Insight
Globally, running is considered the main entry point into sport by Nike. It’s the easiest, simplest way for anyone to start getting active. All you need is a pair of shoes!
However, only 1% of China’s top 100 cities reach the World Health Organization’s ‘healthy’ air standard. Often the pollution is so bad that running outdoors poses serious health issues.
Checking the air quality index (AQI) before an outdoor workout is a regular behavior for all Chinese, even more important than checking the weather forecast. But for runners, there is widespread confusion as to which level of air quality is OK to run outside in. Across Weibo (China’s social media space), specialist advice forums, and Baidu (China’s leading search engine), there are countless searches and requests for advice on when to run outside.
Strategy
Mindshare consulted professional medical advice and found that when the air quality index is over 100, it is medically not safe to run outside. However, Nike runners are not ones for excuses. It doesn’t matter whether you can go outside or not, you should always be training.
The strategy was simple – to help runners to ‘train smarter’ irrespective of the pollution.
Nike set out to partner with PM2.5, China’s most popular and trusted air quality app is PM2.5, with over 28 million downloads and 3 million daily unique users. 56% of the users are in Nike’s top three priority cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. And more than 80% of the 3.2M runners in the top 3 cities use the PM2.5 app weekly.
In the process, it would make Nike an integral part of runner’s exercise decision-making process while increasing app downloads.
Execution
The agency worked with the app developers to integrate Nike seamlessly within the PM2.5 app. Going beyond a simple banner ad, it created a unique Nike Running indicator icon, embedded on the homepage of the AQI app next to the air quality index.
Within each city, the reactive indicator icon changed in real-time based on the pollution level. If the pollution was under 100, the beacon turned green and inspired runners to run outside, and to run better by downloading the Nike+ running app. If the pollution was over 100, the beacon would turn red and it would inspire runners to train inside, and to train better by downloading the Nike Training Club app.
Clicking on the Nike icons direct users through to a Nike landing page for more details and a one-click link directly to the relevant App Store to tool up.
Results
Nike set Mindshare one clear goal – encourage runners to run while demonstrating how and where they could do so safely. The integration was a resounding success, delivering precisely on Nike’s core objective.
Over the course of three months, Nike was able to deliver its message of how and where to run safely over 313 million times – nearly the population of the United States – at exactly the times and locations where runners would be most concerned.
The app integration drove millions of interactions with Nike content (reaching 44% of runners in the top 3 cities) with a click to download rate three times as effective and twice as cost efficient as Nike’s historical mobile display advertising. Proof positive that this media-first mobile app integration genuinely enhanced runner’s experience in China, adapting in real-time to serve their needs.
This integrated approach has been so successful that Nike China has adopted this approach as a key pillar of its mobile first strategy, looking to extend this innovation across a broader number of relevant mobile apps to further drive authentic, adaptive engagement with athletes in China.