NYCGP
- Brand
- PUMA
- Year
- 2019
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Racing & Sports
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- Monks
Objective
PUMA wanted North American shoppers to know Formula 1 the way European fans already do, and to make its motorsport sponsorships and racewear feel earned rather than borrowed. Its new Fifth Avenue flagship was built as a physical stake in the ground for the brand in this market, designed around an experience worth lingering for instead of a wall of product. The goal was to turn a store visit into something that stayed with the visitor after they left, through a digital driver profile and a global ranking.
Solution
A visitor starts at a registration kiosk, building a driver profile: name, home country, and a photo that gets a custom racing helmet dropped over it. They pick a team, Red Bull or Mercedes-AMG, and get a pre-race pep talk from a brand ambassador on the mobile screen before heading to the cockpit. From there it's a professional F1 racing simulator, wheel pushing back against their hands and screens wrapping their peripheral vision, for a lap around a fictional New York circuit that runs through midtown and Central Park before finishing right at the store's own corner of Fifth Avenue and 49th Street. The moment the lap ends, the time lands on a live global leaderboard, and the driver walks off with a personal recap video of their run to share.
- 1
The experience is a permanent racing installation inside PUMA's flagship store at 609 5th Avenue in New York, built around a motorsport zone housing a professional F1 racing simulator cockpit next to a registration kiosk.
- 2
At the kiosk, the player builds a racer profile: entering a name, choosing a country to race for, and having a photo taken that becomes their profile portrait with a custom racing helmet overlaid on top.
- 3
The player picks a team to race for, Red Bull or Mercedes-AMG.
- 4
On a mobile screen before the run, a brand ambassador tied to the chosen team, Max Verstappen for Red Bull or Lewis Hamilton for Mercedes-AMG, delivers pre-race advice.
- 5
The player straps into the Evotek F1 simulator cockpit, gripping a force-feedback wheel in front of a wraparound photorealistic display, and drives one lap of the fictional NYCGP circuit through midtown streets and Central Park, finishing at the store's entrance on the corner of 5th Avenue and 49th Street.
- 6
Lap time and run statistics are submitted to a real-time global leaderboard, where the player sees their ranking against everyone else who has raced.
- 7
The player leaves with a personal highlight video of the run and its stats, ready to take away or share on social media.
