A brand activation is a time-bound campaign or event that gets people to do something with a brand rather than only watch it. These ten brand activation examples put a game at the centre: shoppers ran, golf fans predicted shots, travellers spun for whisky. Each shows what visitors did, what the brand captured and the result.
We picked them from the library's 77 installation games: a game at the centre, played on site or on visitors' phones, with a result published by the brand, agency or press. Agency figures are marked as such. They are grouped by setting, because the place decides the queue, the staffing and what you can ask of a visitor.
Brand activations in shops, showrooms and on the street
Shops and showrooms put the product and the till metres from the game, which suits phygital play; a street installation brings the showroom to people who would not walk in. The library tags 55 games as in-store.
Reactland — Nike (2018)
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, UNIT9 · Mechanic: Racing & Sports · Platform: Installation
To launch Nike React running shoes, W+K Shanghai and UNIT9 made the in-store trial a game you play by running. A green-screen photo put the shopper into the game; on a treadmill, their running carried them through a retro side-scrolling city, with a hand controller to jump. Players left with a 10-second video. It ran for a month in four stores and a pop-up in China.
Result: 48% of players bought the shoes after playing, according to the agency, Wieden+Kennedy.
Enter Sandbox — Audi (2017)
Agency: Monks, POL · Mechanic: Simulation & Strategy · Platform: Installation
For the new Q5, Audi Norway sent a transportable 400-kilo sandbox on tour to its dealers. Visitors shaped lanes, jumps and mud pools, a depth-sensing camera turned the sand into a 3D course, and they drove it in a Q5 driving simulator wearing an Oculus Rift headset.
Result: Dealers reported a 57% increase in visitors during the tour dates, and the Q5 became the best-selling Audi in Norway, according to the campaign's case summary (Direct New Ideas).
Quattro Experience — Audi (2012)
Agency: Zulu Alpha Kilo, Thinkingbox, Slot Mods · Mechanic: Racing & Sports · Platform: Installation
For the 2013 A4, Audi took the test drive to Toronto's financial district at 1:32 scale: a slot-car track in a plaza at Bay and Wellington, for two weeks from 10 September 2012. Drivers raced one of three model A4s from an iPad streaming the view from a camera in the car. The fastest laps won prizes, and drivers could share their race videos.
Result: 3,932 people drove in two weeks, and the campaign contributed to a 30% increase in sales for September to December 2012 compared with 2011, says its creative director (Jon Webber).
At sports events and fan zones
Sport brings the crowd; the best sponsor games borrow the sport's own action.
8-bit Tokyo Olympics — Sport New Zealand (2021)
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Method Studios · Mechanic: Mini-Games · Platform: Installation
In Auckland's Olympic fan zone at the Cloud, Sport New Zealand ran a neon-lit area to get children moving. Players picked surfing, baseball, karate or hurdles at a big screen, with nothing to hold: the game read their bodies, so paddling or swinging on the spot moved a pixel-art character. The games drew lines of children, says Method.
Result: About 25,000 people passed through the fan zone in the 16 days of the Games, including 5,000 students bused in from Auckland-region schools, who tried karate and baseball on the simulators (Asia New Zealand Foundation). That is fan-zone attendance, not plays.
Game The Green — Comcast (2025)
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners · Mechanic: Quiz & Trivia · Platform: Installation
Comcast Business wanted its network seen at work at THE PLAYERS Championship in March 2025 (Comcast). At the island-green 17th, a QR code opened a web game: before each tee shot, spectators predicted green, water, rough or close to the pin, helped by an AI model trained on 20 years of data. Top scorers won prizes, including a trip to play TPC Sawgrass (Clio Awards).
Result: 7,200+ predictions, 128+ hours of gameplay and an average session of 16 minutes; leads from the brand's THE PLAYERS enterprise site grew 3.2x year on year, according to the awards case study in The Drum.
VR Real Data Baseball — Dodgers (2025)
Agency: Bascule Inc. · Platform: Installation
To mark the MLB Tokyo Series, the Dodgers' first exhibition ran at TOKYO NODE GALLERY in Toranomon Hills from 5 to 30 March 2025 (Mynavi News, in Japanese). Its VR station let fans bat or catch pitches rebuilt from MLB data for Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, with fastballs above 100 mph. VR came with the Legend Pass, the dearest of three tickets at 8,000 yen.
Result: The first batch of Legend Passes sold out on the first day of sale, Mynavi News reported, and the attraction featured on more than 20 TV and YouTube programmes, according to the studio (Bascule).
At airports and at sea
Win A Bottle Of Fettercairn 17 — Whyte & Mackay (2024)
Agency: Drimify · Mechanic: Mini-Games · Platform: Installation
Whyte & Mackay wanted duty-free shoppers at Edinburgh Airport to notice Fettercairn, a lesser-known single malt, and its new travel-retail range. Screens and signs carried QR codes to a short QR code game on the shopper's own phone: a question about the brand, then a spin for a bottle of Fettercairn 17. Winners showed their screen to the retailer for the bottle; everyone else was pointed to the range, sold nowhere else.
Result: 2,640 engagements and 1,984 leads, according to the agency (Drimify).
Sasu's Mystical Quest — Royal Caribbean (2019)
Agency: Demodern – Creative Technologies · Mechanic: Arcade & Action · Platform: Installation
Royal Caribbean wanted an attraction for its new ship Spectrum of the Seas that could run around the clock. Demodern built a jump-and-run: up to four players steered Sasu by shifting their weight, jumping and shaking a handcrafted LED balance board. Guests with limited mobility got large controls, and a leaderboard sat in view.
Result: By the handover, 548 hours of gameplay had been recorded and 16 character versions tested, and the crew reported high occupancy, according to the agency (Demodern).
At conferences and fairs
Our guide to trade show booth games covers single stands; here are a brand space at a consumer show and a developer conference.
Make Every Km Count — Škoda (2023)
Agency: Borabora Studios, Pixelgalaxie · Mechanic: Racing & Sports · Platform: Installation
At Škoda's Let's Explore space at Barcelona's Salón Internacional del Caravaning, 7 to 10 October 2023, an RFID chip from the entrance started every station. At the touch-and-token table, up to four players moved a token on a touchscreen across Škoda Island, built from the brand's TV campaign. Each interaction added kilometres to the visitor's own count and to a shared total in the Odometer, an 8-by-3-metre projection tunnel (Borabora Studios).
Result: More than 8,700 people visited over the four days, and their interactions added up to 2.7 million kilometres, Škoda Spain reported (in Spanish).
Racer — Google (2013)
Agency: Google Creative Lab, Active Theory, HUSH, Plan8, AV&C · Mechanic: Racing & Sports · Platform: Installation
Google wanted developers at Google I/O 2013 to see a browser run a multiplayer game across phones and tablets (Google for Developers). Players set their devices on marked spots on the Racer table, typed their initials and raced, up to five at a time, each in a different colour: touch to accelerate, let go to brake. A leaderboard ranked each day's players.
Result: Close to 2,000 visitors over three days and more than 650 individual players a day, HUSH, which designed the table, told Communication Arts.
Ten brand activations at a glance
| Activation | Brand | Year | Setting | What people did | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reactland | Nike | 2018 | Stores, China | Treadmill run in the shoe | 48% bought |
| Enter Sandbox | Audi | 2017 | Dealers, Norway | Drove a sand-built track in VR | 57% more visitors |
| Quattro Experience | Audi | 2012 | Toronto plaza | Raced slot cars by iPad | 3,932 drivers |
| 8-bit Tokyo Olympics | Sport New Zealand | 2021 | Fan zone | Body-controlled sports | About 25,000 fan-zone visitors |
| Game The Green | Comcast | 2025 | Golf tournament | Predicted tee shots | 7,200+ predictions; enterprise-site leads up 3.2x YoY |
| VR Real Data Baseball | Dodgers | 2025 | Exhibition | Batted or caught MLB pitches in VR | First Legend Pass batch sold out |
| Win A Bottle Of Fettercairn 17 | Whyte & Mackay | 2024 | Airport duty free | Quiz and spin on phones | 1,984 leads |
| Sasu's Mystical Quest | Royal Caribbean | 2019 | Cruise ship | Balance-board runner | 548 hours played |
| Make Every Km Count | Škoda | 2023 | Caravanning show | RFID stations, token game | 8,700+ visitors |
| Racer | 2013 | Developer conference | Raced cars across phones | 650+ players a day |
What do the best brand activations have in common?
Throughput you can count. American Express's The Lab, a New York basketball pop-up for card members in December 2022, logged 1,065 plays by 433 players, about 60 an hour (Thinkingbox). Multiply that by opening hours before promising reach.
A reason to queue. The prize is the product or close to it: a bottle of Fettercairn 17, a trip to play TPC Sawgrass, prizes for Audi's fastest laps. The Dodgers exhibition sold VR access as its top ticket tier.
The outcome captured at the exit. Reactland ended with the chance to buy the pair. Whyte & Mackay sent winners to the retailer and everyone else to the shelf. Škoda's checkout terminal summed up each visitor's kilometres.
Play that demonstrates the product. Sand terrain for all-wheel drive, a treadmill for cushioning, the sponsor's network and weather sensors feeding the odds.
Reach beyond the floor. Comcast's awards case study counts 69,000,000+ earned-media impressions from golf and tech press, on top of the 7,200+ predictions made at the course.
When is a game the wrong activation?
- When the queue cannot hold your audience. At about 60 plays an hour, one station handles a few hundred plays a day. For thousands, put the game on visitors' own phones, as Whyte & Mackay did.
- When the weather runs the venue. The Quattro track sat in a city plaza and Game The Green beside the water. Outdoors you need cover, screens readable in sunlight and a plan for rain.
- When nobody can staff it. Hardware left without staff has to be built to run alone, and that takes time. For Royal Caribbean's round-the-clock game, Demodern ran early tests at sea, iterated the hardware and worked with the crew to keep it reliable (Demodern).
- When the data form is the price of entry. Ask only for what the prize and the follow-up need. Racer asked players for nothing but their initials; Whyte & Mackay's game was built to collect customer data and logged 1,984 leads.
- When the product is regulated. In the UK, the CAP Code says alcohol marketing must not appeal particularly to under-18s or be directed at them through the choice of media, and promotions must not encourage excessive drinking (ASA).
FAQ
What are some of the best brand activation campaigns?
By published results, strong ones include Nike's Reactland, after which 48% of players bought the shoes; Audi's Quattro Experience, with 3,932 drivers in two weeks; Comcast's Game The Green, where enterprise-site leads grew 3.2x year on year; and Whyte & Mackay's duty-free game, with 1,984 leads. Most figures come from agencies or award entries.
What does brand activation mean?
Brand activation means getting people to act with a brand for a limited time: try the product, play, share, sign up or visit. Unlike an advert, it asks for an action and counts what follows, such as a sale, a lead or a test drive. A game gives that action a goal and a score.
What are experiential activations?
Experiential activations are brand activations people take part in on the spot: at an event, in a shop or in a public space. In Audi's Enter Sandbox, dealer visitors shaped a track from sand, then drove it in VR. See experiential marketing for when the format pays off.
Can you give me an example of experiential branding?
Škoda's Make Every Km Count turned a campaign line into something visitors did. At a caravanning show in Barcelona in 2023, every station they played added kilometres to their own count and to a shared total. More than 8,700 people visited over four days, and together they logged 2.7 million kilometres, Škoda Spain reported.
For more games built for a place rather than a screen, browse installation games and the Installations collection; if you ran an activation with published results, send it to us.