dooh | SunMatrix Ramble

Powerade: Workout Billboards in Berlin

A billboard does not just tell you to train. It invites you to climb it, lift it, or punch it, right there on the street, then hands you a Powerade when you are done.

Powerade, with the help of Ogilvy & Mather, set up several workout billboards in Berlin that, apart from advertising the product, also doubled up as workout equipment to emphasize the brand’s attitude, “You have more power than you think”. Here, “workout billboards” means the billboard structure is built to be used as simple exercise equipment.

People practicing their rock climbing, weight lifting, and boxing skills on the unique billboards were also rewarded with some free Powerade to help replenish their electrolytes.

Why this works as outdoor advertising

The mechanism is a clean value exchange. The brand offers an activity that creates immediate proof of effort. The participant gets a short challenge and a visible outcome. The product then shows up as the natural next step, not as an interruption. Because effort comes first, the product feels like a reward rather than an ad.

Extractable takeaway: When outdoor media gives people a small, safe task to complete, the brand message lands as earned proof, not as a claim.

In sports and performance brands competing for attention in dense urban spaces, turning an ad surface into a usable experience is a direct way to earn participation instead of only impressions.

What Powerade is really buying

This is not mainly about reach. It is about association. The ad makes the brand feel like a training partner, not a poster. It also turns physical engagement into a public spectacle, which draws more people in and makes the moment more memorable than a standard billboard.

The real question is whether your activation gives people something they can do in public, not just something they can look at.

Steal-worthy moves for participatory OOH

Make the product a logical reward. The drink lands because effort comes first.
Design for participation, not just viewing. If people can do something, they will stop and watch others do it too.
Keep the idea explainable in one line. “Billboard that is also a workout” travels fast.
Let the environment do the distribution. Public performance creates its own audience.

A few fast answers before you act

What is a “workout billboard” in this campaign?

A billboard installation that doubles as real workout equipment, so people can climb, lift, or punch as part of the brand experience.

Why does turning a billboard into equipment change behavior?

It shifts the role from passive viewing to active participation, which increases time spent, memorability, and the likelihood people talk about it.

What is the main value exchange for the audience?

A quick public challenge plus a tangible reward. Free Powerade after effort makes the product feel earned and relevant.

What is the biggest execution risk?

If it looks unsafe, complicated, or embarrassing, people will not try it. The interaction has to feel obvious and low-risk at first glance.

What is the simplest way to apply this idea without building hardware?

Create a participatory moment that produces visible effort and a clear reward, even if the “equipment” is replaced by a simpler challenge format.

McDonald’s: Save the Sundae Cone

A melting cone that asks the street to help

Summer is here and McDonald’s is back with an interactive outdoor campaign built around one simple problem. A giant LED billboard in Bukit Bintang, one of Kuala Lumpur’s best-known shopping districts, showcases the iconic Sundae Cone. But it is melting.

To save it, people use their smartphones to spin a fan on the billboard, bring the temperature down, and stop the cone from disappearing.

The mechanic: one shared control, one visible outcome

The execution translates an abstract idea, “cool it down,” into a single piece of viewer control. You open the experience on your phone and spin a fan. The billboard responds in real time. When more people join in, the cooling effect accelerates, so the experience naturally becomes collaborative rather than solo.

In some write-ups, participation is also rewarded with a Sundae Cone e-voucher that arrives on the phone, adding a clean payoff to the play.

In high-footfall retail districts, interactive DOOH, meaning public digital screens that react to what people do, works best when the action is obvious, social, and instantly rewarded.

In high-density urban retail districts, the win is not interactivity by itself but a public action that converts attention into nearby store traffic.

Why it lands

It is instantly legible from a distance. Something is melting. A crowd can fix it. Because the phone gesture maps directly to the visual problem on the screen, people understand the task instantly and the crowd can follow the result without explanation. That clarity creates a low-friction loop: notice. join. watch the shared progress. earn the reward. The “melting” constraint also adds urgency without needing any heavy messaging, and the big screen makes every participant feel like they are influencing something larger than a banner.

Extractable takeaway: If you want people to interact in public, reduce the mechanic to one familiar gesture, make the result visible to everyone, and design the reward so participation feels worth it even for a 30-second engagement.

What McDonald’s is really buying

The real question is whether the screen can turn public play into store-proximate action before attention drifts. This is a strong retail DOOH execution because the interaction, the product promise, and the path to redemption all reinforce each other. This is not only awareness. It is behavior. Get people to take out their phone, do a playful action tied to heat and refreshment, and then convert that attention into a reason to walk into a nearby store. The billboard becomes a live demo of “cool relief,” not a static claim.

What retail teams should borrow

Design for crowds first. If spectators cannot immediately understand what participants are doing, participation stalls.
Make progress collective. Shared outcomes create social proof and naturally recruit more people.
Keep the gesture native. One simple interaction beats a clever multi-step flow in outdoor environments.
Tie reward to proximity. If you can convert engagement into a nearby redemption moment, the media becomes a traffic engine.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “Save the Sundae Cone”?

It is an interactive digital out-of-home campaign in Kuala Lumpur where a billboard shows a melting Sundae Cone and invites the public to cool it down using their smartphones.

How do people control the billboard?

They use their phone to spin a fan mechanic that cools the on-screen temperature. More participants increase the effect, making it collaborative.

Why is the melting mechanic effective?

Melting creates urgency that anyone understands, and it turns participation into a visible “save” moment the crowd can watch.

What makes this a strong example of interactive DOOH?

The action is obvious, the feedback is immediate, and the experience becomes social because progress is shared on a large public screen.

What is the key takeaway for other brands?

Use one native gesture, show real-time feedback in public, and reward participation quickly so interaction feels like a fair trade.

Pepsi Max: Unbelievable Bus Shelter

Pepsi Max for its new ‘Unbelievable’ campaign rigged an ordinary bus shelter in London, to perform tricks on unsuspecting travellers.

Using a custom see-through digital display, people waiting at the bus shelter were made to believe that they were actually seeing things like hovering alien ships, a loose tiger, a giant robot with laser beam eyes and so on.

The reactions to these ‘unbelievable’ scenarios were then captured and put in the below viral video.

Why this works. Even before you talk about “tech”

The technology is impressive, but the mechanic is simple. Here, “mechanic” means the repeatable audience interaction pattern, not the underlying tech. It takes an everyday moment. It inserts a believable layer of impossible. Then it lets people do the rest. React, laugh, point, film, share. Because the impossible is framed inside a familiar “window”, disbelief lands fast and reactions become the content. In high-footfall urban out-of-home environments, a brand moment has to work wordlessly, in seconds, for strangers who did not opt in.

Extractable takeaway: If you can turn passive waiting time into a personally witnessed story, you get emotion, proof and distribution before you spend on media.

That is the real move. It transforms passive waiting time into a story that feels personally witnessed.

The bus shelter as a “media product”

This activation treats the bus shelter like a product interface, not just a placement. It has inputs and outputs. Here, “activation” means a physical installation that creates a live brand experience in public space.

Input. People arrive with low expectations and spare attention.
System. A “window” that looks like reality, then breaks it in a controlled way.
Output. Instant emotion, social proof from nearby strangers, and a camera-ready moment.

In other words, it is not only out-of-home. It is an experience designed to be recorded and re-distributed.

The real question is whether your experience turns bystanders into witnesses, and witnesses into voluntary distribution.

What makes it shareable. And why the video is the second product

The live moment is the first product. The viral video is the second product. The second product extends the reach far beyond the street corner.

Tech is optional. If the premise is not instantly legible, it will not travel.

High signal in seconds. You understand what is happening instantly.
Escalation. Each new “unbelievable” scene raises the stakes and keeps attention.
Human faces. The reactions are the content. The brand stays present but not intrusive.
Social permission. If others are reacting, you react too. Then you share.

What to take from this if you build brand experiences

Design the moment first. The best “viral videos” start as real-world moments people want to show others.
Keep the premise instantly legible. If it needs explanation, it loses momentum.
Make capture a feature. If people will film it, stage it so the footage works.
Build a repeatable format. One idea, multiple scenarios, consistent payoff.
Let the audience star. The most believable proof is human reaction, not brand claims.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Pepsi Max “Unbelievable” in one sentence?

It is a London bus shelter activation that used a see-through digital display to create impossible scenes, then turned real public reactions into a viral video.

Is this augmented reality?

It functions like augmented reality for the audience, because it overlays illusions onto what looks like a real street view, even though the experience is delivered through a physical digital screen.

Why do people share this kind of content?

Because it triggers instant emotion and disbelief, and it is easy to explain visually. People share it to pass on the surprise.

What is the key design principle behind the activation?

Make the better story happen in the real world. Then make it easy for the story to travel as video.

What is the practical takeaway for marketers?

When you create a moment that people genuinely want to record, distribution becomes an outcome of the experience, not a separate media plan.