Tag: Family marketing

Nivea SunSlide

Kids are at the beach. They want to run, swim, and slide for hours. Parents want one thing first: sunscreen. That usually means a negotiation. Nivea flips the dynamic by turning sun protection into the game itself. It builds a slip-and-slide that sprays water-resistant SPF 50+ as kids go down. One ride applies the sunblock. The line is simple and strong: the “funnest” way to apply sunscreen. The claim is even better because it is measurable: one slide covers about 100 kids per hour.

The idea in one line

Remove the biggest friction in kids’ sun protection by embedding sunscreen into something they already want to do.

The real problem it solves

Parents do not struggle with intent. They struggle with compliance.
Kids do not resist sunscreen because they hate protection. They resist because applying it interrupts fun.

SunSlide is a behavioral design solution. It makes the protected action the entertaining action.

What gets built

A physical slide that sprays sunscreen as part of the ride. The experience does not ask kids to pause. It rewards them for participating.

In some coverage, the wider campaign context frames this against South Africa’s high skin-cancer risk and the heightened vulnerability of children, which is why “make protection automatic” becomes the creative strategy.

Why it works as brand experience

Utility is the message

The campaign does not tell you to protect your kids. It shows a mechanism that does it.

The product truth is delivered through physics

Water-resistant SPF is not a claim on a pack. It is the substance literally flowing through the experience.

The story is instantly repeatable

“A slide that applies sunscreen” is a one-sentence idea that travels without explanation.

What to borrow if you design activations

Find the one moment people always skip

Do not start with awareness. Start with the behavioral gap. Here, it is the interruption moment.

Convert interruption into participation

If the solution feels like a rule, people resist. If it feels like play, they opt in.

Make the benefit visible and countable

“100 kids per hour” makes the idea feel real. It turns a stunt into a scalable concept.

The deeper point

This is what brand-led innovation looks like when it is honest. It takes a genuine consumer pain point, removes friction with a physical design, and makes the brand feel helpful rather than preachy.

A few fast answers before you act

What is SunSlide?

A slip-and-slide that sprays water-resistant SPF 50+ sunscreen onto kids as they ride, making sun protection automatic.

What problem does it solve?

It removes the recurring “stop and apply sunscreen” interruption that kids resist and parents dread.

Why is it effective as marketing?

Because the product benefit is experienced, not explained. The activation becomes the proof.

What is the key behavior design lesson?

If you can embed the desired behavior into something people already enjoy, compliance becomes participation.

What is the biggest risk with this kind of idea?

If the experience feels unsafe, messy, or untrustworthy, parents opt out immediately. The execution must feel controlled, clean, and credible.

McDonald’s Happy Table

A child sits down in a McDonald’s Singapore restaurant, opens the McParty Run app on an NFC-enabled smartphone, and places the phone on a marked spot on the table. The tabletop immediately becomes the playfield. A McDonaldLand-style racing track appears around the phone, and the whole table turns into a shared game surface.

The idea. Turning a restaurant table into play

McDonald’s Singapore introduces Happy Table as an interactive dining concept that converts an ordinary in-store table into a digital playground for kids. Instead of handing out a traditional toy, the experience uses mobile technology to project a short, location-based game onto the table itself.

How it works. McParty Run plus NFC

The mechanic is simple and deliberately physical:

  • Customers download the McParty Run mobile app.
  • The phone needs to be NFC-enabled.
  • The customer places the phone on a designated table inside the outlet.
  • Once the table detects the device, the tabletop becomes a virtual racing track, with animated characters and objects appearing around the surface.

Kids move around the table to control the game, racing to collect burgers and fries while avoiding familiar McDonald’s characters like the Hamburglar and Captain Crook. The table is the center of interaction, so the gameplay is naturally shared and social.

Why this is interesting in-store

Happy Table shifts the experience away from passive, individual screen time and towards a shared activity that fits the restaurant context. The game is anchored to the location and to a physical object. The table. It is a small but meaningful change in how digital play shows up in a family meal. The table becomes the “device,” and the phone becomes the trigger.

What brands can take from this pattern

A few practical takeaways that translate beyond fast food:

  • Make the physical environment do the work. When the venue becomes the interface, the digital layer feels less like an add-on.
  • Design for group behavior, not solo attention. A shared surface encourages participation and reduces the “everyone disappears into their own screen” effect.
  • Keep it short and contextual. A quick, playful moment that fits waiting time is more natural than a long-form experience that competes with eating.
  • Use familiar brand assets in motion. McDonald’s characters and food cues make the experience instantly legible to kids.

Happy Table is created by the DDB Group and runs as a pilot at select outlets across Singapore.

A few fast answers before you act

What is McDonald’s Happy Table?
An interactive dining concept in McDonald’s Singapore that turns an in-store table into a digital game surface for kids.

What do you need to use it?
The McParty Run app and an NFC-enabled smartphone, placed on a designated table inside the outlet.

What is the gameplay?
A McDonaldLand-style racing experience where kids move around the table to collect burgers and fries while avoiding characters such as the Hamburglar and Captain Crook.

What makes it different from a typical mobile game?
The table is the shared interface. The experience is designed to be physical and social, centered on a real-world location and group play.

Where is it running?
As a pilot in select McDonald’s outlets across Singapore.