JORDAN BRAND | A/R JORDAN | 2018
A World First Started with a Sneaker / JORDAN BRAND "A/R JORDAN"
That dunk Jordan made in 1988 — you could summon it through your phone's camera on Snapchat. And you could buy the shoes right there on the spot, with delivery the same day. In 2018, one brand built that kind of experience.
The problem
Sneakerheads in 2018 never saw Jordan play. To hand the legend down to a new generation, just showing footage wasn't going to cut it. The setting was Los Angeles, during NBA All-Star Weekend.
The insight
Instead of telling people about the legend, let them step inside it. The team recreated Jordan's legendary dunk in 3D and summoned it into the air through a Snapchat lens. Users could walk all the way around it, 360 degrees. And right then and there, they could pre-order sneakers that hadn't even launched yet, with delivery in just a few hours. The key was not stopping at just "watching."
The idea
The setup had three layers. A geofence was placed around Staples Center, and opening Snapchat inside that zone made Jordan appear in midair. Scanning a Snapcode let people buy the Air Jordan III Tinker without ever leaving the app, with Darkstore working behind the scenes to deliver within hours. R/GA built the experience by bringing together Snapchat, Shopify, Darkstore, and NBA 2K.
What happened
The shoes sold out in 23 minutes. Average time spent was 80 seconds, four times longer than similar AR experiences. It won a Gold Lion in the Creative eCommerce category at Cannes Lions 2018.
Afterthought
What's amazing is that at a time when AR was still seen as just a gimmick, this made it work as real business. It turned a legend into something you could touch, something you could buy, something you could wear that very day. All-Star work for All-Star Weekend.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2018
