Nike’s wealth of athlete data showed us that the hardest thing for athletes is staying on track. So we created Nike On Demand: a data-driven human-operated 1:1 service on WhatsApp that keeps athletes engaged over time, adapts to their individual needs on the fly and connects them with the best of Nike: everything from personalized playlists to 1-on-1 training with professional athletes to VIP access to sold out Nike Training Club classes.

Inside the Nike On Demand Service Centre, Nike experts, coaches, trainers, etc. cross-referenced messages with users’ app activity data to determine which nudges saw the greatest behavior change.

An off-the-shelf platform to power our concept didn’t exist so we developed a bespoke platform that blended back-end rerouting with a front-end chat, tagging and profiling interface that sat between the human operators and WhatsApp. This enabled us to create rich personal athlete profiles and provide users with timely, individual nudges that changed their behavior.

As soon as a user began a conversation, we began developing their personal profile using our bespoke tagging and profiling interface. Over time, we got to know each of them individually and our motivations became more personalized both in form (e.g. if they used a lot of emojis, we used emojis) and content (e.g. training plans tailored to their level).

The more athletes told us about their goals through the Whatsapp chat, the more we were able to create rich athlete profiles and serve athletes effectively via rapid connection to the Nike ecosystem of existing products and services.

That way, Nike On Demand was able to deliver truly bespoke personal creative that made the most of WhatsApp’s functionalities - personal messages from elite coaches and athletes, images of bespoke training plans, congratulatory gifs, etc. - all delivered on their terms, through chat.

We delivered:

Bespoke training plans

Personal advice from elite coaches

Meaningful reminders

1-to-1 training sessions with pro athletes

Motivating kicks in the ass

VIP access to sold out Nike Training Club classes.

Personal congratulations

And lots more.

From the consumer’s perspective, they chat with Nike on WhatsApp and get help from someone who knows them personally and who does everything in Nike’s power to help them crush their goals: everything from setting up 1-on-1 training with professional athletes to getting them in the backdoor of sold out Nike Training Club sessions.

Over 6 weeks Nike On Demand enabled 240 athletes to take their game to the next level, exchanging over 22K messages and connecting athletes with pacers, trainers, run coaches, reminders, private classes, 1:1 sessions, training plans, playlists, app challenges, product trials, VIP bookings, coaching tips, and a whole heap of ass-kicking motivation.

83% would recommend Nike On Demand to a friend.

81% would use the service again.

70% expect this type of service from Nike.

Nike are scaling this service, by blending machine learning with human responses, so we can serve more athletes as individuals, with more relevant ideas, based on smarter uses of athlete data.

Nike On Demand proved that effective use of data is integral to the success of a company in the business of human potential, and it highlighted that the human touch is crucial, even as bots become more sophisticated.