Campaign: A60
Client: Amway
Partner: Wilson Dow Group

To celebrate its 60th year in business, Amway threw a giant birthday party for more than 3,600 of its independent sellers from 48 countries. The goal: offer an experience that couldn’t be replicated anywhere else—no mean feat, considering that most in the audience attend Amway recognition events every year. To do it, the company built an entire integrated digital ecosystem based on Amway’s existing tech platforms. Each attendee received a Bluetooth low-energy smart badge and access to a personalized meeting app. The smart badges, which also incorporated RFID tags, were connected to readers throughout the venue that allowed event organizers to identify the most popular experiences and track attendee behavior in real time, while also allowing guests to do things like seamlessly checking out of the luxury gift station. As attendees passed by each monitor, it displayed a message with their name and in their language.

Amway also went big into projection mapping, turning each guest’s dinner place setting into the canvas for three compelling stories, culminating with a “4D” plating of each course of the meal. (The effort set a Guinness World Record for the most projection-mapped displays at a single venue.) And a series of AR activations brought some more magic to the proceedings, including one that had a digital falcon fly in from overhead once an iPad recognized a real-life falcon perch, creating a shareable GIF.

Campaign: Big Game
Client: Accenture
Partner: In-house

To entertain business leaders at Super Bowl LIII, Accenture leveraged a partnership with the game’s host committee, creating a space with a range of AR-based activities. Viewmax used HoloLens technology to allow guests to interact with a digital version of the venue or manage real-time NFL data, and an AR football game had players competing against other guests by moving iPads around to find hidden football icons, to name just two. Reps were on hand to explain the technologies’ business applications.

Campaign: Seating Display at CES 2019
Client: Magna
Partner: Imagination

The goal: Demonstrate how Magna seats are the right fit for autonomous vehicles. The approach: A large, vertical LED display to catch the attention of lots of CES attendees, displaying simulations of how seats might be configured in an autonomous vehicle, and complementary VR to give users a deeper, personalized view. Guests wearing Oculus Go headsets could select one of three stories that gave them a 360-degree experience in how automotive seats will change as cars and driving evolve.

Campaign: Go Know Where
Client: Microsoft
Partner: Wasserman

Microsoft promoted its association with the Netflix hit “Stranger Things” and its STEM education advocacy with a multi-pronged initiative themed around Camp Know Where, the fictional summer camp that two of the show’s main characters attend. The brand began teasing the campaign in early July with a full-on takeover of its social media channels to appear as though they were from 1985 and by sending swag to media and influencers with Windows 1.0 content and an era-appropriate floppy disk (functional because of a side-loaded micro USB). When the campaign kicked in the following week, Microsoft released a Windows 1.11 app, featuring versions of ’80s computer programs and “Stranger”-related content. By the end of the campaign, the app had been downloaded more than 67,000 times.

To consummate the program, for the rest of the summer, Microsoft held Camp Know Where events at 81 of its retail stores in North America, the UK and Australia. The camps hosted more than 5,000 kids, offering a curriculum themed around “Stranger Things” but with real-life science and technology instruction. Students not only built their own telegraph machines but also connected them to Microsoft Surface computers, where they could encode and decode their messages.

Campaign: Super Bowl LIII
Client: Sleep Number
Partner: In-house

How do you entice people to think “mattresses” at a Super Bowl fan fest? Sleep Number set up a virtual bedroom, where a visitor could enter their name and favorite team before the space transformed, using projection mapping technology, to display team logos and colors, and the guest’s name on a jersey overhead. And a VR “quarterback challenge” offered a twist — after throwing footballs at virtual targets under normal conditions, the game challenged participants to throw passes while feeling sleep-deprived.

Campaign: SXSW 2019
Client: Dell Technologies
Partner: Lacy Maxwell Experiential

Dell took over an event space across the street from the Austin Civic Center and turned it into the Alienware Outpost. The attention-getting technology started on the exterior, with a moon rover VR experience to attract guests. There were Alienware gaming stations, workstations where guests could draw freehand onto a screen and interact with a real-life avatar through VR, and another VR experience featuring three games that told the story of Dell’s commitment to sustainability.

Campaign: Secret Life of Pets 2 Bark-Activated Vending Machine
Client: Comcast
Partners: GMR Marketing, Goodby Silverstein & Partners

You might think Comcast would prefer its consumers to stay on their couches watching TV. But its campaign around the “The Secret Life of Pets 2” revolved around getting people into movie theaters. An in-home component was built around Comcast’s voice-activated remote controls, which let viewers speak the name of a program or channel to automatically switch the TV. For the campaign, saying the phrase “Get Pets tickets” into the remote triggered information on local showtimes and a link to purchase tickets to the film through Fandango.

Even cooler, Comcast extended the concept out-of-home with a voice-activated vending machine that it brought to two dog parks in Philadelphia. Dog owners could press a button on the machine, which caused it to play one of a few sounds chosen to excite that person’s dog—a doorbell or another dog barking, for example. When the customer’s dog barked back, the vending machine responded by dispensing a bag of dog treats in a “Secret Life of Pets”-branded bag. And, of course, the dispenser was just the right height for a pooch to snag his swag on his own. To make the technology work, software engineers had to train a sophisticated neural network to reliably identify the sound of a dog barking, which most other voice recognition platforms aren’t able to do.

Campaign: #rocktherunway
Client: True Fit
Partner: Unrivaled

True Fit, which provides “fit” technology to fashion retailers, wanted to engage execs at the National Retailer Federation expo. Its expo booth featured a catwalk and a 15-foot video tower wrapped with 1,500 pounds of LED tiles; guests were invited to walk the runway while 12 mounted DSLR cameras took photos that turned into animated 3D GIFs and video played on the tower. Staff could simply press a button to change the music, video feed and graphics or trigger the camera array.

Campaign: The Gift of Time
Client: Charity: Water
Partner: Trademark Events

From an activation in San Francisco’s Mission District, Charity: Water transported donors to an Ethiopian village, where they could virtually experience the importance of access to clean water. The organization commissioned a 360-degree film to show the story of an Ethiopian woman’s daily journey for clean water and showed it off on a 40,000-pound HALO screen in a 20-foot tall structure measuring 276 feet across, complete with 840 LED panels. The event raised more than $7 million for clean water projects.

Campaign: Wonderland
Client: SK-II
Partner: Huge

Aiming to reconnect with younger, affluent and digitally savvy Japanese women, the Japanese premium skincare brand invited consumers to a Tokyo pop-up shop called SK-II Wonderland. The space was part interactive art exhibition, part virtual scavenger hunt and part all-immersive experience.Upon entering, attendees received a mobile device preloaded with an AR app. Using location-dependent storytelling in three rooms with 10 different AR interactions, the experience morphed based on which markers the user scanned. Guests could draw, control 3D shapes, watch designs float to music, and pick up actual SK-II products to initiate AR light shows.

The AR goodies continued in an upstairs space, with an augmented skin counseling session. Instead of talking to a product counselor, attendees used their devices for an automated, self-guided skin analysis that used AI technology to compare their own skin with more than one million datapoints. When they were done, they could view their results in AR, with output overlaid on a physical sphere, and then visit a gesture-controlled table that highlighted the benefits of a key SK-II ingredient. After their visits, 86 percent of guests said SK-II was “a more aspirational brand.”

Campaign: Make Believe Happen
Client: Microsoft
Partner: Wasserman

“Make Believe Happen” leveraged NFL players’ interests in music, fashion and art to show how dreams can become reality. One of the components was a clothing design contest that used a web-based experience called DialStyle. Consumers could enter any word or phrase; a Microsoft algorithm found the top image result online and converted it into a design for any garment they chose, and Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley wore a suit based on the winning design during Super Bowl week.

Campaign: Think
Client: IBM
Partner: Drury Design

After a decade in Vegas, IBM moved its Think conference to San Francisco in 2019. The new digs meant 30,000 guests would spread across 12 different venues and more than 90 hotels. So the brand shared content at 13 indoor and outdoor locations on more than 400 screens, ranging from 46-inch monitors to 36-foot LEDs. To do it, IBM built a full-on TV studio and control room at the Moscone Center, and gave attendees access to a custom mobile app.

Campaign: Whiskey Run Tour
Client: Constellation Brands
Partner: Manifold

The High West Whiskey Run gave visitors in eight key markets across the nation the feeling that they had been transported to one of the brand’s flagship locations in its Utah home base. (One of those spots, located in Old Town Park City, is the world’s only ski-in gastro distillery, so… not a bad place to be transported to.)

The brand chose a train design as a nod to the role trains have played in Utah’s history, starting with bringing settlers—and whiskey—out west. And the design touches were spot on and authentic, right down to the leather, high-back butterfly lounge chairs. No pleather here! Then, there were the oak whiskey barrels adorning the entrance, the verdigris copper bar (fully functional and health department-approved), the retro neon signs and the caboose ladder and stove pipe. The “train” deck opened up using hydraulics that were built by a NASA engineer and capable of supporting five tons of weight.

Arranged for a 40-foot by 40-foot event space, the activation allowed guests to pose for custom branded photos, sign up on iPads to join the brand’s membership program and take part in 30-minute guided tastings led by High West’s national brand ambassador.

Campaign: Department of Unimaginable Mobile Unit
Client: Nike
Partner: Gallagher

If you’ve ever dreamt of having Nike’s latest shoes delivered to you by a Ghostbuster, the Department of Unimaginable Mobile Unit was built for you. The project, intended to get the new Air Max 720 athletic shoes into the hands of L.A.-area influencers, used a white utility van designed to look like a rag-tag team of quasi-scientists had commandeered a municipal vehicle, and added green underlighting, questionable exterior vents, HD screens in the back, loudspeakers and a digital readout on top. Who you gonna call?

Campaign: Future Fit Tour
Client: BONOBOS
Partner: Timeless Travel Trailers

BONOBOS calls its stores Guideshops. To bring its in-store experience to young men on college campuses across the country, the brand wheeled out the BONOBOS Guideship. The 31-foot-long Airstream featured an eye-catching tropical print wrap and color-changing LED signage on the exterior and handsome, minimalist wood-based décor on the inside. On board, guests could check out curated clothing selections (labeled business, business casual and “creative casual”) and try on the goods in one of three dressing rooms.

Campaign: San Diego Comic-Con
Client: Amazon Prime Video
Partners: Tool of North America, Boost Experiential, Populate Creative

Amazon Prime Video’s Comic-Con activation showcased three of the service’s key series: “The Expanse,” a futuristic sci-fi drama; “Carnival Row,” a neo-noir Victorian fantasy; and “The Boys,” about a team of vigilantes fighting against superheroes who abuse their powers. The brand took over a 60,000-square-foot parking lot, creating environments that put attendees in the middle of the worlds of their favorite shows.

For “The Expanse,” there was a custom-built spaceship with realistic details including airlock doors, a computer-programmed LED landing tunnel and a landscape replicating the planet where the story is set, complete with 35,000 pounds of red dirt and decomposed granite. For “Carnival Row,” the setup featured a heavily distressed two-story urban façade fronting the ultra-luxe Forbidden Lounge, which was outfitted with velvet drapes and furniture and curated Victorian period décor, where guests could take in performances and choreographed banter between the show’s characters. The vignette for “The Boys” recreated the scene of a superhero kidnapping and murder, with a smoking 1986 Cadillac DeVille that had “crashed through” the storefront of an audiovisual shop.

Printed on a “For Lease” sign in the window next door was a phone number that visitors could dial to gain access to a hidden comic book shop filled with curated vintage comics and limited-release toys.

Campaign: #TwitterHouse at SXSW
Client: Twitter
Partner: N/A Collective

Thanks to the way news breaks and trends spread, content on Twitter is constantly changing. The brand wanted to bring the same principle to its activation at SXSW, so the space—a large home with an expansive backyard—was completely remade 12 times over the four-day event. The design melded Austin’s eclectic, Southwestern style with the brand’s sleek, refined look, and the overall ambiance was intended to be somewhere between comfy local coffee shop and your best friend’s basement.

Campaign: Heineken House at Coachella
Client: Heineken
Partner: Corso Agency

Heineken has been a Coachella sponsor for nearly two decades, and its Heineken House has been an event staple. But its 2019 activation was its biggest and boldest, thanks, in part, to an all-new beer garden. The brand created an 80-foot by 80-foot cantilevered, open-air shed that achieved several goals, including allowing more fans in (despite its smaller square footage versus previous years’ builds) and creating better viewing angles of the stage—even for fans who arrived later in the day.

Campaign: Escapeville
Client: Ford
Partner: Imagination

Aimed at automotive journalists, Escapeville introduced the latest model of Ford’s “urban SUV” while showing off its new design and capabilities. The event took place at a venue that no other automaker could lay claim to—Dearborn, Michigan’s Greenfield Village, which was founded in 1929 and is home to unique or significant buildings that were bought and moved there by Henry Ford.

For the event, Ford transformed the village into a modern, urban environment, dressing the entire Main Street with blue carpet, and installing custom Escape-themed signage. Building façades were reskinned to resemble businesses whose names played off of the vehicle’s key attributes, including a “Five Seasons” hotel (a nod to the SUV’s five driving modes) and a “Flexibili-tea” yoga studio (to reflect its capabilities and spaciousness). Ford hired more than 70 actors, dancers and musicians, playing original music, giving attendees the feel of being in a live TV ad. Escape SUVs were used to play out various vignettes: delivering a basketball team to its game or shopping with friends while avoiding selfie-taking jaywalkers. Then, journalists got to tour the village for presentations themed to its signature sites—the Wright Brothers’ bicycle workshop, for example, became the venue for a discussion on aerodynamics.

Campaign: Google Next ’19
Client: Google
Partner: Sparks

For the latest installment of its annual event, Google brought Google Cloud to life at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. More than 31,000 guests came together for a week of keynotes, chats, spotlight sessions and hands-on demos. A key feature was the Showcase, which comprised five “neighborhoods” with 16 different zones designed to highlight Google Cloud’s selling points. There were also themed lounges, including an Inclusion Lounge designed to be a home base for guests from underrepresented groups and allies.

Campaign: UNPACKED 2019
Client: Samsung
Partner: INVNT

UNPACKED introduced the latest Samsung mobile devices, and it was all built around a “journey of light” theme. An entrance tunnel was lined with faceted mirrors that created a shifting light—from sheer white to iridescent—and the main arena was a cathedral-like structure. Among five Galaxy Experience zones were the Power of Design, with reflective podiums presenting the products; and the New Era of Computing, with an art installation that made laptops appear to float against their backdrop.

Campaign: SEPHORiA House of Beauty
Client: Sephora
Partner: Mosaic

Using the concept of an Art Deco Los Angeles mansion taken over by a group of beauty gurus as inspiration—an environment that would exist only in the home of the ultimate beauty fan—Sephora created SEPHORiA. For two days, the brand took over the entire Majestic Downtown, an event venue that dates back to the 1920s, and activated across more than 50,000 square feet—from the parking lot to the entry and all four stories. There were color-splashed walls, beauty products celebrated in displays as though they were homages to family members, a laundry room overflowing with luxurious bubbles and even entire closets dedicated to a rainbow of skin tones.

Sephora invited more than 55 different beauty brands to create their own individual showcases, with each assigned a space themed to their product category—among them, a lounge dedicated just to lip products and a kitchen space featuring products related to food. Guests could unwind in a living room, meticulously designed with lush furnishings, an LED fireplace and a neon sign reading “home sweet house of beauty.” They could get down in a glitter-themed basement party room. Or they could shop for SEPHORiA-exclusive apparel and accessories in a “beauty closet” area. Overall, Sephora aimed to challenge the “beauty trade show” model. And for the first time ever, Sephora was able to engage clients, fans and brands, together.

Campaign: Taco Bell Hotel
Client: Taco Bell
Partners: United Entertainment Group, Edelman

Taco Bell fans got to live más at a Palm Springs, CA, hotel the brand took over for five days. The event was an immediate hit: All available rooms sold out within two minutes. Events like “Happier Hour,” music performances and (OMG) Taco Bell room service breakfasts echoed the brand’s loco vibe. And the design melded Taco Bell iconography with Palm Springs’ distinctive palette, in everything from the performance stage backdrop to custom room numbers, stationery and bath amenities.

Campaign: Maybelline House
Client: Maybelline
Partner: Gradient Experiential

Maybelline marked its 10th year as a New York Fashion Week sponsor with a New York loft-themed environment. Maybelline House wove together fashion-forward moments and mini product activations in seven individual rooms, beginning with an indoor entrance that mimicked a New York City alleyway at night. Other design elements played off of the building’s structural elements, including exposed brick and skylights, as well as the product itself—a custom-made chandelier was built from limited-edition lipstick tubes.

Campaign: Rush Performance Lab
Client: Under Armour
Partner: Giant Spoon

Under Armour’s new Rush products feature a mineral-infused fabric that somehow converts the wearer’s energy into infrared light, which somehow feeds energy back into the body. Which seems like the kind of thing you’d need to demonstrate to consumers in a user-friendly version of a high-tech athletic performance research lab. Which is exactly what UA did.

The converted retail space in New York City’s SoHo district featured lab specialists, interactive athletic skills challenges and product demos. Three technology zones, all designed with a high-gloss black theme, each demonstrated a different aspect of the product, with each taking inspiration from a different Under Armour athlete endorser. There was a box-jumping station using thermal cameras to track participants’ body heat; an installation where guests could test their reaction times by touching spots on a light wall; and a boxing vignette with electronics that converted the force of punches into light that illuminated the boxing ring. When they were done, attendees could pose for shareable branded photos and check out apparel for sale. Everything fed the high-tech look and feel, down to the red freezer curtains that dictated the flow through the event and laser-engraved informational callouts with edge-lit LED lighting.

Campaign: /make
Client: Samsung
Partner: Hypno

The 1,260-square-foot /make studio showed off Samsung Galaxy’s picture-taking capabilities—a critical factor in most smartphone purchases—with three portrait studios, each with scenic elements and lighting that highlighted the camera’s technology. One emphasized the “live focus” feature with crisp lines and geometric shapes; others demonstrated the color temperature and low-light features. And the brand showed off visitors’ resulting shots on its five-screen Times Square billboard.

Campaign: Nesquik Milk Stop
Client: Nestlé
Partner: Mosaic

Nestled into Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, Nestlé’s Milk Stop pop-up was a nostalgic tribute to the brand’s 70th birthday. With a giant milk bar as its centerpiece, the space featured bright colors, retro design (old-school TVs showing vintage ads) and retro activation (posing for Polaroid photos!), plenty of the brand’s signature yellow and blue (including in an all-Nesquik grocery aisle), and playful touches like a red-and-white-striped “straw” that served as a slide into a ball pit.

Campaign: You Make Possible
Client: Cisco
Partner: The XD Agency

For the latest iteration of the 30-year-old Cisco Live user conference, Cisco chose the theme “You Make Possible” to emphasize its customer focus. And the mainstage keynote was designed to both wow the audience and put attendees at the heart of the story—whether they were watching in person or tuning in remotely. For those in the room, one of the event design challenges is simply getting 13,000 people into a flat-floor convention center venue without detracting from the experience. Cisco used scenic design and audiovisual vignettes to create a walk-in that evoked something between an immersive art installation and a rock ‘n’ roll light show.

Inside the venue itself, Cisco put together a responsive network of illuminated tubes that reacted organically to video and audio. Deployed on the room’s outer screens, the displays helped focus guests’ attention on the mainstage speaker and key content on the main screen. Overall, the event used more than 1,000 lighting fixtures, multiple high-res LED screens and multiple arrays of concert speakers. Designers made sure in advance it would all work together seamlessly with the adoption of pre-visualisation technology. The process ensured that nobody watching the show would have a less-than-great view by creating the cue-intensive show in VR first.

Campaign: Associate and Shareholders Week
Client: Walmart
Partner: LEO Events

For Walmart’s annual three-day event, held at the University of Arkansas, stage design and technology components have become key factors in engaging the 14,000 attendees. The stage set for the meeting’s finale—a three-hour show—leveraged 140-foot by 20-foot LED screens displaying 33 million pixels. The staging utilized five turntables, including a 44-foot mainstage turntable that enabled staff to prep guests and new backdrops behind the scenes while information sessions were happening up front.

Campaign: Upfront
Client: Univision
Partner: FIRST

Univision ditched the traditional upfront presentation in favor of a more immersive experience at a multi-level, museum-like event space in Manhattan. The 60-foot mainstage was backed by staggered 70-inch LEDs, and other design touches leveraged the building’s industrial architecture—like LEDs and video-reflecting mirrored panels on the structural pillars. Content could be controlled to sync across all video screens in the space or to play different programming on various screens throughout the venue.

Campaign: Move it to Make IT
Client: Cisco
Partner: Mirror Show Management

Among the coolest new touches at the 2019 Cisco Live, the brand’s long-running proprietary event, was a motion-capture experience called Move it to Make IT. Deployed inside the World of Solutions expo, where a sea of product demos and displays highlight the company’s products and solutions, the setup gave guests the chance to transform their best dance moves into a shareable animation.

Brand ambassadors standing nearby invited attendees to check out the space, which featured four separate motion-capture stations. Guests swiped their event badge to check in before being prompted to choose a music genre—funky, techno disco or trap. When their tune started playing, bubbles on the screens in front of them began moving in time with the music, and participants were encouraged to bust a move, using their arms and leg to “pop” the bubbles. After the music stopped, guests could send themselves an animated GIF of themselves, suitable (of course) for social media. Cisco added to the spectacle by playing GIFs from previous participants on a digital billboard overhead. The experience was driven by Microsoft Kinect sensor tracking and custom-built video and sound.

In all, 700 guests tried it out, producing 26 hours’ worth of shareable content.

Campaign: Interactive Touch Screen
Client: DuPont
Partner: InVision Communications

At its new Silicon Valley Innovation Center, DuPont is using six touch-screen-topped pedestals to inform visitors about the role its materials play in drones, VR goggles, “smart” clothing and other products. Displays were made to engage a wide range of attendees, from students to experienced scientists, and the presentations allowed visitors to control the stories themselves with 3D and “exploded” product visualizations and hands-on experiences. The pedestals used Intuiface software and a template-based system, making updates simple.

Campaign: CPX Immersive Tunnel
Client: Anaplan
Partner: The XD Agency

To build excitement as guests entered general session presentations at the Connected Planning Conference, Anaplan built a motion-responsive tunnel. Intended to serve as the conduit from the event’s expo to the general session venue, the space became the event’s centerpiece. It used draped LED mesh that was triggered by depth-sensing Intel RealSense cameras to produce an animated display of light and sound, all driven by guests’ movements.

Campaign: Google Assistant Playground: The Ride
Client: Google
Partner: Sparks

After several years with a minimal presence at CES, Google came back in a big way in 2018. For its follow-up presence, the brand built another two-story structure with a total of 36,000 square feet of event space. The narrative through line: How people can use Google Assistant through all of the twists and turns in their crazy, hectic, workaday lives.

Google brought that promise to life with a variety of interactives—the most buzzworthy being The Ride, a seven-car amusement park-like dark ride experience that took guests on a journey through the chaos of a day while trying to get a cake for an animatronic grandmother’s 90th birthday. (Among the components that went into the ride: 493 feet of track, which was delivered to the show on three semis.) Throughout the expo, more than 13,500 guests participated in the ride.

Other displays included a diorama of Las Vegas that translated visitors’ “Hey Google” queries into animated activity (asking about flights to Las Vegas caused a model airplane to fly across the mini Vegas skyline); an automotive-themed section showing off how the product provides hands-free help while you drive; and a media studio that hosted podcast recordings and product demos.

Campaign: Munchkin Kind + Jugend 2019
Client: Munchkin
Partner: Unrivaled

For its 52-foot by 68-foot booth at the Kind + Jugend baby products trade show, Munchkin used bright colors, touches of whimsy and its own products to create a series of beautiful and very Instagrammable spaces. One featured a mural by graffiti artist Carson Ting; in another, thousands of Munchkin’s colorful cups were arranged to form a blue ocean wave in front of a vibrant sunset sky; and yet another saw 4,000 yellow rubber ducks behind a yellow clawfoot bathtub.

Campaign: The World of Monster Hunter
Client: Capcom
Partner: George P. Jonson

In advance of the latest update to its Monster Hunter World online game, Capcom took over a 60-foot by 50-foot booth at the 2019 E3. The centerpiece (and biggest photo op) was an intricately designed sculpture of a dragon from the game, standing 18 feet tall and boasting a 40-foot wingspan, making guests feel they had actually entered the game. There were also three dozen gaming kiosks for hands-on demos, a broadcast stage for live streams of esports tournaments, memorabilia displays and more.

Campaign: Collision 2019
Client: Interac
Partner: ASTOUND

For the first year of its title sponsorship of Canada’s Collision tech conference, Interac’s goal was to change customers’ perception of its brand—from payment application network to world-leading technology solutions provider. The design inspiration: That Interac and its partners work closely to build networks and data solutions that allow data to flow seamlessly and safely. To help do that, the brand wanted a booth design that would truly stand out from among the dozens of other exhibitors and leave a lasting impression. The result was mesmerizing: a perfectly arranged grid of 576 fabric strips, each one in the brand’s dark-gold brand color, hanging from a truss overhead and forming not only the booth’s 50-foot by 50-foot exterior, but also its interior rooms and passageways. Twenty-foot lengths of fabric created the “walls,” while fields of 12-foot strips were hung overhead to create open spaces underneath for the rooms and corridors.

Beyond the startling visual it created, the execution had multiple benefits: maximizing space, eliminating large, static elements and creating an environment that encouraged curiosity and exploration. Pre-build, designers invested in serious R&D to make absolutely sure that the banners would hang perfectly straight and without wrinkling.

Campaign: International Builders Show
Client: Zillow Group
Partner: Manifold

For its 800-square-foot space at the NAHB International Builders’ Show, Zillow unveiled a booth with a suitably homey feel. Domestic touches included wood laminate flooring, mid-century modern furniture, blonde wood laminate countertops, a 10-foot central gallery wall and lush houseplants. But the exhibit’s signature architectural element was a powder-coated aluminum roof frame. Hovering above the footprint, the roof gave the entire structure the feel of a sleek prefab home in the process of falling neatly into place.

Campaign: A Giant Story
Client: Intuit
Partner: ProExhibits

At the Grace Hopper Celebration women in tech conference, Intuit built a 20-foot by 20-foot exhibit that leveraged a social media campaign featuring a female inventor and a giant robot. At the back, a partially opened roll-up door revealed the robot’s feet; an adjacent window showed the inventor inside her workshop. A faux brick exterior and numerous industrial and mechanical elements created a workshop feel, but the main attraction was the robot, whose 3D arm extended out from the booth’s back wall.

Campaign: Google Assistant Playground: The Ride
Client: Google
Partner: Sparks

Google’s assignment for CES was to highlight the full range of capabilities of Google Assistant. So it used 18,000 square feet of street-level space to set up a range of vignettes to show off how the digital personal assistant works in everyday life. Among them: On the Go, a Las Vegas-themed diorama where asking Google Assistant a Las Vegas-related query triggered an animated response (for example, asking about rates at the MGM illuminated the lights at a model of the hotel); In the Car, which showed off hands-free navigation and how to pair your phone with your car; and the Friends of the Assistant display, a curated gallery featuring more than 100 devices that work with Google Assistant. There was even a multipurpose studio that hosted podcast recordings, product demos and (of course) a Google Assistant guided meditation, and a café with snacks and beverages provided by Assistant software partners Pizza Hut and Starbucks.

But all of that activity couldn’t tell the whole Assistant story, so Google added an 18,000-square-foot second level that was home to a theme park-style ride that took guests on a journey through the chaos of a day while trying to get a cake for an animatronic grandmother’s 90th birthday.

Campaign: Borderlands 3: E3
Client: 2K Games
Partner: George P. Johnson

2K Games promoted the newest version of its Borderlands game at E3 with a 15,000 square-foot booth. Guests were welcomed with massive LED screens, wall-to-wall panels of game art and 10-foot statues of characters from the game. Inside, visitors could watch presentations in a 100-seat theater, watch livestreams of influencers playing the game, and, of course, check out demo stations. The second level was used for high-end hospitality, featuring décor inspired by the game and a wall made out of 9,999 real red roses, a nod to the game’s cover art.

Campaign: Choreographed Robot
Client: Autodesk
Partner: Tencue

Autodesk University draws more than 10,000 professionals from construction, manufacturing, architecture and engineering to learn about Autodesk’s technology and solutions—a few of which were incorporated into a sizzling presentation at the event’s opening keynote.

Understanding that many people, including some of its customers, are skeptical about the future of automation and robotics, the company worked robotics into a high-energy dance routine/product presentation. A robotic arm, normally used for studio camera work, was modified and reprogrammed and fitted with a 4K Red Camera head. Programmers used Autodesk’s own 3D design products to choreograph its movements to coordinate with the hip-hop troupe. For the performance, video from the robot’s fast-moving POV was displayed on a 200-foot-wide LED screen, giving audience members a first-person view as the robot followed the dancers around the stage, and making the robot feel like a part of the performance. At one key moment in the show, the robot’s camera swept around a statue of an astronaut that, thanks to AR technology, appeared to blast off the screen. The brand reported that the presentation helped create a foundation for ongoing conversations for the duration of the event.

Campaign: S(ad) Blocker
Clients: The Washington Post, Mike’s Hard Lemonade
Partners: A-List, Selffee

A 10-market campaign by the The Washington Post and Mike’s Hard Lemonade was aimed at steering consumers toward some good news. And two nifty technologies were at play. One was emotional recognition software, capable of reading participants’ response to news content. The other, deployed at a Manhattan pop-up shop, was an “edible photo booth” that took guests’ photos and used food coloring to print their faces right onto Mike’s-flavored popsicles. Tasty.

Campaign: 360-Degree Video
Client: Nutrien Ag Solutions
Partner: Osborn Barr Paramore

Nutrien had two overriding objectives for its presence at the 2019 Farm Progress Show. One, energize farmers for the future after a challenging growing season; and two, stand out from the standard white, rectangular booths. The brand did it with the FutureDome, a geodesic dome measuring 60 feet in diameter and housing an immersive, 360-degree video experience. More than two-thirds of the nearly 3,000 guests stayed for the entire 15-minute presentation, and the event generated one million social media impressions.

Campaign: Secret Life of Pets 2 Bark-Activated Vending Machine
Client: Comcast
Partners: GMR Marketing, Goodby Silverstein & Partners

Comcast teamed up with Illumination Entertainment to promote the release of “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” and the campaign’s coolest technology borrowed its inspiration from the voice-activated TV remote Comcast customers use in their homes. (Just press a button, say something like “Watch Law & Order,” and the TV switches to whatever network is showing Lennie Briscoe’s face at that moment.)

To bring that technology to life in an experiential setting, and to reach folks who just might have an inclination to see a pet-themed animated movie, Comcast brought a custom-designed voice-activated vending machine to two Philadelphia-area dog parks. The machine featured an oversized microphone button with surrounding graphics reading “Press me! Then bark for a treat.” Once activated, the machine was programed to play one of a handful of sounds—a doorbell or another dog barking, for example—and after the owner’s dog barked back at the machine, the voice-activated technology triggered the machine to dispense a bag of dog treats.

Although human voice recognition technology is now omnipresent, it doesn’t work for canine voices. So software engineers designed their own for the campaign, using machine learning to train a sophisticated neural network to recognize a dog’s bark in real time.

Campaign: Redux Grunge
Client: Marc Jacobs
Partner: Hypno

To shift public perception after a year of challenging media coverage, Marc Jacobs reissued its signature ’90s styles and commissioned a major multimedia campaign, including a Juergen Teller photo shoot with A-list models, a New York City pop-up and a launch event. At the event, the brand upped the buzz factor by capturing instant, studio-quality campaign videos with Hypno, a platform that allowed the brand to pre-design a script with music, effects and editing applied immediately to the finished content.

Campaign: DriveBot
Client: Alfa Romeo
Partners: Centigrade, 42Chat

With the insight that automotive event attendees often have lots of questions but don’t always read emails or web updates beforehand, Alfa Romeo unveiled an AI-powered texting bot (dubbed DriveBot) for the 2019 Concours D’Elegance. Programmers trained the concierge platform to answer more than 400,000 possible questions from guests—everything from vehicle info to event schedules and driving directions—via real-time texts, and to send users reminder messages. It was a hit: 72 percent of guests used the service.

Campaign: Explorer 2020 Reveal
Client: Ford
Partner: Imagination

Ford was thinking big for the introduction of the 2020 Explorer SUV. For an event at Ford Field, home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions, the automaker set up a stage with a 16,200-square-foot projection screen. A smaller screen behind it complemented the flat-field projection and created a visual dialogue between the two. As for the content on those screens? Ford wanted to give automotive journalists the experience of touring the nation’s national parks without leaving Ford Field. To do it, the creative team recorded footage at several different parks for the large-scale 3D projection, combined them with in-home footage and interviews with Ford employees, and then added animation to create the spaces that the Explorer drove through. After opening remarks by Bill Ford, a poetry reading by Prince Ea and the presentation of interviews with Ford employees, a new Explorer was driven into the arena and across the projected national parks landscapes.

The team used 20 Barco laser projectors to map the space, in order to account for the perspectives of audience members, who would be sitting in sloped stadium seating. And the dual-content screens allowed show callers to coordinate drivers with the A/V and in position with the national parks scenery.

Campaign: Creators Lounge
Client: Facebook
Partner: Gallagher

Facebook’s activation at 2019 VidCon—the expo for video content creators—was so successful that despite being in the same location as the previous year, attendance shot up 88 percent. The brand deployed a high-end music video studio with a 30-member video crew, a 45-foot-long Kessler dolly track, two Sony A7S2 cameras and other premium equipment, and backdrops depicting iconic Hollywood. Over the three-day event, attendees shot, edited and shared 114 unique music videos.

Campaign: SCADstory
Client: Savannah College of Art & Design
Partner: BRC Imagination Arts

For its 40th birthday, the Savannah College of Art & Design created an immersive 360-degree multimedia experience, taking guests on a journey through the institution’s history. The presentation took place inside a 1,500- square-foot theater, dubbed the “dream box,” with 11 projectors covering every surface with 22 million pixels of visuals; a theatrical LED lighting system capable of displaying millions of colors; a custom 23.1 surround sound, 3D audio system; all of which brought the compelling storyline to life.

Campaign: Umbrella Academy
Client: Netflix
Partner: Jack Morton Worldwide

To promote its little-known original series in the Philippines, Netflix levered the knowledge that the country has among the heaviest per capita use of social media. Aiming squarely at potential viewers in the 18-to-35 demo, the brand developed a platform that married live events, influencer networks and Instagram activations. The show itself presented a few challenges: no big-name stars, unfamiliar source material (a relatively new comic book) and a somewhat hard-to-place genre. But Netflix marketers figured that the show’s central characters—seven siblings with superpowers — would provide an easier hook for possible new viewers to grab onto. So, playing off of the number of siblings, Netflix identified seven Filipino influencers who personified the characters and challenged them to complete tasks with help from their followers. The challenges took place on seven unique sets in Manila, while cameras carried the action via Instagram Live, and participants were encouraged to use technology and services provided by Netflix’s in-market business/technology partners, LG, PLDT and SMART.

To broaden the reach, Netflix invited 100 other influencers, each of whom had follower bases of 50,000 to 500,000, to interact with the seven “heroes,” help solve the puzzles and post about the event on their accounts. All told, the program generated 7.9 million social media impressions.

Campaign: Go Know Where
Client: Microsoft
Partner: Wasserman

Go Know Where was a multi-stage, multi-platform campaign. But Microsoft kicked it off with a stylish, retro social media attack that laid the groundwork for its “Stranger Things” tie-in. To prime the audience for the connection to the ’80s sci-fi juggernaut, the brand gave its social media channels an ’80s makeover, without mentioning the show by name, including era-appropriate Microsoft Windows branding. Results included 226 media hits and 44.5 million social impressions.

Campaign: World Series
Client: adidas
Partners: OA Experiential, Lake Retreat

The 2018 World Series between the Dodgers and Red Sox featured several athletes who endorse adidas, and the brand engaged consumers in real time as the Series unfolded, blending social media and activation at Los Angeles and Boston sports bars. When an adidas endorser made a big play, @adidasbaseball social accounts posted an image with a hidden code, and consumers in the participating bars could enter the code into a touch screen vending machine to receive a piece of Series-themed swag.

Campaign: Super Rally
Client: American Express
Partner: Momentum Worldwide

American Express has been a partner of the US Open tennis championship for a quarter century, but its 2018 activation upped the ante with a gee-whiz AR setup that was equal parts entertainment, competition and art. At the heart of the 20,000-square-foot Super Rally experience was this question: What would happen if a digital experience could have real-world reactions?

The brand set up eight “bays”—like batting cages but for AR tennis—arranged four-across on two decks. In each one, participants used sensor-enabled, 3D-printed “racquets” to swat virtual tennis balls toward more than 70 actual targets in the center of the room. Those targets were orbs made up of Styrofoam cores and wrapped in LED tape so that the orbs illuminated when “struck” by one of the virtual tennis balls. The result was a spectacular visual light show, for both the players themselves and the spectators who came to check out the action.

Amex also added some star power to the proceedings: A VR projection of tennis legend Venus Williams led players through the game’s tutorial and served as virtual coach, and real-time calculations by the game system unlocked pre-recorded audio tips from Williams, creating a unique experience for each player.

Campaign: Pixel 3 x Grammys Experience
Client: Google
Partner: MAS Event + Design

To build awareness for the Pixel 3 phone’s Playmoji app, Google unveiled an AR booth at the 2019 Grammy Awards. The setup’s shape and design were inspired by the look of the phone itself, allowing fans to immerse themselves “inside” the device. Guests were invited to engage in a dance-off against a virtual version of Childish Gambino, who also appeared in the Pixel 3’s TV spot during the awards telecast, and the brand provided each participant with a shareable clip of their performance.

Campaign: Lettuce AR Mirror
Client: Kia
Partner: Rhoddy Marketing Group

First of all: Lettuce? Yep, to complement its partnership with the Canadian Hockey League and a junior hockey championship, Kia built an AR activation around the funky, long-in-the-back hairdos—sometimes called “salads”—that have graced hockey players’ heads for so long. At a booth in the Scotiabank Centre, where the tournament was held, fans could add one of five different salad-inspired hockey hairstyles to an image of their face, add a jersey, and receive a customized hockey player card with their new look.