NBA Hyperlocal and All the Stars of LA: city product for members

What it is

Two Air Force 1 projects sat side by side in the spring 2018 line. Nike called the approach hyperlocal: product made for one city and its fans.

The first was NBA by Cities, a premium Air Force 1 Low. The consumer picked a team and added a personal mark on the lace tag. The product deck of November 2017 lists eleven teams, from the Boston Celtics to the Miami Heat.

The second was the Los Angeles shoe, planned for NBA All-Star 2018. Its theme was "All the Stars of LA, celebrating basketball through the diverse culture of LA". The consumer chose a neighborhood, each tied to an area code and a store: 310 and House of Hoops for West LA, 323 and Undefeated for Central LA, 213 and Nice Kicks for Downtown LA. The upper used a synthetic that changed color under UV light. A key chain was planned for the pop-up.

Both names were on the roadmap when Khounlavong started in July 2017. He was part of the team that took the concepts to their final form, and he ran the merchandising and the launch. The Los Angeles shoe carried a city story. The shoe is white indoors. In sunlight it turns pink, blue and purple, the way the June overcast the city calls June Gloom burns off to a clear sky.

What Khounlavong did

• Carried both projects in the deck for the assortment meeting of August 14 to 16, 2017, where they were reviewed with the geographies against a product readiness date of January 15, 2018.
• Split the city pack into two launches. The story flow of December 2017 records the decision: Los Angeles only on December 18, all other teams on January 15.
• Moved the other teams from January 15 to January 22, and recorded it in the next version of the flow.
• Dropped the All-Star name from the Los Angeles shoe and moved its date from February 12 to February 5. A later version moved the launch to a date to be confirmed, because the product was not ready.
• Kept the Los Angeles shoe on the calendar after All-Star weekend. The member shop menu of March 7, 2018 dates it February 19. The summer 2018 concept map lists it from April 2, then from May 7 in the version of April 17.
• Ran both projects through the member shop. The spring 2018 menu lists NBA by Cities at $150, with 10 SKUs, meaning individual styles and colors, and 3,000 units for North America, from January 22 to February 19. It lists the Los Angeles shoe in low, mid and high at $150 to $160, with 3,000 units.
• Set the split between geographies. The menu gave North America 60% of each project. An allocation sheet dated January 17, 2018 divided the city pack by team across North America, Greater China, Japan and Western Europe.
• Forecast the Los Angeles shoe by height and by neighborhood in a sheet dated January 26, 2018.
• Removed the hyperlocal story from the holiday 2018 plan in the concept map of April 26, 2018.

Results

• $558K in total demand for the NBA Hyperlocal city launch, holiday 2017 through spring 2018, recorded in his official Nike year-end review.
• He listed NBA Hyperlocal as one of two key wins for the member shop, and the Los Angeles UV Air Force 1 as a product win, in his June 2018 deck.
• The documents do not give a separate demand figure for the Los Angeles shoe.

At a glance