UNDER ARMOUR | THE FIRST META SNEAKER (Genesis Curry Flow) | 2022
There Was No "Metaverse" Yet, So They Made One / UNDER ARMOUR "THE FIRST META SNEAKER"
Stephen Curry set a world record for three-pointers. Under Armour wanted to prepare a commemorative sneaker. But they couldn't make one.
The problem
In 2021, supply chains were broken, so they couldn't make a physical shoe. On top of that, the games of the time—Decentraland, Sandbox, Gala Games—were all separate from each other, and there was no way to carry the same item between them.
The insight
If they couldn't make a shoe, they'd make something you couldn't wear. That's how the agency Berlin Cameron saw it. The fact that no sneaker existed yet that you could wear across platforms meant, in other words, that the "metaverse" itself didn't truly exist yet.
The idea
They released a sneaker called Genesis Curry Flow as a limited NFT edition of 2,974 pairs—the number matching the world record exactly. Through a digital locker, you could carry it as a single pair while its appearance changed across Decentraland, Sandbox, Gala Games, and Rumble Kong League.
What happened
With no media budget at all, it generated 1.3 billion impressions through Discord and Twitter alone. It sold out within minutes on release day, and the proceeds were donated to charity. It won Gold at the ADC Awards.
Afterthought
The NFT boom has already passed. But looking back, this wasn't just a campaign riding a trend. Starting from the problem of not being able to make a shoe, and arriving at the answer of making a sneaker you can't wear—that leap of imagination is what makes it so cool.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2022
