This past weekend Nike tried something new idea. This idea was to release of its latest sneaker the Air Jordan 12 Playoffs. Nike's plan was to reserve RSVP sneakers by hash tagging the sneaker name through twitter. So for example if you wanted to RSVP a pair of sneakers you would have to #AJ12. According to Allie Walker of PSK post.
"When Nike released the Air Jordan 11 Retro in December 2011, eager sneaker fans camped outside of stores for days, fighting for the chance to be the first to own the new shoe. Riots ensued, police were called in for crowd control, and there were even reports of people being trampled by crazed sneaker fanatics rushing to grab the sneakers off the shelves."
Nike tried this new system in order to end the camp outs and stop the violence over the sneakers. After the Air Jordan 11 release and a couple sneakers after more notably the Air Foamposite Galaxy. Nike has high hopes for this RSVP twitter system would an end to the madness and chaos. Also according to Allie of PSK.
"Nike introduced its Twitter RSVP system for new product launches earlier this week, aimed to help the company better manage hectic release days (fans camp out for more than just Air Jordans). With the new Twitter RSVP System, Nike stores will send out a randomly timed tweet with a product specific hash tag on RSVP Day."
At the beginning this seems to be a very good idea but like everything else in the world it has room for improvement. For one not everyone who buys sneakers has a twitter account. Myself for example I tried to RSVP a pair for myself so I made a twitter account but I was very unfamiliar with the Twitter direct message system so it was not able to RSVP myself pair. The main reason is because Nike did not follow me back on twitter which means Nike did not get my direct message. In the upside this new twitter RSVP for sneakers becomes a new way to market the sneakers. Still this is a work in progressss and hopefully Nike will have more success with their future sneaker releases.
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