Ron Faris at Nike Is Running With Web3

When Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman started Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964, which evolved into Nike, probably the furthest thing from their minds was that their customers would one day want digital 3D sneakers wearable in video games and the metaverse.

But in 2023, Nike became one of the largest brands in the world championing a connected future.

This profile is part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2023. For the full list, click here.

Ron Faris heads up Nike Virtual Studios, and is dedicated to digital and virtual experiences that deepen relationships with fans and customers. Faris is no stranger to technology and innovation, having spent time at Atari and Virgin Mobile, before starting a content and commerce company that Nike acquired. His role is to develop digital-first experiences for the brand's fanatic sneakerheads.

Nike introduced .SWOOSH this year as its first real blockchain-native experiment after its acquisition of NFT Studio RTFKT in late 2021. The initiative started out as an identity play with .SWOOSH IDs minted through a partnership with brand-courting crypto project Polygon and custody specialist BitGo.

Faris' stated goal is to democratize co-collaboration and curate communities in new ways. He and his team did not launch .SWOOSH through crypto channels, but instead focused on core sneaker collectors, local athletes and meetups. He intended to not only introduce the initiative but to answer questions about the new technologies that have often been met with skepticism by subcultures like sneaker collectors and gamers.

More than 370,000 people grabbed the IDs with little understanding of what they unlocked at the time. Nike soon revealed that those with an ID could collect Nike's first virtual product drop, Our Force 1, digitally modeled after its Air Force 1 silhouette.

The uptake is another encouraging sign for future mainstream adoption along the likes of Pepsi and Starbucks, though most mainstream companies have been muted in saying these projects are anything more than experiments. Nike has pushed the narrative along this year with .SWOOSH integrations with Fortnite, EA Sports, physical drops and other benefits being teased out.

In a marketing world of social media dominance, where brands are trying hard to create direct relationships with their customers, Faris and the Nike team are connecting more than most. "This is our effort in creating a digital marketplace for the future, which is powered by digital, which harmonizes products, experiences, and services in new ways which meet the consumer where they are," Faris told Hypebeast in April.

As many in the corporate landscape have cooled to Web3 during 2023, Nike, under the guidance of Faris, is building quickly with digital collectibles, limited-release access and interconnected game unlocks to create a key pillar in a future-forward marketing strategy.