We took one of the most recognizable elements in Star Wars – The Force - and we brought it to life in the shopping universe of Carrefour. This is how “Shop like a Jedi” was born. It’s an interactive digital outdoor, which, thanks to Kinect Technology, allowed customers to use The Force to shop for anything, from day to day groceries, to Star Wars Merchandise.

The interactive digital billboard was designed to let users experience the power of The Force in an easy and entertaining way, providing them with a simple, well structured virtual shop.

Kinect technology was especially designed to make the using of The Force exactly like in the movies, at every point of interaction, focusing on users` immediate response: the more they concentrated/hovered with their hand over a product, the quicker they could pick it up, drag it, manipulate it with a tight or loose grip, and place it in a shopping cart. In the end, if they decided to buy what they’ve shopped for, their virtual cart would become real, and waited for them at a special cash register at the nearest Carrefour.

The billboard launched on the opening weekend of episode 7 in one of Romania’s biggest shopping malls, and then toured the malls across country in the next weeks.

The billboard helped increase in-store traffic in Carrefour MegaMall Hypermarket by 22% and Star Wars merchandise sales in Carrefour Mega Mall grew with 18%. The billboard recorded an average duration of 3’ : 40’’ per shopping session– that’s 3 minutes and 40 seconds for every person to interact and play with Carrefour products, in a way that every Star Wars fan often dreamed of doing. The billboard got national and international coverage, including PSFK, Digital Buzz and Trend Hunter, among others. The idea was so well received, that Carrefour is planning to implement it internationally.

Shop like a Jedi pushed the boundaries of the regular billboard space and turned it into an interactive virtual shop: it enabled people to shop for anything directly from it, just by using the Force, and then find what they shopped for at a special cash register at the closest Carrefour.

We targeted the top Carrefour location in Bucharest in the biggest mall, where we invited consumers to “Shop like a Jedi”. For two weeks, they could experience shopping with the Force and pick their shopping from a dedicated cashier in Carrefour.

We had 2 objectives: to convert mall goers into Carrefour shoppers to increase traffic in the store and increase sales on selected items in the interactive outdoor, both of which we over achieved.

All major retailers in Romania took advantage of the Star Wars hype, including Carrefour. Besides a national campaign that announced the partnership, Carrefour wanted to offer people a unique shopping experience, that would not only make them stand out in a market flooded with Star Wars merchandise, but also turn them into the one-stop-shop for any customer, whether they need Star Wars merchandise or day-to-day groceries.