Nike is bringing together offline and online, selling and gaming, consumers and the Nike Air Max sneaker in its new and unconventional project, where shoes are levitating and racing without people in them. Seems quite unbelievable, but it’s true. The company unveiled one of the most hilarious marketing approaches ever, Nike Air Live Show, inviting consumers to take part in a sneaker competition at the Nike Store in Buenos Aires or online.

The participants don’t have to be present at the store as the technology employed in the project also allows for ruling the sneakers on the web. They are asked to choose one of the two shoes, floating almost two inches above the ground, and move them by blowing (either directly at the store or through a microphone) to the finish line. The trainer which reaches the end of the track faster than its ‘rival’ becomes the winner. Of course, no magic is involved here—the shoes were placed on a special platform, which is moving in accordance to digital signals, in which the blowing is transformed.

«The concept we were working with was air: how to convert the air in Nike Air Max into an entertaining experience for the consumer, both on the web and at the point of sale,» said Diego Luque, brand communication manager for Nike’s Southern Cone region. The game will be running through the end of September, and prizes from Nike are to be handed to weekly winners as well as the final one.

To elaborate the project, Nike teamed up wit Nicolas Pimentel, who was the creative director of BBDO Argentina when the project was in development and in May left to found his own ad studio called +Castro.

«This work consists of two innovations that will surprise the consumer: new software that converts a physical stimulus into a digital one, and that transmits it to a mechanical device at the point of sale,» commented Pimentel.