How Nike Brings A Football Pitch Near You With #Mipista

Nike Football has just launched a cool campaign in Spain called #Mipista. The concept is simple: order your football pitch and Nike will deliver it to you.

Everybody that plays or has played football on the streets is familiar with creating a primitive pitch out of jackets or bricks and using existing objects as garage doors, benches or walls for a goal.

Some neighbourhoods have special playing courts, such as the Cruyff Courts, realized by the Cruyff Foundation in many Dutch cities, but also in Sao Paolo, Elandshoorn (township in South Africa) and Tottenham, London. You can check all courts here.

 Former Arsenal player Bergkamp and Johan Cruyff at the opening of Cruyff Court in London (source: Arsenal)

These courts are not being realized within a day, but Nike Football Spain now has a perfect solution for football fans who want to have a pitch play on within the hour.

A mobile unit is patrolling Madrid, ready to go to the requested locations and set up an impressive football pitch.

A van, a team of Nike FC247 specialists and a crane rush into the street or square in a matter of minutes and use a laser system to project the pitch, where the teens will have a surprising experience while they try out the new boots designed specifically to play in the street. light projection depends on the neighbourhood and if the pitch can be projected properly on the requested location.

The team checks via a phone call if you have a minimum of 8 players available. If so, the team confirm that the van and the crane is on its way.

Check out the promotion video here:

Football fans can order the pitch on the Mipista website. The video shows also somebody ordering a pitch from a smartphone, but unfortunately the website is not responsive or mobile and I haven’t found a special app for iPhone or Android (but do let me know if I missed this!).

The campaign seems perfect for Spain. Although this is a country full of sports facilities, teenagers are often missing out on the tradition of playing football in the street and improvising.

Jesús Revuelta, Creative Director of DoubleYou, explains:

This is partly because playing football is forbidden in an increasing number of places but also because the idea of grabbing a couple of sweaters to make goalposts has been lost”. When kids get together informally, they spend more time on Facebook using their cellphones than playing with the ball. That is why we came up with this way of reaching and encouraging them to play anytime, anywhere.

My Opinion?
I think it’s a simple campaign, but I like it very much. Simple campaigns are often the best ones! Unfortunately #Mipista only runs in Madrid for now. The laser projection is very cool, the fact that the #Mipista team can deliver a pitch very fast is also great.

The campaign fits in the new marketing approach we have been discussing here on ViralBlog: brands are  helping more instead of just hyping.

The video shows an app or mobile website, as mentioned before, but unfortunately I cannot find one, so that’s a pity, although you can check the desktop version on your phone.

I do think the campaign website could be more social, or even on a social network as Facebook. The target audience (teens) is very social and mobile savvy, so that could be leveraged  much more.

I’m looking forward to see the campaign travelling to the Netherlands!

The campaign has been launched with no media budget and is spreading rapidly across the web. Unfortunately I don’t have the full  campaign results available, but keep on checking for updates on this article, as I requested this!

For now, the team has 5 requests: 2 for tonight, 1 for Friday and 1 for Saturday.  There is a photographer on the van,  so the team post some pictures on @Nike_Spain and  the Nike Football Spain Facebook page. Looking forward to it!

What about you?
So what do you think about this campaign? Do you think the pitch is innovative? What’s your opinion on the online part?

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About the author
Laurens Bianchi is an independent online marketing professional from the Netherlands and has been blogging on ViralBlog since 2008. Currently Laurens is also the Social Media Consultant for the Royal Dutch Football Association.