Inside Nike’s House of Innovation store

As retail shifts from transactions to experiences, AV is reshaping the shop floor – satis&fy talks powering the ever-evolving campaigns inside Nike’s House of Innovation in Paris. 

Words Oliver Webb 

What better way to explore AV’s growing impact on the retail sector than by looking at one of the world’s biggest brands? On the Champs-Élysées in the heart of Paris, Nike’s House of Innovation has become a distinctive proving ground for immersive retail. Its ever-changing façade and campaign-driven interiors use digital storytelling, lighting and interactive displays to transform a traditional store into a brand experience.

Powering the campaigns is satis&fy, the project’s long-term technical partner, whose backbone of integrated AV and systems enables continual reinvention. Since the 2020 house opening, satis&fy has supported the interactive brand culture across four dynamic floors. The company has been working alongside Nike for the best part of 25 years. “It’s a really long-lasting relationship,” begins Julia Böge, senior project manager at satis&fy, “that began with corporate events and product releases.

“When satis&fy itself started in 1993, it was only a technical supplier. We were approached for the House of Innovation (HOI) project in 2019. From there, retail design began to develop in our portfolio, and now it’s a six-year success story.”

The idea behind HOI is to create a combination of a concept store and a product apparel store. Böge admits satis&fy has learned more about what is and what isn’t possible in the store as the campaigns have progressed. “We can work around those limitations to achieve the goal and original creative intention,” says Böge.

Creative campaigns

Michael Schaefer serves as satis&fy’s senior technical director for HOI Paris. He explains how the project was initially new territory for the company. “When we started working on HOI, it involved a lot of exposed technical equipment,” he says. “In the past, we would be working on things like corporate events, which would usually require a really clean set-up. You weren’t allowed to show a cable, so you are hiding cables everywhere.”

Nike took an altogether different approach because it wanted to stress the importance of innovation. “It wanted to emphasise this with the campaigns,” says Schaefer. “Nike did not want to have the LED back wall covered for example. Instead, it wanted the cables and the structures to be visible for it to really appear like a technical house of innovation. We even ended up adding fake cables for show.”

At the time of writing, satis&fy has delivered 35 campaigns for Nike’s House of Innovation, and the number is set to grow. “Each campaign is unique,” adds Schaefer. “Some are simple. From a technical standpoint, we maybe just provide power for some LED strips and simple LED tubes. Then there are the more complex campaigns, such as the Air for Athletes store takeover for the 2024 Paris Olympics.”

With the sports event taking place just down the road in Paris, it was paramount Nike stay ahead of the curve. The focus was on four brand-new models of sports shoe: Pegasus 41 and Alphafly 3 (running shoes), Mercurial Vapor (football boots) and GT Hustle 3 (basketball footwear).

Schaefer explains how that campaign was all about users being able to try on shoes and go into a special try-on space in the retail store. “We created a room-within-a-room installation featuring a high-res LED screen at the back. It had a 1.2mm pixel pitch, mirrored side walls and surround sound.”

According to Schaefer, the most challenging element was incorporating haze into a retail environment. “Because of the sprinkler fire alarm system, the fog was not allowed to escape the space, so everything had to remain fully contained within the built structure.”

For the project, 100 moving lights were installed in the ceiling, which functioned almost like motion tracking. “As a person walked through the space, the lights would follow them or guide them along a specific path,” says Schaefer. “The entire system operated using live feedback from the shoes in combination with a touch-sensitive floor.”

Nike also partnered with Uncanny Valley Studio, which is based in Paris and does all the programming behind House of Innovation. “For a project like this, we usually pre-build in our warehouse in Frankfurt,” says Schaefer. “There’s only a very short in-store set-up time because we have to do all of the set-ups during business hours. So, we work overnight. When the store is closed, we go in and work. That’s why we pre-build everything, do the programming in our warehouse and then just install the final product in the store.”

Air Max Day 2025

Nike celebrated Air Max Day 2025 on 26 March last year by launching the Air Max Dn8, shoes that feature eight-tube dual-pressure units in 14 colourways. The campaign effectively highlighted the Air legacy, which was inspired by the Paris Centre Pompidou. “Air Max Day was a perfect example of how our physical and digital departments work together,” notes Schaefer.

“In the Champs-Élysées window we had a big shelf with Air Max Dn8 shoes in eight different colours. We had a Kuka robot arm in front of it that runs on an x-axis track on the floor. The robot arm had a round LED screen mounted to it.”

Throughout the project, satis&fy also collaborated closely with BoraBora Studios. The installation featured four interactive stations, each designed to bring the Air Max Dn8’s core innovations (air, movement and design) to life via kinetic storytelling. By blending motion-driven interaction, responsive sculpture and real-time 3D visualisation, the resulting campaign translated product innovation into an immersive, dynamic narrative experience.

Everything is 100% remote control, Schaefer tells us. “So, even if something happens, we can check from Frankfurt or with our guys on other productions wherever they are. We can check in, change schedules, fix things, update content and so on.”

Sustainable systems

When satis&fy first got involved with the House of Innovation, it did not have any infrastructure inside the Paris store, which comes with limitations as it’s housed in an old building.

“Now we have a fully set-up system with a managed network arrangement over all floors,” says Schaefer. “We have a grandMA3 system that runs all the lights and sometimes the screens. We have a BrightSign network system in there too. It’s all pre-installed so we can just adapt to the individual campaign, which makes things faster and easier for us.”

Sustainability is always at the forefront of how Nike and satis&fy operate. “Our goal is to find equipment and material that look and perform the same but are produced in a more sustainable way,” states Böge. “We reuse a lot of materials, and there are lots of displays that, once built and used, are then implemented into future designs with small tweaks or new graphics. The lifetime of the materials we employ is very long.”

Based in Frankfurt, satis&fy has an additional warehouse in Paris where many displays are stored for reuse. “When you are acting out of Germany, you need to work with local partners as well. Otherwise, you would have to drive every cable from Frankfurt to Paris,” says Böge. “We made sure to do this early on in order to create a business network in Paris that means we can be quicker and more agile.”

Although satis&fy is unable to delve into its future campaigns, there will no doubt be a campaign surrounding the FIFA World Cup 2026 coming up in June. “Every party plays a role in making the campaigns happen,” concludes Böge. “From Nike as the client with all of its big visions, to the creative partners like Random Studios and Hotel Creative – and then of course satis&fy with all of its technical knowledge. It takes a lot of teamwork to bring the HOI to life.”