AI brand world and LED runway for Nike

Nike turned its pop-up store at a big-city marathon weekend into a brand world at the leading edge of technology. The centrepiece: an AI photo station that cuts visitors out of the store background in milliseconds and projects them into dynamic brand worlds — coupled with a floor-embedded LED runway that renders the generated AI image instantly beneath the visitor's feet. The result was an immersive brand experience that dominated the digital reach of the marathon weekend through organic social shares.

More than 200 B2B brands from across Europe trust UpReach — from agencies to enterprise corporations.

The initial situation

The urban marathon audience's expectations of Nike are extremely high: everything has to be premium, latency-free and visually flawless. A standard fair-photo setup would have disappointed this audience.

The core technical challenge was the dual output: the AI had to cut the visitor out of the real store background in real time and integrate them photorealistically into prepared brand worlds. The same image had to be sent simultaneously to the user's smartphone via QR code and transferred via an API to the LED runway in the floor — both with no perceptible delay.

Cloud rendering was not an option: Wi-Fi latency in a pop-up store under high load would destroy the immersion. The processing had to run at the terminal, independent of the connection.

The UpReach solution

UpReach supplied a custom hardware integration that blended invisibly into the store design. The camera unit was modularly built into the stand construction — technology that serves the brand, not the other way round.

For the installation, offline mode with local processing at the terminal was booked. Visitors stepped in front of the lens, the AI engine cut them out of the real background in milliseconds and placed them into dynamic, predefined brand worlds. The strict, predefined brand design guaranteed that every shared social post carried the campaign's visual signature — no random filters, no deviations.

The absolute highlight was the LED runway integration: as soon as the AI render was complete, the system transferred the image via API to the LED runway set into the floor. The visitor saw themselves as the protagonist of the brand campaign beneath their own feet — before downloading the image via QR code for social media.

Setup & Logistics

Lead time 6 weeks: 3 weeks for the technical integration (custom mounting of the camera unit into the store construction, developing and testing the LED-runway API, configuring local processing to the store's lighting conditions), 2 weeks for UI design and brand-content production (predefined brand worlds, CI-compliant image layouts), 1 week for the store build and full-operation testing with real test subjects.

Build in close coordination with the brand's stand-construction team. No visible UpReach hardware — the camera unit was architecturally integrated. On-site support by the UpReach team for the entire duration of the event.

Teardown and return transport the following day.

Results by the numbers

Real-time

LED runway projection

GDPR

compliant data processing

Instagram + TikTok

primary earned-media channels

The installation became the central draw of the pop-up store. The interplay of AI personalisation and physical LED staging created an experience that strongly motivated visitors to share their generated images on social media.

The LED runway was the decisive differentiator: visitors saw themselves larger than life beneath their own feet — a moment that does not end silently at a touchscreen but plays across the whole store space. The watching crowd amplified the effect: anyone who saw the installation wanted to take part themselves.

The earned-media reach from organic social shares exceeded the reach of the weekend's paid advertising, because every shared image carried the campaign's full brand aesthetic — produced by the visitors themselves.

Key takeaways from this setup

Spatial integration beats a stand-alone setup: a photo station that only outputs to a screen isolates the experience. Handing the image to the LED runway via API turns the individual experience into a store-wide spectacle.

Latency destroys the momentum: for premium brand activations with real-time LED output, cloud rendering is not an option. The offline mode with local processing booked for this event guarantees that the AI image renders fast enough for the real-time LED stream.

Visual brand lock is a feature: the strictly predefined AI design ensured that every shared social post carried the campaign signature. No random filters. No brand loss through uncontrolled image variants.

Invisible technology maximises brand impact: the camera unit was architecturally integrated into the store construction. Visitors experienced the brand, not the technology.