For its 30th anniversary year, Nike has reminisced about its origins and the sportswear behemoth brought back its original Blue Ribbon Sports name for the reopening of its original Santa Monica store and for a series of pop-ups and a retro road trip in a replica of its original VW delivery van.
The multi-city road tour sees brand fans offered a chance to buy exclusive BRS footwear, learn about the brand’s history and donate used athletic shoes to Reuse-A-Shoe from the back of a VW ID van branded under Nike’s original name and colours.
This modernised homage to the original bus used by the Jeff Johnson and the brand’s founders to deliver its products around California in the 1960s sees Nike wrap an electric Volkswagen ID.BUZZ Cargo in Blue Ribbon Sports branding.
The coast-to-coast trip visited three cities throughout October: starting where it all began in Santa Monica on 5 October, followed by stops in Chicago and New York City on 12 and 15 October respectively.
The pop-up event include Nike history lessons on the brand’s original roots, a chance to both purchase new and donate used Nike shoes and the focal product is a limited edition range of Blue Ribbon Sports sneakers.
The coast-to-coast trip and Blue Ribbon pop-up is promoted through a social campaign fronted by a documentary style short film launched on 4 October.
Comment:
In recent years Nike have launched an innovative range of partnerships with brands from Apple to Riot Games, but most of these have been forward looking and typically technology led.
So this retro VW tie-up, albeit with a contemporary electric vehicle twist, feels like a fresh approach in the brand’s 30th anniversary year.
Links:
VW
https://www.youtube.com/user/Volkswagen
Nike
https://www.instagram.com/nike/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+nike
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