Pinball Experience
View the case- Brand
- LEGO
- Year
- 2024
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- UNIT9
Objective
LEGO wanted to celebrate its exclusive collaboration with Pharrell Williams by bringing the artist's creative influences — music, fashion, street culture, space — to life for fans, rather than just marketing a new set. The push centered on the launch of the "Over the Moon" set in China, aiming to pull crowds into a Chengdu pop-up and turn them into hands-on participants rather than passers-by.
Solution
Before playing, each visitor builds a digital minifigure of themselves in a web tool opened through WeChat, then scans a QR code to load it onto a giant pinball machine built entirely from LEGO bricks. Entering a name puts the player's score on the pop-up's shared leaderboard. From there it's straight pinball: launch the ball, chase ramps and spinners, and keep going for a high score while Pharrell narrates the game. Landing hits in each of the machine's four zones sets off a LEGO mechanism — a record spins, cars run an anti-gravity skate track, astronaut figures rise and fall in a mini fashion show, a rocket launches. When the ball drains, the machine hands out a QR code for a personalized "anti-gravity certificate," and players head off to build a physical astronaut minifigure to add to the pop-up's community wall.
Results
Average conversion of pop-up visitors into active participants across the activation reached 49.46%.
- 1
Players approach a UFO-shaped pop-up structure resembling a launch base, topped with an inflatable shuttle, where a life-size LEGO minifigure of Pharrell Williams in a spacesuit and signature red hat greets them as the main photo spot.
- 2
Before playing, they open a web tool through WeChat to build a custom digital LEGO minifigure, then scan a QR code at the pinball machine to load it as their in-game avatar; entering a name enters the round on the pop-up's shared leaderboard.
- 3
At the giant pinball machine, a voiceover recorded by Pharrell Williams narrates a space storyline as the player launches the ball and plays standard pinball against ramps, spinners, and other targets, aiming for the highest score.
- 4
The table is split into four zones tied to Pharrell's influences: the blue Creativity zone spins a record referencing his music career, the yellow Play zone sends a coaster cart through an anti-gravity skate park, the pink Imagination zone runs a fashion show of astronaut minifigures in his clothing designs, and the green Curiosity zone caps the round with a rocket launch.
- 5
At the end of the round, a QR code appears on screen; scanning it issues the player a personalized anti-gravity certificate showing their score.
- 6
Players then pick a favorite minifigure and physically assemble it into an astronaut figure from LEGO pieces, adding it to a communal display wall alongside the pop-up's crew of space explorers.
- 7
Beyond the machine, the pop-up offers an Inspiration Receiver where visitors press buttons to play tracks curated by Pharrell alongside behind-the-scenes footage, and a Clue Storage of 21 display cases showing LEGO space sets across eras, before an exit shop selling the collection, including the Over the Moon set (10391).
