The New Kids on the (Ro)Blox

Nike’s Newest Venture. The Metaverse Done Right.

Nike / Bloomberg

In the world of ESports, the intersection between brands and the audience has always relied on engagement. As online platforms become the primary domain for consumers to interact with brands, a digital arms race has emerged to innovate and market to the online customer in bigger and better ways.

Nike has recently taken another step into the “Metaverse”, partnering with Roblox to create "Nikeland", an interactive playground designed for users to enjoy recreational play in a Nike branded world. Most of the games are sport-themed, including basketball, dodgeball, and track and field, and users can also purchase Nike merchandise for their avatars using the game’s virtual currency. Nike is also combining movement with the online platform, encouraging users to play with movement, using the accelerometers in mobile devices to move their avatar in-game.

Roblox is an online platform where users can create applications/games and play other user-created games in a virtual universe. Users can customize their avatar and interact with users worldwide. The majority of games produced in Roblox are created by minors, for minors, and have become adopted in many North American classrooms as a useful tool for learning.

Some of the most popular apps on Roblox have billions of plays, including "Work at a Pizza Place", a Pizzaria simulator which has 3 billion plays. Roblox has also seen exponential growth in their user base over the past few years, with a current base of 150 million (estimated), with two thirds of the audience being under the age of 17.

Roblox is a very unique game from most of the popular ESports games (Overwatch, Call of Duty, NBA 2K, etc.), where creativity is limitless. A majority of the applications and games created within the game are made by kids, for kids. For anyone who has been to Vancouver, you may recognize a familiar transit system that was created by a user as a passion project. The point is, with the unlimited potential for creativity in the game, the rising popularity of the game makes Nike’s venture a perfect opportunity to go above and beyond conventional marketing approaches for a younger audience.

One of the most popular lines we hear time and time again on the WWM pod (subscribe on youtube, twitch, facebook, and check us out on most streaming platforms) from the legend himself - Chris Nascimento, is that a kid wearing a logo on their hat is 90% likely to be a life-long fan of that brand/team. With the steps Nike is taking to target an audience without a strong level of purchasing power and disposable income in the short term, it is clearly an investment in the long run that will ideally build a loyal consumer base in the coming decades.

Published: November 26, 2021 - Issue 15 of The Sport Marketeer