Nike Acquires Virgin Mega App

Nike just obtained an app from Virgin Mega that might change the online shopping experience for their millions of customers. Whether it’s for the better or worse solely depends on the user.

As you may or may not know, the once almighty powerful and popular Virgin Megastore is no more, but unbeknownst to most, a majestic 12-person tech group constructed and launched an app a few years ago called Virgin Mega which allows users to wait in line for a product drop and interact with other users.

Virgin Mega users can not only interact with one another but also compete in mini-games and trivia that allow you to bogart some spots and hop to the top of the line (expect to lose the trivia games—and your digital spot in line—to people much smarter than you). Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Nike certainly thought so and decided to acquire the app.

Reports Virgin:

Anything new is always hard to build. But the relentless passion and focus of Ron and his team paid off and Virgin Mega struck a chord with young audiences and progressive brands such as Nike who wanted to engage deeper with their fans and communities. I’m proud of the Virgin Mega team.

At Virgin, we love to help incubate new ideas from our staff and give teams the support to build something fresh and new. Today, young people want an experience to connect with brands they love – be it a music festival, a treasure hunt, or a mobile scavenger hunt for Pokemon, the best marketing programs start with emotion. And it’s this emotion that sparks love for a brand. The next generation of marketeers will need to find ways to build emotion by leveraging technology. I encourage more within our Virgin family to invent new ideas so that we may help incubate them along the way. 

I am sad to see Ron and his team go but they will now create a new digital innovation studio in the heart of New York City where they will invent and incubate next generation mobile experiences. I can’t wait to see what they’ll cook up next with a brand as customer-focused and creative as Nike!

With all the traffic that Nike experiences when they release their highly anticipated Jordan retros it makes sense that they incorporate something new to keep customers occupied while they wait for the inevitable “Sold Out” message.

Not so coincidentally, Nike just launched their new Nike+ app.

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Photo: Virgin Mega