Conversations dipped thereafter (see figure 2) and spiked again on 22 October (day one) with 120+ posts across all social media. Twitter accounted for almost 75% of the total. They then declined in numbers as the game wore on.

We also analysed sentiment. Although there were a few moans about boxes not working, sentiment was more than 90% positive.

However, despite the promising start, word of mouth did not take off as Nike would have hoped and expected. Having devised a great concept, brought it to life through strong branding and made the real world and online experiences reasonably straightforward, the players were not adequately engaged. As a result the community size stayed relatively small and less vocal. At the simplest level, interaction could have been increased through direct conversations with players/runners and at a more strategic level, content should have been seeded on relevant blogs, forums and third-party websites, including traditional media before, during and after the game.

As a participant in Nike Grid – and a few of us did take to the streets – we experienced first-hand the occasional lows of playing the game (the orienteering aspect of Nike Grid made it hard to find some boxes and a couple were located in places that we would never venture after dark) and the many highs. And if we were designing the Grid again, there would be many ways to amplify the highs.

For example, by introducing link runs across postcodes, not only to offer longer runs to those who want them but also to exploit some of London’s fantastic parks, smaller green spaces or river banks. Engaging Nike Grid fans would be a great place to start. David Hellard, a Nike Gridder, threw a spontaneous knees-up at a pub in central London with an open invite via Facebook to all runners to share their experiences. This is great engagement, but small stuff compared to what a Nike community manager could do in a similar position.

Even now, many months after Nike Grid, there is still a big untapped opportunity to bring runners together to share their experiences and become engaged in post-Grid events. The Nike Town store could play a massive role here. Already, the store organises runs for women and men during the week. Nike Town could act as a hub for a range of sports-based games as well as running activities. Nike Grid created a ‘club’ feel and the rewards helped fuel the connection between the player and the brand in many ways. For example, we loved the way that runners who earned the Crown for their postcode got to have their name displayed on the Nike Grid phone boxes after the game was over. It tapped into the trend towards personalisation, which fashion and sports brands have embraced by giving players a chance to share their achievements, and of course, subtly underlined Nike’s own Nike iD customisation service. It would have been great to take this further, perhaps by introducing limited edition running shirts using some of the iconic badges used in Nike Grid.

Arguably, the question for Nike is not whether to signal ‘game over’ for the Grid game, but how it continues to innovate in a category where the audience expects and demands to be surprised and delighted by brands. Socially-powered games offer a powerful platform for immersive engagement. And certainly, Nike should capitalise on the community’s thirst for more experiences like the Grid game. However, despite the social media available to the brand to extend its reach, it needs to dial up the engagement levels to drive word of mouth. Word of mouth drives 20%-50% of purchases and helps fuel long-term brand equity. Neither statistic would be lost on Nike or its competitors.

How to supercharge real-world social media games

1. Establish a personality. Nike Grid had Gridette. When you called her from a BT phone box to log your runs, she hit all the right notes for players, as Facebook chat revealed. It’s easier to build a personality around people rather than ‘static’ brands by  giving them the social tools that make them come to life.

2. Amplify the buzz before, during and after the game: it’s not enough to assume a great concept will go viral and spread without building and sustaining the dominant communities of interest. Take a strategic approach to listening and engaging the audience. Your audience is mobile in every sense, so you use your brand’s social channels wisely to use them well.

3. Use retail presences to amplify the game and its promotion, and to engage and reward players/ fans. Nike Town had the potential to be a community locus, but the opportunity was not exploited.

4. Co-create, chat, build and share experiences 24/7, 365 days a year. Tap into the community’s desire for fresh challenges which delight and surprise, and that can be shared by your communities. This is where long term values lies for the audience and for brands.

How the game worked

Nike Grid could best be described as a social media-enabled real world web running game with a huge dollop of orienteering thrown in. It tapped into the trend of augmented reality/location-based social media. You signed up to the game via Facebook and then took to the streets, running between London phone boxes across 48 postcodes to complete Grid runs. Checking in and out of each phone box via a freephone call made using your unique user ID number recorded your run. This was then automatically updated on Facebook. Nike recognised your efforts with badges and points, so you could share them with your friends. You could also keep tabs on which other runners or teams were performing best, find out which London district ruled the running roost and enjoy a daily digest of Grid running activities. These digests offered up visualisations of patterns of running activity over the past 24 hours, such as early morning runs or runs in the rain across the capital by location and time.