the limitation of the combination of traditional sports and online entertainment -- the real linkage between online and offline, allowing users to run a little fun.

The traditional way of putting it into practice is often difficult to achieve real linkage between online and offline.

Nike cleverly chose the mobile game that combines virtual reality with reality. In April 11th this year, officially launched the "catch up with the devil" from the Tencent Game Star Studio Tian Mei, the team's most famous work is called "the glory of the king".

As the Tencent's first AR to explore mobile games, it requires players to really go outside and use AR technology to scan various scenes to get the spirit of the game, including the roles of journey to the West and gourd.

On the basis of AR and game based product thinking, Nike's gameplay is divided into two main parts.

1, get the reward through the game, get the spirit of the game, complete the daily walk task and knock the drum of Nike's designated store, that is, get the Nike JOYRIDE game suit. When the player is using this suit, he will have the special effects of the special red and blue shock particles, which will make the player move 20% faster in the game mode. Through exquisite design to enhance the player's interest in the product, and imperceptibly stimulate users' desire to buy.

2, online, Nike set up 22 users in the 201 designated stores in 22 provinces and cities nationwide to try JOYRIDE and take pictures with the ghost. In addition, users can go directly to Nike's Huaihai brand experience store in Shanghai to participate in the "try out experience" activities, and get more chance to get the game packs.

Tencent has increased its exposure through its own operational experience and traffic resources, including the invitation of entertainment stars to enhance the topic fever. The goal is to pan entertainment young people with the core of games and sports enthusiasts.

Relying on these marketing gameplay, Nike achieves brand embedding, offline diversion and deep user interaction through "catching the devil together". This game is also in line with the main NIKE JOYRIDE's "run out of fun".

Nike and Tencent platform innovation cooperation is not the first time. As early as March 2018, Nike tried to implant in the "jump jump" applet of the conflagration at that time: when the game went to a certain stage, the user would encounter a red shoebox with logo on top of Nike. After skipping the shoe box, the shoe box automatically becomes gray and white, and the "NIKE REACT" appears on the side of the shoe box.

In contrast, the JOYRIDE has evolved in marketing tactics, breaking the limitations of traditional sports and online entertainment, revealing this online and offline interaction from pure online implantation.

Breaking past inherent cognition and crowd separation -- helping brands break through and create new ideas of sports marketing

Nike is not the first sports brand to test water games / competitive marketing in the Chinese market. In the traditional sports field, Nike has been quite proficient in getting exposure through multiple forms, but at the beginning, it has more wait-and-see attitude towards this emerging field. Until October last year, Uzi, an official Lebron James of the Nike basketball series, appeared in the DRIBBLE&_______ series of "Nike" (meaning many characters besides playing ball games). This is the first time that Nike has given the Chinese competitive players such advertising role.

The high proportion of young players in games and even fans and the growing consumption power of the group are one of the main reasons for Nike's decision to enter.

However, for most sports brands who want to do game marketing, they face two main problems: first, how to combine the sports spirit and sports culture that they have always been playing with the game / competition people to be recognized and seize the minds of users; two, how to avoid or weaken the inherent bias of the outside world for game cognition.

First of all, Nike's response is to strengthen the concept and put forward the idea of "as long as you have a body, you are an athlete", expanding the scope of sports -- covering body movement and mental exercise.

Secondly, for sports + Games / electric games, the game with sports concept or motion gene is the first choice when choosing partners. IP has become an ingenious breakthrough point in cross-border marketing. The Nike chose to play the game together as a game player. The main reason is the common characteristics of the combination of online and offline products. Players must go out of their homes to continue playing games, and have a certain influence in the young pan sports users, and its main slogan is "refuse to house".

This cooperation allows game users to move, breaking those inherent points: playing games is not conducive to good health, playing games is not sports. At the same time, through the circle, the otaku can be turned into a sports party.

In terms of competition, Nike also expressed the same views and logic about choosing sponsorship League LPL. At the Leaders leaders summit in mid 7, Wei Dunxiang, vice president of Nike Greater China market, said in a dialogue with lazy bear sports that E-sports and traditional competitive sports share the same values. They share the same passion and pursue personal and team progress as well. The duty of Nike is to excavate these sports stories, to portray them as heroes or idols, to enter the real life from the online virtual world, and to guide their large number of young fans to develop in a positive direction. The most direct point is to hope that young people can exercise more.

From another point of view, Nike also brings new pleasure and power to old customers through cooperation with games / electric games. In this process, take "catching the devil together" as an example, covering both sports fans and game enthusiasts. Then through the social network and offline marketing activation mode, the two groups can be exposed to each other, spread to pan sports entertainment hobby crowd, through the user's own relationship to strengthen the marketing effect.

The concept of positive and IP first, with a strong online and offline linkage, so as to impress and open up the user population, this is the current Nike game, it can be foreseen that Nike will continue to produce more surprising new marketing gameplay.