MNF Interactive Storefront
- Brand
- ESPN
- Year
- 2009
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- Wieden + Kennedy
Objective
ESPN needed Monday Night Football to break through in ad-cluttered city streets during its 40th-anniversary season, and to pull in more than just die-hard fans. The brand wanted street-level presence in high-foot-traffic markets — New York, Chicago, Boston — that made people stop and physically engage rather than just glance at another poster.
Solution
Walking past a storefront window, you see yourself on a screen, dressed in a home or away jersey inside a 3D stadium. You pick a quarterback from the coming Monday night's matchup, then a motion-sensing camera reads your body as he starts throwing passes right at you — you catch them with your hands, no controller, no touchscreen. ESPN announcers call out each grab in real time, praise builds as your streak grows, and a single drop shatters the storefront glass on screen and ends the run. Your score posts to a shared leaderboard ranked across all three cities, so you can see how you stack up against players blocks or cities away — and come back to beat your own number.
Results
Foot traffic peaked at 40 games played per hour during lunch breaks. The national leaderboard's top scores climbed from the high 20s/low 30s at launch on September 8 to the 60s within a few weeks, and by the end of the five-week run, the developers' own opening benchmark scores had been more than doubled by players.
- 1
A passerby on a city sidewalk notices a large storefront screen at eye level, inviting them to play a football-catching game.
- 2
The player picks an opponent quarterback from the current week's Monday Night Football matchup, and the screen dresses their on-screen avatar in that team's home or away jersey.
- 3
The scene shifts to a 3D stadium where the player becomes the receiver; standing on the sidewalk in front of the glass, they play entirely with body and hand movement, tracked by the storefront's motion-sensing camera with no physical controller.
- 4
In the core loop, the virtual quarterback throws pass after pass, the player reaches out to catch each one, ESPN announcers voice live commentary on each catch, and the score rises with every successful reception.
- 5
A dropped pass ends the session with a flourish: the storefront glass appears to shatter on screen.
- 6
The player sees their final score and, if it ranks highly enough, enters their name on a national leaderboard shared across all storefront locations, then can queue up again to try to beat it.
