Nikeland

Visitors to NIKELAND can participate in games like tag, "floor is lava", and dodgeball with their friends. Nike has leveraged the co-creative ecosystem of Roblox, allowing visitors to create their own mini-games using gameplay elements like tennis court patterns and nets, basketball hoops, and benches for spectators.

• Gamification: Creating games to motivate user engagement in the metaverse.
• UGC (User Generated Content): The metaverse is focused on UGC, finding ways for users to create or enhance content in your virtual world.
• Community: Gaming is a very social activity for Generation Z. NIKELAND offers visitors chances to meet and socialize with others.

Inspired by Nike's aim of "turning sports and games into a lifestyle", NIKELAND encourages real-life movement, bridging the gap between the real world and the metaverse. Visitors can use mobile devices with accelerometers to transfer their real-life movement to online gameplay. Activities like long jumps and races encourage players to actively participate for outcomes.

Visitors can also go to the digital showroom where they can dress their avatars in the latest Nike products.

• Native advertising: NIKELAND provides visitors with a fun and engaging experience while maintaining strong brand awareness. Advertising in the metaverse should be unobtrusive and naturally blend into the virtual world.
• Digital products: Over 90% of surveyed people said that personalization is an important part of creating a virtual avatar*. NIKELAND's digital showroom allows visitors to personalize their avatars' appearance.

In December 2021, Nike brought its virtual world to life at the Nike House of Innovation (HOI) in New York City via Snapchat. For this one-month initiative, Nike's HOI turned its children's floor into an augmented reality version of NIKELAND, allowing customers to use the Snapchat lens to modify their own 3D avatars with Nike products and play games. This initiative helped make Nike's immersive initiatives known and offer them a complete and consistent brand experience.

To promote Nikeland, Nike teamed up with NBA star LeBron James by inviting him to visit the virtual world and contribute to its basketball-focused features. This five-day initiative involved LeBron coaching players and teaching basketball basics through a series of new mini-games. Additionally, the Nikeland showcase displayed virtual styles from LeBron's Nike LeBron 19 collection, including the "Chosen 1" and "Bron Bites" sneakers, which were not yet available at the time. Nike promoted the campaign with sponsored posts on their Nike Basketball Twitter and Instagram accounts. Given that the metaverse is still a new technology, partnering with celebrities like LeBron James helps attract initially hesitant visitors.