Nike x Stranger Things x BAIT: a sneaker hunt that joined the SNKRS app to the street

What it is

In February 2019, Khounlavong's strategic plan workshop for Nike Sportswear in Los Angeles listed a weakness: the team had no plan for a marketplace that joined physical and digital retail. Building one was set as a long term goal.

Five months later, on July 20, 2019, Nike's SNKRS app and the neighborhood team, which serves Nike's boutique accounts, staged a city hunt in San Diego with BAIT, a sneaker boutique, and Netflix. It was timed to the launch of the third season of Stranger Things, during Comic-Con. The goal was to build awareness of the storytelling inside SNKRS and to increase Nike memberships.

What Khounlavong did

• Oversaw the team that staged the scavenger hunt with BAIT and Netflix across San Diego during Comic-Con.
• Set the goal as awareness of SNKRS storytelling and growth in memberships, through an experience that was part analog and part digital.
• Oversaw the team that joined the SNKRS app experience to a neighborhood retail partner, BAIT, gave exclusive product access to San Diego, which his record describes as an underserved market, and reached a new group of consumers during Comic-Con.
• Planned two further drops after the first, to hold the consumers the hunt brought in.
• Listed the project in his fiscal 2019 year-end review as a fall 2019 priority: lead the physical and digital BAIT x SNKRS project.

Results

• 70% sell-through across three sequential launches.
• A 97% engagement rate and 99% product pickup.
• KITH took part in the launch with a full buildout at its West Hollywood store. It was not part of the scavenger hunt.
• Coverage from KGTV, KFMB, KNSD, KSWB, Kicks On Fire, Hypebeast and Complex.
• His record describes it as Nike's first digital meets physical (Phygital) scavenger hunt through SNKRS.

At a glance