making the building electric and sort of
vibrating. The façade is our window into the
House of Innovation, as we peel back the
curtain and showcase the best we have.Speaking to the notion of transparency,
I note that consumers seem to be more
knowledgeable than ever about the design
of their favourite products. How does the
store engage with their curiosity? What
we’re seeing is that today’s consumers are
interested in the idea of co-creating with us.
On the fifth floor we have the Nike Expert
Studio, which is a platform for our brand to
become more intimate with our customers.
It feels to me, and it will feel to consumers,
like you’ve just dropped into the Nike design
floor in Beaverton, Oregon. You’ll have
materials and designers and markers and
computers – everything you need to become
fully immersed in the act of creation.
When we work with elite athletes, we
bring them to our campus in Beaverton. We
work with them, put them through rigorous
testing and training, and get to know their
athletic ambitions and abilities like no other.
That’s a pretty remarkable experience, which
we want to offer everyday people in a one-
to-one moment, aesthetically. At the Expert
Studio, customers can co-create with Nike
experts through an analysis of their run-
ning gait, for instance, or advice on how they
might improve their performance on the
basketball court. The discussion might even
involve how they’d design a piece of apparel.We’re living in the age of big data. How does
data inform your approach to retail design?
I’m really intrigued by how technology cangive us a great head start. But a head start
is a rough draft. We know data can’t dream,
and that’s where designers come in. That’s an
important point for me, personally, and for
our design team.
We have a tremendous amount of data
related to athletes, because we’re studying
them obsessively and trying to understand
the absolute nuances of what makes an
athlete tick and perform. Today, gold medals
or performance records are won in fractions- of inches, of seconds – and Nike gives ath-
letes the time and space to slow things down,
to understand themselves and to determine
where they can move in an athletic event.
The store begins to converse with
the data we collect, because the store itself
is now a platform. It’s a giant step forward
in our attempt to blur the lines between
the physical and the digital. Nike sees the
mobile phone – everybody has one – as
a kind of motivational companion. As you
enter the store, the phone and your experi-
ence online, combined with the physical
reality, can be quite compelling.
We’ve used a couple of experiments
lately. We have one store in Los Angeles - Nike by Melrose – that converts and
changes almost daily, based on data from
members and community. We’re learning
from data points what consumers are inter-
ested in, what they’re Instagramming, what
they’re querying on our websites, what
sneakers they’re picking out on our app. We
use this information to modify the store as
people come in. Ultimately, it’s this killer
app that allows us to adapt to the pace of
consumption today. – SL
nike.com
The Nike Arena hosts
a pop-up Nike by You
customization space
where consumers
can personalize their
purchases.
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