Magic carpets? Marshmallow splatter? Major brands went all in for theme park magic at CES 2024 to deliver their brand messaging while delighting attendees. Move over, traditional product demos. Full-on immersive theatrical thrills are coming fast and furious, and attendees are not afraid to wait in line for them.
Walmart
The retail giant made a splash at this year’s CES with a keynote and a 10,000-square-foot, two-storied booth in Central Plaza that walked attendees through the company’s vision of retail innovation. How would you showcase the scale of complex systems and evoke the joy of shopping at the same time? Take attendees on a 4D ride! This theme park-style activation “flew” attendees along the entire high-tech supply chain, through farms with strawberries you could smell to next-gen distribution centers all the way to the produce section of the store to be delivered by a drone just in time for a birthday celebration. The scent of birthday cake made it impossible not to crave it. (Lead Partner: LEO Events)
Netflix
Word traveled fast around the floor to check out Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” immersive experience, promoting the upcoming mystery series, and the line was so long they had to periodically cap it. But if you did make it inside a mirrored-walls exhibit, you’d have to put a sticker on your phone’s camera to protect the top-secret content before taking your seat with a gaming headset, used by characters in the series, to watch the trailer. Once the headset came off, the story continued on a wraparound screen, with bursts of heat and wind, plunging attendees deep into the show’s “chaotic era.” (Partner: MKG)
SK
Designed to be a straight-up amusement park, “SK Wonderland” invited visitors on a variety of rides that showcased the tech capabilities of the company’s seven affiliates and the overarching commitment to a “net-zero” world. Want to experience the carbon-free future of urban mobility? Step on—or rather buckle into—a “Magic Carpet” ride and hover above the show floor, leaning into sharp curves and descents. Sadly, this experience appeared to only be for VIPs.
A “Train Adventure” more your speed? A hydrogen ecosystem is all around as you travel through an LED tunnel. And yes, you needed a map—that could be stamped for prizes—to navigate it all.
Sony
As location-based entertainment gains ground around the world, Sony invited attendees to step onto the streets of New York just as the “Ghostbusters” Marshmallow Man was making his appearance. The immersive experience showcased “active slate and haptic floor,” which responds to steps and produces the sensation of walking on different surfaces, a vision-sensing system that tracks posture and gestures in real-time, and the company’s “mocopi” mobile motion capture system, which powered the presenter’s interactions with the ghost on the screen. Then, of course, the Ghostbusters rushed to the scene and blasted him into gooey splatter, leaving attendees hopping around the puddles.
How will this theme park trend change brand expectations and experiential marketing budgets? Will there be a separate type of engagement designed for attendees in line? Will we need a separate app to book and navigate “attractivations”? Stay puft!
