By Clotilde Chenevoy | the | Marketing
Decathlon will launch an e-sport video game by the end of the year and wants to go a step further in immersive in-store testing. Valentin Auvinet, who drives Web3 topics internally, wants to test the potential of immersive sport. A project that comes in addition to the strategy around NFTs that continues. Explanations.
An inflatable sled, climbing shoes with a wear marker or even a virtual reality helmet equipped with half of a table tennis racket…. On Tuesday September 20, Decathlon presented its latest innovations to the press, including the partnership with Eleven Tennis Table, an e-sport table tennis game. The retailer has developed a specific racket that attaches to the controllers of the Oculus headset to reproduce the gesture as faithfully as possible. A successful association, we quickly get caught up in the game.
“We thus manage to get people to play sports by removing the constraint of having a game table and finding an opponent, indicate Valentin Auvinet, Leader Exploration Web3. Metavers should not be seen as an opposition. It’s just a very different practice. We saw with the Nintendo Wii sport that this could represent a new opportunity to do activity at home, and to solve some constraints. With Eleven TT, 50% of people who have tried digital table tennis have also switched to classic practice. »
E-sport has great potential for the manager and the experimentation will continue at the end of the year with the creation of a video game by the end of the year which will be usable on Oculus, Playstation and the mask. Tiktok for China. “The idea will be to see the uses that will be made of it, for training or warming up, and is it complementary to classic practice, says the manager. We rely on an external studio to produce it because we don’t have the skills in-house, but we have defined all the specifications. The video game market is 5 times that of cinema and music. » Except that today’s video games mainly offer a fixed practice, Decathlon, true to its DNA, wants to get everyone on board for a more sporting use.
More immersive in-store testing
This immersive aspect, Valentin Auvinet also wants to bring it to the store. In Osaka, Japan, Decathlon has created a multi-sport cage offering archery, football and baseball. Customers can test products, see the difference in equipment or discover a sport. “One out of two games is archery when we were expecting more football,” says the web3 leader. This animation had an effect on sales elsewhere. In addition, there is also an “instagrammable” side, with young people who came to challenge each other by taking pictures. We are thinking about solutions to be able to offer this kind of activity in our stores for the Olympic Games. »
Success of the Decathlon locker room
Exploration in virtual worlds is also done through NFTS. Decathlon has linked the sale of its Kipsta Barrio shoe co-created with champion Séan Garnier with an NFT. The latter gave customers access to the Decathlon locker room and the NFT Barrio Club. The objective is to create a community around the product. A digital twin has also been created so that customers can wear their shoes on The Sandbox.
Beyond the fact that the sale of the 2008 models was done in 24 hours, Valentin Auvinet is above all pleasantly surprised by the feedback from consumers. ” In the Decathlon locker room, they were able to attend an exchange with Séan Garnier and they were asked to give their opinion on the choice of colors for the next models, he explains. The feedback has been very numerous and this suggests a lot of potential around co-creation. » A subject that is dear to Decathlon.
Another NFT effect, the retailer has managed to capture a new, younger audience. A target that did not come to them. And the transfer of NFT could also be done easily between customers, for a cost of around 10 to 20 euros, depending on the fluctuations of Tezos. No NFT speculation, free. Moreover, Decathlon does not wish to position itself on this use of the NFT.
A first successful experiment therefore, which will give rise to other tests, particularly in the world of cycling. Thus, 60 Rockrider jerseys will be sold during two major races including the Rock Azur. Then another series of 1000 NFTs will be published for fans of the brand. They will, however, be found via a geocaching system, Pokémon Go style. The exploration of the Web 3 has only just begun and “everything is to be written”, rejoices Valentin Auvinet.
