Truly Deeply/Madly

Last month the lat­est Nike Sta­dium loca­tion opened its doors – the Bow­ery Sta­dium in New York City.
Nike Sta­di­ums reflect the trend of many brands (espe­cially those in retail) towards what we call soft brand mes­sag­ing. Unlike tra­di­tional adver­tis­ing whose func­tion is to deliver a sharp propo­si­tion that com­mu­ni­cates a spe­cific offer, soft brand mes­sag­ing is all about giv­ing peo­ple a brand expe­ri­ence to cre­ate a pos­i­tive emo­tional bond with a brand. Brands we care about, brands we believe are a reflec­tion of the way we wish our­selves to be seen own a dis­tinctly unfair advan­tage when it com­ers to mak­ing con­scious and uncon­sid­ered buy­ing deci­sions. Whether buy­ing a $5 burger to a $500k sports car, when it comes to the heart rul­ing the head, those brands we love hold the whip hand.

The Nike Sta­di­ums serve as ‘cre­ative salons’,  where art, sports and cus­tomer com­mu­nity expe­ri­ences sing together in har­mony with the Nike brand voice. The first instal­la­tion in the Bow­ery Sta­dium is called ‘Order and Progress’. Order and Progress is a cel­e­bra­tion of Brazil­ian soc­cer through the eyes of the NYC cre­ative com­mu­nity. Open­ing night fea­tured the pre­mier of a multi-media piece enti­tled ‘Every­thing is Prac­tice’, a short film with Spike Lee directed by Jake Sum­ner and pho­tog­ra­phy by Nabil Elderkin, as well as a piece by Brazil­ian born, NYC raised cre­ative Allen Benedikt. With the ‘Sta­dium’ con­cept, Nike have cre­ated a com­mu­nity forum, rich in brand per­son­al­ity, and per­fect for brand storytelling.

The base­ment serves as another cre­ative salon but with a more func­tional pur­pose in mind, with a real locker room stacked along an entire wall. The space was cre­ated as a hub for New York­ers involved in local sports pro­grams. Serv­ing as an inspir­ing meet­ing place, the tra­di­tional locker room is flipped on its head with an explo­sion of paints cre­ated by artist Jack Greer. Along the other wall are illus­tra­tions by Gian­luigi Toc­ca­fondo titled ‘Heroes of Speed’.

At an all impor­tant func­tional level, the space will be the new home of the Bow­ery Sta­dium sports pro­grams, includ­ing the NYC Bridge Run­ners, Good­times FC soc­cer league, NRF, and the WNW — don’t you just love those sports acronyms. At the heart of this Nike brand expe­ri­ence the emo­tional ben­e­fit inter­sects with the func­tional ben­e­fit, which is where the strongest emo­tional bonds are created.

Nike’s Bow­ery Sta­dium opens to the pub­lic Thurs­day to Sun­days from 12 to 7pm, at 276 Bow­ery in Man­hat­tan. Check it out if you’re in town — BYO gym gear.

If you look after brand spaces that could do with a good dose of emo­tional con­nec­tion, get in touch — the con­ver­sa­tion will be as valu­able as it is enlightening.

David Ansett, Bran­da­men­tal­ist
For daily updates of our brand think­ing, fol­low me on Twit­ter
Brand Designer

We found-out about this on a cool lit­tle web site called High Sno­bi­ety.

Tags: Allen Benedikt, Brand Agency, Brand Design, brand designer Melbourne, brand designers, Brand Experience, Brand Identity, Brand Personality, brand space, Brand Strategy, Brand Voice, brand-designers-Melbourne, brand-gesture, Brand-Loyalty, Brand-Storytelling, brandamentalist, Corporate Image, Creative Ideas, Dave Ansett, David Ansett, Design, Gianluigi Toccafondo, Goodtimes FC, Graphic Design Melbourne, Heroes of Speed, Interior Design, Jack Greer, Jake Sumner, Nabil Elderkin, Nike, Nike Stadium, NYC Bridge Runners, Order and Progress, Spike Lee, The Bowery Stadium, Visual Language

This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 7:00 am and is filed under Brand Agency, Brand Design, Brand Strategy, Brand-Storytelling, Corporate Image, Experiences, Graphic Design Melbourne. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.