NIKEiD
Encyclopedia
NIKEiD is a service provided by Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...

 allowing customers to personalize and design their own Nike merchandise. They offer online services as well as physical NIKEiD studios in different countries around the world, including: United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, China and the USA.

Description

NIKEiD is a service provided by the Nike Corporation
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...

 allowing customers to customize clothing purchased from Nike. The customer becomes the designer as they change and add a personal look and feel to a selected item. The service can be accessed both online from their homepage and in physical branches (called NIKEiD Studios) which are situated in parts of France, England, Main Land Europe, China and the USA. In total, NIKEiD has 102 studios where customer can access the customization design service.

The service was launched initially in 1999 and could only be accessed through their website. It provided customers the ability to choose from a limited range of different material and colors to develop their own style of tennis shoe. This initial launch allowed customers to customize Nike's Air Force One shoe. It gave a total of 31 different customizable parts including the base, overlay, accent, lining, stitching, outsole, laces and deubré
Deubré
Deubré is a generic term, originating at Nike, Inc., for an ornamental shoelace tag. Typically, a deubré will have two holes through which a shoelace is threaded, like a bead on string. When the shoe is laced, the deubré is centered between the first two eyelets , with the shoelace passing through...

. In total this shoe gave a choice of 82 different materials and option types. It has since expanded from a small web-based service to a large array of stores and new software applications to give consumers a greater range of personalization and uniqueness in a variety of Nike shoes and clothing.

Originally founded and bought by Nike from RJ iD

Products

NIKEiD mainly focus on footwear providing a selection of shoes which can then be personalised by the customer. The customer can choose which area of the shoe to personalise, changing the colour and fabric to what they desire. This customization allows for a large amount of different designs to be created. And, if the customer does not want to have to design the shoes themselves, they can choose from a range of pre-made designs or buy designs other customers have made.

As NIKEiD have developed they have changed from just personalised footwear to other items of sportswear. This is currently only available on their website, with the NIKEiD studios focused on footwear.

Shoes

The shoes NIKEiD offers customization over are listed in a range of sub categories these include: Football, Baseball, Running, Rugby, Basketball, Training, Action Sports, Nike Sportswear, Nike Dunk, Nike 6.0, Nike SHOX, Nike+, Nike Free, and Nike air max. Some of the classic shoe models are only available in NIKEiD studios, and not online. NIKEiD are constantly updating the collection of shoes that they offer for customization, most recently the "Lowest Profile" basketball shoe.

Online

The starting point of the company was the online store which has changed frequently over the years from its initial 1999 launch. In 2005 R/GA
R/GA
R/GA Media Group Inc. is an advertising agency headquartered in New York — with additional offices in San Francisco, Chicago, London, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Singapore, and Stockholm. The agency is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies , one of four global advertising holding companies...

 was given the task to redesign the website to give it "a premium, e-commerce experience". The original HTML site was replaced entirely by a new Flash based website claimed to give it a more user-friendly experience and stylish look. The ability to save designs using the myLocker account, on the NIKEiD website, has sparked many bloggers and designers to show off their designs.

In Store

The NIKEiD studios are intended to give the customer an even greater personal experience. The studios have professionally trained designers within for customers to work with. Some people argue that there is no need for the physical NIKEiD stores, when the online service is available. Inside the studios there is a greater range of colours, materials and shoes to pick from, including some of the Nike classic models which are not available online.

iPhone App

On 14 October 2009 the NIKEiD App for iPhone and iPod Touch was released on the iTunes App Store. The App is free to download and allows users to search products created by the NIKEiD community and purchase items from the online store. The iD Studio Finder allows the user to find out exactly where the Nike iD Studios are located, and how to book an appointment with a design consultant. Users can also save their designs to their myLocker accounts.

Nike PhotoiD

By taking a picture with their mobile
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

 a consumer can send an image to Nike where newly designed software will then analyze the picture for its two main colours and then go about designing a shoe based on it. The consumer will then receive reply with an image of their desired shoe. From this stage they can either save the image, send it to someone else or even purchase the new design.

Campaigns

NIKEiD launch a billboard campaign coinciding with the re-launch of the NIKEiD website. the Reuters sign in Times Square and offered passersby the option to use their phones to customize a pair of shoes. Once the user has then customized the pair of shoes they receive a text with a wallpaper of the shoe and then given the option to purchase their customized shoe.

Celebrity Designs

NIKEiD has invited celebrities such as Amani Toomer
Amani Toomer
Amani Toomer is a retired American football wide receiver who played in the National Football League. He was drafted by the New York Giants in the second round of the 1996 NFL Draft. He played college football at Michigan, where he was a fan favorite.Toomer has also been a member of the Kansas...

 and DJ Clark Kent to go into the NIKEiD bespoke workshop, situated in 21 Mercer Street, New York and design their own shoe.

Nike Air Troupe Design Battle

When Nike launched a brand new shoe specifically designed for hip hop dancers. This campaign was designed to promote both NIKEiD and the new shoe. It allowed users to customize their own Nike Air Troupe shoe and then to submit their design into a competition against other designers. Designs would go through rounds of voting until the best designs were chosen, and winners could win various prizes. The competition ended on April 16, 2009.

Similar Services

Other clothing brands offer bespoke clothing for customers also. Vans
Vans
Vans is an American based manufacturer of sneakers, skateboarding shoes, BMX shoes, snowboarding boots and other shoe types.- History :On March 16, 1966, at 704 E. Broadway, in Anaheim, California, brothers Paul Van Doren, James Van Doren, and three other partners opened up their first store...

 for example offer a service that they call VANS "off the wall"; this offers similar customized shoe experiences for customers. It does not however allow customers to customize other products, only shoes. Adidas
Adidas
Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...

 offer a bespoke service called miAdidas allowing customized shoe features for customers, again this only allows for customized shoes not other items of clothing as well. Reebok too offer a service called Your Reebok. Converse offers the Converse One service.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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