Unleash The Black Mamba: When The World Types, He Strikes
Earlier this year, Nike Basketball introduced their Black Mamba Social Media campaign. The campaign highlights Kobe Bryant’s alter ego, the Black Mamba, and encourages the public to follow Nike Basketball’s social media platforms, share with friends, and unlock exclusive content such as info about the Black Mamba, short films, and downloadable wallpapers, among other content. A series of Black Mamba films were created. The Black Mamba campaign goes further and pushes fans to participate in the “Mamba Moments.” Nike Basketball notifies fans of the Mamba Moments via their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Fans that describe the Mamba Moment in their own social media feeds gain the chance to win a pair of Nike Zoom Kobe VI’s. The innovative campaign found great success in fan engagement & interaction and was selected as a Interactive Social Media Campaign Finalist at the 2012 SXSW Festival.
Nike Basketball Digital Experience at Nike.com
Furthermore, the Black Mamba campaign is integrated into Nike Basketball at Nike.com. Nike Basketball has a unique Athlete Presence that effectively integrates top sponsored NBA players, merchandise, and social media. The Nike Basketball component of Nike.com displays photos of these athletes along with their Twitter and Facebook accounts with the capability to like, post, or tweet at that athlete. The top featured NBA players include LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Rajon Rondo, Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin, and Jeremy Lin.
Additionally, users can toggle down to the Nike Kicks page that displays the Nike shoes a given athlete wears in games and utilize the same social media capabilities. This gives users the ability to engage with the athlete, the merchandise, their team, post to the user’s entire social network, and ultimately, buy Nike Basketball shoes through a unique digital experience. Parallel to the NBA page is a WNBA option that displays photos but has very limited capabilities for interaction of social channels.
Nike Basketball has gone even further by integrating top Division I NCAA basketball teams on another tab. The top featured teams include Kentucky, Syracuse, Ohio State, Alabama, and Connecticut.This element displays the Nike Basketball shoes of college basketball programs with social media and purchasing capabilities. Additionally, the page tracks live tweets and flashes for every new tweet about a given team. This further captures another market of basketball fans as it relates to Nike merchandise and embracing a unique digital and social experience.
Mark Wysocki 