We created an in-store installation that lets people test-drive the new Audi Q5 in VR on a self-made track made out of sand.

We invited people to enter a purpose-built sandbox to create their own driving environment by moving sand to form lanes, jumps and mud pools. The physical sandbox is turned into a virtual playground using a depth-sensing camera that renders peoples’ creation into a 3D environment.

People could then step an Audi Q5 driving simulator with an Oculus Rift headset to drive around their own sandbox in a real-time VR experience. The driving experience is designed to simulate a real-life drive, complete with feedback from the Audi Q5 steering wheel and the actual car (engine) sounds.

The key drivers for the campaign are a one-minute TVC and two-minute making-of video in which the concept and technology are introduced to drive people to Audi dealers and share the experience.

Enter Sandbox was designed as a traveling in-store installation with a transportable 400-kilo sandbox from which participants can create their own test-drive environment.

The physical sandbox is scanned in 3D based on 200,000 measure points, using a Kinect camera and a HTC Vive Lighthouse tracking system.

To capture the sandbox at such detail, the sandbox is bombarded with bursts of infrared light that are captured by the Kinect camera to measure the height differences relative to the camera. This height-depth-scan is then rendered into a 3D model of the sandbox, which users can explore in VR in an Audi Q5.

To include the tools and toys participants could move around the sandbox, we created 3D replicas that would replace the real-life toys inside the VR experience. Finally, when participants uncovered the floor of the sandbox, this empty space was replaced by a pool of water in the VR experience.

Enter Sandbox itself became “the most successful campaign from Audi Norway ever” (Tommy Jensen of Audi Norway).

Enter Sandbox also got massive media coverage in Norway and in the global market, with features by Wired, TopGear, PSFK, FastCompany and Deutsche Welle.

Deutsche Welle shared the campaign on Facebook. This video alone amassed over 4 million views and 50.000 unique shares in a month.

Enter Sandbox won FWA of the Month in March 2017 with 87 points.

To actualize Audi’s ambition of making technological innovation part and parcel of the communication itself, the idea emerged to combine the traditional product demonstration of a test drive with the new and exciting possibilities offered by VR.

The experience itself is based on a powerful nostalgic premise that unlocks the inner-child in all of us: Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could drive a car around the sand tracks you used to make as a kid?

To make this into an experience the whole country could get excited about, we had to achieve two things: 1) the installation had to be transportable so it could travel around Norway 2) and the experience itself had to be shareable in the form of a video so that more people could share in the excitement.

Championed by its Vorsprunch dürch Technik slogan, Audi is known as one of the car industry’s most innovative brands. In Norway, however, Audi’s leading position was challenged by brands such as BMW, Mercedes and Volvo.

To show that Audi’s technological edge is not just in their cars but in the brand’s DNA, Audi wanted its new campaign to reflect their commitment to technology. For the introduction of the Audi Q5, the brief was to give Audi dealers something truly cool and innovative that would spark people’s excitement for Audi in a way that would reach far beyond the dealership through social and PR.