Nike tapped in to committed Korean Sneaker Head passion for queuing up for the latest limited edition trainer release with a campaign designed to create the world’s first hashtag queue.
The campaign, developed in partnership with digital agency PostVisual (part of JWT), encouraged sports shoe fashion fanatics to wait in an Instagram social media line in order to scoop an opportunity to purchase limited edition Nike Air Max.
This Korean 2018 Air Max initiative, running under the hashtag title #AIRMAXLINE, simply transferred the physical queue into the social space
Leveraging this social savvy consumer segment’s trend for using hashtags to show-off and share their style and their sneakers on Instagram, this Air Max campaign utilised hashtags and Instagram feeds that display in chronological order.
Committed trainer consumers were driven from Nike’s event-specific website to join the lucky draw by creating personalised avatars using a character and items inspired by Korean street culture.
With each avatar came a random draw number.
They were then asked to post their avatar on Instagram with the #AIRMAXLINE hashtag to be in with a chance to buy a special pair of Air Max Limited Edition.
This resulted, for those clicking on the #AIRMAXLINE in Instagram, in a long queue of connected avatars waiting in line.
“As we planned this campaign, we were quite concerned about a scenario where people would use the hashtag #AIRMAXLINE for different purposes, not related to this campaign,” explained Euna Seol, CCO of PostVisual.
“After all, hashtags can’t be monopolized. But as we launched the campaign, we saw the intended results – Instagram Feed without any noise. We strongly believe it was the authenticity of our targets that led this campaign to success.”
Comment:
We’ve always marvelled in wonder (and lack of understanding) when passing a sports shoe shop that has huge lines of youngsters queuing excitedly and committedly at the door as they wait for the turn/chance to buy a pair of limited edition trainers.
But for the committed Sneaker Heads this is a crucial ritual and a defining part of their culture.
Queuing as a lifestyle?
This attempt to transfer the wait line from the physical space to the digital one certainly proved a success in terms of the campaign statistics.
During the two-week initiative, more 80,000 Sneaker Heads got into the social queue.
Indeed, these 80,000_ trainer lovers swamped social media with Air Max posts – not just on Instagram, but also across Facebook and numerous sneaker blogs – generating 15,000,000 exposures and over 800,000 reaches.
Links:
Nike Korea
https://www.nike.com/kr/ko_kr/
PostVisual
