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Nike digital signage sprints to Victory at Olympic Trials (Video)

Nike created a digital signage-heavy pop-up store at this year's U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Oregon.

August 16, 2012 by Christopher Hall — w, t

Nike took a digital signage sprint at this year's Olympic Team Trials for U.S. Track and Field.

The trials were held in the running mecca of Eugene, Ore., at the University of Oregon's Hayward Field, where Nike set up "Camp Victory," an "immersive, interactive running experience" that included interactive digital out-of-home installations for running fans.

Nike set up three pavilions and created a light and sound show that re-created sprint trials on the walls and allowed visitors to test their times on treadmills facing huge digital signage screens.

The Portland Oregonian said that while the deployment was called Camp Victory, "Planet Nike" might have been a more apt name:

The pavilions — "Shoe Lab," "Speed Tunnel," "Nike+ Running" — were the creation of Skylab Architecture, founded by architect Jeff Kovel.

The Portland firm began collaborating with contacts at Nike on the design late last year, said Sebastian Guivernau, the Skylab architect who led the collaboration. Other collaborators included HUSH Studios of New York City, which handled digital media within the display; and Big Giant of Portland, which was responsible for graphics.

Nike want Skylab to create something that would reflect the "posture and tectonics of speed," Guivernau said.

"We looked to kinetic structures, the posture of sprinters coming out of the starting blocks, and Nike's hyper-light approach to running products for inspiration," he said.

The result: angular structures wrapped in a transluscent membrane housing products as well as technological gizmos and glittering displays. All of it is surrounding by intersecting lanes of race tracks.

The layout is designed "to be interactive from the moment visitors cross the gateway to when they find themselves fully immersed in digital medias experiences," Guivernau said.

Mike Cearley, SVP of digital strategy for the agency Fleishman-Hillard, said in his blog on the Digital Screenmedia Association's website that "Nike shows us, if used the right way, all technology can be interactive."

Cearley speculated that it "sound like some of the components of this installation will be put in their retail stores, which is only taking them one step closer to a completely technology-based interactive retail environment. It might take some time, but they are leading the way. And this is the future."

On his Sixteen:Nine site, digital signage consultant Dave Haynes called the installation "very nice."

"Like the FuelBand pop-up store in London, this reflects a brand really pushing digital and in-store experience far beyond the idea of 'where do we put the screens?'"

Watch a video about Camp Victory from the project's music and sound design firm, Antfood, below: