Rebel Sport says customisation represents a prime opportunity to build relationships with customers that helps clinch sales in sports retailing.

The sports chain has recently embarked on a campaign that allows customers to customise Puma football boots with instore artist Adrian Doyle. Doyle has exhibited extensively around Australia, has painted many collaborative murals and Melbourne with the ‘Blender Crew’, runs many art related projects from his home base the ‘Blender Studios’ off Franklin Street in Melbourne, and set up the Napier Crew – a Street art production house focused on youth.

Speaking to Inside Retail, a spokesperson for Australia’s largest sports chain said there is a huge global market for customisation within sports retailing, from personalised jerseys through to football boots.

“It’s an area that’s been relatively untapped in Oceania particularly as instore activations,’ the spokesperson said.

“We’ve started to see growth in the overall customisation area to which many retailers have started to respond with their online platforms, however we are one of the first to take it directly to instore.”

Rebel said their first boot customisation activation has been “a great success” and that the objective of getting customers in the door and creating an experience that will spur engagement with the their products has been met.

“Overall it is an excellent activation that generates excellent brand exposure and ultimately translates into sales,” said the spokesperson.

When asked if instore activations are great boosters for the bottom line or more important from a marketing perspective in the long run, Rebel said the answer depends on the activation itself in conjunction with the product.

“However our focus has been to engage with the customer on a more personal level.

“From a marketing perspective it is excellent for relationship building, hence the long run vitality of our brand.”