Academic project · 360° campaign

Making sport a mindset

Nike Mentality: a campaign, a tracker and an app to help Gen Z push their limits, both on the field and in the mind.

Timeline: [Period] 2025
My role: [Project management, UX research, UI, art direction]
Team: [Group project: names]
Tools: Figma, Illustrator, [others]

The context

Mental health has become a central topic for Gen Z. And sport is part of the answer: most young people say it improves their mood.

The brief: design a 360° campaign for Nike with strong branding, impactful art direction and an immersive app, on a budget of €100,000. Our answer, Nike Mentality, rests on three pillars: the "Be The First" tagline, a connected tracker, Nike Pulse, that precisely measures sports like boxing, soccer and basketball, and the Nike Mentality Games, tournaments open to everyone, with the first edition set to take place in Paris.

My starting question: How do we make young people want to push their limits, and show them their progress clearly enough that they keep going?

65 %of young people say they are concerned about their mental health

72 %acknowledge that sport contributes to their mental well-being

90 %report a better mood after physical activity

€100kbudget for the campaign and the app

Giant Nike Mentality Game screen hanging above an arena

01Frame

A budget, a schedule, risks

Before designing anything, we had to split €100,000 across six workstreams, schedule them over nine weeks, and anticipate what could make the project fail.

Budget table: six tasks, with their priority, cost, duration and required profiles

User research first

Each task received a priority score. User research is the only one rated 10/10: 25 days and €10,000, so we wouldn't design the app blindly. Development takes the biggest share, €40,000, maintenance included.

[What you learned from costing a project end to end.]

Nine-week Gantt chart — The nine-week Gantt chart: research and strategy start together, and the mockup begins as soon as the first results come in.

Risk 1Disengagement after downloadCritical risk for the app. Prevention: a gamified onboarding. Correction: targeted notifications and a redesign of the first screens.Source: product

Risk 2A concept seen as too "corporate"Gen Z might not buy into it. Prevention: test the messaging with creators who are close to youth codes.Source: target

Risk 3Unreliable dataThe tracker has to be accurate for every sport. Prevention: validate the measurements with coaches and ambassadors.Source: technical

What I take from it

The most serious risk wasn't technical: it was a young user downloading the app and never opening it again. Everything else in the project had to address that.

Next step · 02 Understand ↓

02Understand

What "mentality" means to a young athlete

We first broke sports mentality down into concrete ideas, then met our users through three personas and a benchmark of 18 sports apps.

Mind map around the notion of sports mentality — Pushing limits, self-confidence, team spirit, mental preparation: the mind map that informed both the campaign and the app's features.

Three personas: a 14-year-old middle schooler, a 21-year-old student and a 35-year-old trader — Three personas, aged 14 to 35: Noé, a middle schooler in Lyon, Alice, a final-year bachelor's student, and Frédéric, head of trading. [What each one expects from the app.]

The benchmark covered Strava, Nike Training Club, Adidas Training, Polar, Fitbit, Suunto, Decathlon Coach and Samsung Health. [What you took away from it: what these apps were missing, and what Nike Pulse could offer.]

What I take from it

Existing apps track running well. Almost none can track a boxing move or a shot on goal: that's where Nike Pulse could stand out.

Next step · 03 Structure ↓

03Structure

An app with three spaces

The architecture separates what users do on their own, what they do with others, and what makes them dream: their activity, challenges, and the Nike Mentality Games.

Site map: onboarding, home, activity, challenge and Nike Mentality Game — Site map: three branches under the home screen, Activity, Challenge and Nike Mentality Game.

App user flows — User flows: each diamond is a user decision.

Low-fidelity wireframes of the main screens — Low-fidelity wireframes.

The same screen as a wireframe and as the final interface — From wireframe to final interface.

What I take from it

With the structure in place, the trickiest part remained: helping users understand within seconds how one small sensor can track such different sports.

Next step · 04 Design ↓

04Design

A coach in your pocket

The app guides each session from start to finish: connecting the tracker, understanding the exercise, performing it with live feedback, then seeing your progress.

Confirmation that the Nike Pulse tracker has been found — Connect, understand, get ready.

Introduction to the "Discover penalties" exercise — Connect, understand, get ready.

Session in progress in landscape mode: shooting zone, shots on target, shot speed — During the exercise, the phone switches to landscape: the target zone, shots on target, speed and posture are displayed live.

Decision 1

Show the movement before measuring it

1
The finding
A tracker that follows boxing or football is only valuable if the movement is performed correctly. And the project's number one risk was disengagement from the very first uses.
2
What I chose
Each exercise starts with a short coach video, followed by calibration and a countdown. During the session, there's a single goal on screen and live feedback.
3
What I ruled out
[The discarded option, for example a simple text explanation or starting without calibration]
4
The expected effect
More accurate data, and a user who feels supported from the very first session.

How I would measure it: Share of completed sessions, and return to the app within 7 days.

Video explaining the movement before the exercise

Decision 2

Leagues to give users a horizon

1
The finding
Tracking progress isn't always enough to bring people back. The campaign promised "Be The First": the app had to make that ambition tangible.
2
What I chose
The Nike Mentality Games: one league per sport (bronze, ruby, diamond, gold), local and global leaderboards, events close to home and a final in Paris.
3
What I ruled out
[The option we ruled out, for example a single leaderboard across all sports]
4
The expected effect
Every session counts toward something bigger, and the best athletes can get spotted.

How I would measure it: Event sign-ups and average progression across the leagues.

League selection by sport with the leaderboard

Nike Mentality Games home screen — The Nike Mentality Games: the events map, event detail and leaderboard.

Map of nearby events — The Nike Mentality Games: the events map, event detail and leaderboard.

What I take from it

The app held up. What remained was giving it the voice and look of a real Nike campaign.

Next step · 05 Embody ↓

05Embody

An identity designed for the street

A typeface and icons created for the project, a turquoise palette on a dark background, and an identity extended all the way to the tournaments: it had to work as well on a screen as on a sidewalk.