.Swoosh
Nike, Inc., the American multinational footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories, and services corporation, has announced recently its very own metaverse platform called .Swoosh.
As reported by Yahoo Finance sports reporter Josh Schafer, .Swoosh is a Web.3 enabler platform that allows users to create and trade original Nike designs and collectibles.
The iconic company is one of several multinational sports and fashion brands diving into the metaverse, clearly represented in our graphic for 15 Fashion Brands Investing in the Metaverse.
Shoe Communities
“It’s meant to be a digital community, akin to a lot of Nike’s other shoe communities,” said Shafer in the report. “Basically, you can co-create a project with a Nike shoe designer in the metaverse virtual world and earn royalties from that.”
Schafer added that the eventual idea is that these can be turned into “real-life products”.
A bigger part of Nike’s digital brand strategy, which Schafer reported had grown by 16% year over year last quarter, according to information the journalist had received from David Swartz, an equity analyst in the consumer sector research group for Morningstar Research Services LLC.
“The move makes sense, given that there’s a big collector community for Nike shoes. And its core customers are likely to be the early adopters of this kind,” said Swartz.
Nike has been investing in the metaverse for several months now — but what about the consumer interest in all of this, particularly with the news Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse project is going through some rough times?
Ron Faris’ Involvement
“We should note that the head of this project is Ron Faris who heads Nike’s sneakers app,” said Schafer, “and that’s their biggest collector app that’s grown over the years. So, when they put a big name like that in front of a project, that means they want it to work out, right.”
Schafer is guessing what Nike is looking to do is, as the metaverse and the apps grow, characters will need to be wearing Nike apparel, like they do in the real world.
The journalist also pointed out that Nike did not once mention the “metaverse” in the press release.
Whatever happens over the next few months, Nike’s shoe collector community is huge, so could turn out to be a major revenue earner for the Beaverton, Oregon-based multinational.
Feature image: Josh Schafer, Yahoo Finance (YouTube screenshot)
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