NIKE Pro Fixture, Various Locations

Design Twenty Four • Seven, Portland, Ore.

Fixtures Twenty Four • Seven, Portland, Ore.

Fixtures The Carlson Group, Portland, Ore.

Retailer Nike Inc., Beaverton, Ore.

Dimensions 82-1/2 inches wide, 36 inches deep, 85-3/4 inches high

Materials Powder-coated steel, etched acrylic, and printed graphics

Merchandise featured Technically advanced athletic apparel

Target market Young, athletic men

The Challenge: Gain Yardage Against a Tough Competitor

For its Pro Compression line, Nike wanted an in-store presence as aggressive as the athletes for which the moisture-wicking apparel was designed. “Nike wanted to dominate the marketplace,” said Craig Wollen. It sought to take market share from its largest competitor by encouraging retailers to commit to minimum purchase volumes, drawing consumer attention to the products, and driving sell-through.

Fixtures adjacent to competing product lines in newly constructed or remodeled stores of key big-box athletic specialty accounts would need to generate excitement for the product line in a big way. They were to showcase a full range of products while incorporating a suite of graphic communications.

With four days before the presentation, the Twenty Four • Seven team began by “digesting the information,” Wollen recalled. “We investigated the market. We looked at retailers where the product was to be placed, as well as their competitors.” All with the aim of coming up with what Twenty Four • Seven refers to as “a big idea.”

“The process involves brainstorming with the team of design engineers and others,” Wollen explained. “We push ourselves and our client’s boundaries.

“We make a sketch as general as possible. Big ideas are best often drawn on a small object like a cocktail napkin.” No kidding. Wollen still has the cocktail napkin that started this award-winning project.

To identify with the young, athletic man, to whom physical involvement, form, ego, and masculinity are at their peak, the team came up with a wave shape—a fixture with concave and convex (front and back) zones.

Through a number of iterations, the fixture retained the wave, their initial big idea.

The Solution: Making Waves

The prototype NIKE Pro Fixture with its wave-like shape delivers a strong, masculine, visual impact with a graphic scale rarely seen on a floor fixture. The powder-coated steel and etched acrylic fixture is complemented by a companion fixture.

To accommodate capacity needs, the fixtures are sizable. But Twenty Four • Seven made them even taller than capacity necessitated in order to create an imposing presence on the floor. At more than 7 feet tall for the large fixture and more than 6 feet tall for the “small” one, they dwarf surrounding elements, including competing product lines.

A garment hanger wraps around the side of the fixture for visual interest.
With one strong, large graphic image and a number of smaller ones, the graphic scale communicates the brand attributes of an aggressive, male, sport-specific focus. The strong, muscular mannequin reinforces the powerful athletic message. A mirror behind the mannequin shows the back of the garment.

“We worked closely with Photocraft to ensure that the graphics would fit, that we had the right substrate and thickness,” Wollen said. All of the graphics are removable so that the the look can be kept fresh. The smaller graphics are changed more frequently than the large one.

To accommodate a speedy launch and facilitate set-up, the fixtures were shipped fully assembled. This increased shipping costs, but reduced manufacturing and installation costs.