Dick’s Sporting Goods goes back to school – on Roblox
Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. is partnering with a popular digital gaming platform for its new back-to-school promotion.
The nation’s largest sporting goods retailer is launching a back-to-school campaign, “Sport Your Style,” that includes an experience in the Roblox virtual gaming environment called The Locker Room.
How ‘School of Sport’ works
Users enter the School of Sport experience through the virtual locker room, where they will receive information on how to navigate the Dick’s Sporting Goods High environment. Each player will have a personalized locker containing “The Store,” a virtual shop where they can use the in-experience currency known as “style points” to purchase shoes, apparel and accessories to outfit their avatars.
As users explore Dick’s Sporting Goods High, they can interact with other users and collect stickers, badges and style points by competing in activities and challenges throughout the experience environments, which include The Field, The Hallways, The Gymnasium, and The Outdoor Cafeteria. There is also an additional hidden environment within the experience that customers discover on their own.
In addition to using style points to unlock access to Dick’s back-to-school gear, customers can view their rankings on a leaderboard and personalize their virtual school supplies (such as a notebook or water bottle) with stickers they can collect throughout the virtual school environment.
Roblox is more than a game for retailers
Dick’s foray follows the footsteps of several other retailers that have rolled out promotional and shopping experience on the Roblox platform. In May 2022, specialty apparel retailer Gap unveiled a virtual, purchase-free experience in the Roblox virtual gaming environment. Partnering with the youth technology platform SuperAwesome, Gap integrated a virtual boutique into Club Roblox, a role-playing, user-generated world built on Roblox.
In addition, Pacsun recently opened a fantasy interactive mall experience on Roblox, called Pacworld. Customers can virtually become the owner and operators of a new mall, and can create and remove shops, upgrade the shops that do well, decorate the mall to try and attract more customers, and invite their friends to visit their mall.
And American Eagle Outfitters launched its spring 2022 “Members Always” campaign with metaverse extensions across platforms including Roblox. Customers were able to virtually visit the “AE Members Always Club” section of the Livetopia Roblox game while collecting exclusive game items, including styles from the American Eagle spring collection, to outfit their avatars.
In December 2021, Forever 21 launched a similar fashion retail experience on Roblox called “Forever 21 Shop City.” December also saw Ralph Lauren run a holiday-themed digital promotion, The Ralph Lauren Winter Escape, on Roblox.
Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. operates more than 850 Dick’s Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy, Field & Stream, Public Lands, Going Going Gone!, and Warehouse Sale stores, online, and through the Dick’s mobile app. Dick’s Sporting Goods also owns and operates Dick’s House of Sport and Golf Galaxy Performance Center; as well as GameChanger, a youth sports mobile app for scheduling, communications, live scorekeeping and video streaming.