Technique
Participation
Campaigns that the audience completes by playing, sharing, creating, replying or taking part.
2020s
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2025Vaseline Verified
Thousands of users' own posts supply the material, and the findings go back to the creators who posted them, making them co-authors of the brand.
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2025Expedition Impossible
Turns a durability claim into an open dare: anyone who finds and photographs the edge of the Earth wins the company itself.
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2024All the Ads
Viewers must copy down an absurdly long promo code from the spot and submit it online to enter.
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2023The Everyday Tactician
Players compete for a real tactician's job at a football club, turning the game's founding fantasy of doing the manager's job into an open contest.
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2022Less Talk, More Bitcoin
A bouncing QR code asks viewers to point their phones at the screen, so the ad only works if the audience acts.
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2022Backup Ukraine
Civilians do the work themselves, scanning heritage on their own phones so that ordinary people become guardians of their nation's culture.
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2022Flipvertising
Ad-wary young buyers are dared to make an ad find them, following influencer clues through searches that unlock product films and a chance of free phones.
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2022Plug Inn
Relies on owners listing their own chargers, setting an hourly price and accepting bookings, so drivers themselves build the network.
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2022Runner 321
Hands other races a toolkit to adopt the idea, so it spreads only as events, including rival-sponsored ones, sign up.
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2021Superb Owl
A slide with far too much text to read in five seconds makes viewers pause, screenshot and search, so the audience spreads it.
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2021Not Just a Cadbury Ad ("Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad")
A microsite lets shopkeepers and shoppers generate their own personalised versions of the star's ad for local stores.
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2021The Unfiltered History Tour
Visitors point Instagram filters at the artefacts to watch, on their own phones, the moment each was taken from its homeland.
2010s
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2019Burn That Ad
Customers point their phones at a rival's ads and watch them burn in augmented reality, uncovering a voucher for a free Whopper.
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2019Stevenage Challenge
Players manage a lowly club in the game, complete set challenges and share goal clips, filling feeds with star players wearing the sponsor's logo.
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2019Swipe Night
Viewers steer each episode by swiping left or right within seconds, and their choices then shape matches and appear as badges on profiles.
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2019ThisAbles
Anyone can download the files and 3D-print the parts at home, or suggest new add-ons through a form.
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2018adDRESS the Future (Neo-Ex)
Buyers upload a photo of themselves and receive it back wearing the chosen digital garment, ready to post.
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2018Nothing Beats a Londoner
Before broadcast, each young athlete posts their own scene on Instagram linking to the next, so the participants become the film's distribution.
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2018Tenemos que vernos más ("We Have to See More of Each Other")
A companion website lets anyone run the same calculation for their own relationships, extending the film's idea to every viewer.
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2018Paving for Pizza
Invites customers to nominate their own town online, and the flood of nominations pushes the programme out to every state.
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2017The Journey
Viewers must visit the brand's website to see how the story ends, so the broadcast spot works as a prompt to act.
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#NuggsForCarterWendy's2017
#NuggsForCarter
Millions of people retweet one customer's plea for free nuggets, letting the public rather than the brand drive the story.
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2017Did You Mean MailChimp?
Each curiosity is designed to provoke a search, so audiences piece the joke together and discover the brand for themselves.
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2017Black Supermarket (Le Marché Interdit)
Asks shoppers to buy the produce and sign a petition, so every basket doubles as a vote to change the rules.
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2017The Palau Pledge
Every visitor must sign a pledge stamped into their passport and addressed to Palau's children, so the audience completes the ad.
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2017Trash Isles
Invites the public to become citizens by signing a petition, turning concern about plastic into a growing population.
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2016Spotify Wrapped
Each listener's own data becomes a personal year-end recap made for sharing, so users supply the media by posting their results.
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2016The Field Trip to Mars
Swaps the bus windows for screens showing a Martian landscape that turns whenever the real bus turns, so the whole class shares the ride.
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2016The Swedish Number
Lets anyone abroad dial a single number and talk freely with a random Swede, while thousands of citizens sign up to answer.
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2016Unlimited Stadium
Runners log a lap, then race a life-size avatar of themselves on the LED walls, competing against their own pace.
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2015Emoji Ordering
Customers order by tweeting a single pizza-slice emoji at the brand, so the social post itself becomes the transaction.
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2015The Greatest Interception Ever
Viewers nominate someone who deserves a new car by tweeting a hashtag, with five cars given away.
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2015Shot on iPhone ("World Gallery")
Customers' own pictures fill thousands of outdoor sites, making iPhone users the campaign's creative department.
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2015Holograms for Freedom
People worldwide submit their faces, slogans and voices through a website, becoming the holograms that march outside parliament.
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On Black Friday, we're closing. Opt outside.REI2015
#OptOutside
Invites people to head outdoors instead of shopping, and the hashtag is taken up by other organisations and millions of people.
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2014The Other Side
Holding down the R key flips the story between day and night, echoing the button that puts the real car into race mode.
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2014Eyes on the Road
Sends a text to every phone in the cinema, so the audience commits the mistake themselves with their own devices.
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2013The Pony
A Pony Mixer lets viewers re-score the dance and send it to friends, with favourite fan versions later broadcast on television.
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2013Melbourne Remote Control Tourist
Online audiences direct four real tourists around the city through Facebook and Twitter, choosing everything from making pizza to tracking down secret gigs.
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2013Kan Khajura Tesan
Listeners give a free missed call and are rung back with music, jokes and a presenter, broken up by the company's ads.
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2013Small World Machines
Strangers on either side of the border must wave, press hands to the glass or trace a peace sign together to win a free Coke.
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2012Project Re: Brief — 'Hilltop' Re-imagined for Coca-Cola
Viewers pick a vending machine abroad, add a text or video message and send a stranger a free Coke, and the recipient can reply with thanks.
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2012The Beauty Inside
Fans audition through Facebook to play the lead, and others play him on his timeline between episodes, adding to his story.
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2012A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square ("Push to Add Drama")
Invites passers-by to press a big red button, and whoever does triggers the whole show.
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2011The Museum of Me
Connecting a Facebook account turns the visitor's own friends, photos, posts and Likes into an exhibition of their life, an experience made to be shared.
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2011Be the Coach
Every bottle top carries a vote, letting fans pick each club's starting eleven and even make a live substitution by text.
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2011Subway Virtual Store
Commuters scan product codes on lifelike supermarket shelves with their phones and pay while waiting for a train.
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Share a Coke with...Coca-Cola2011
Share a Coke
Replaces the logo with popular first names, inviting people to hunt for their own and their friends' names and share them.
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2010A Hunter Shoots a Bear
Viewers type their own verb into the video's title and get one of dozens of filmed responses, writing the ending themselves.
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2010The Wilderness Downtown
Viewers supply the address of the home they grew up in and finish by writing a note to their younger self, so no two viewings match.
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Shop Small.American Express2010
Small Business Saturday
Hands shopkeepers badges, posters and do-it-yourself digital tools to promote themselves, so merchants carry the campaign.
2000s
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2009Free Doritos
Made by two brothers for a contest that invited consumers to create the brand's Super Bowl ad, the spot is the audience completing the campaign.
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2009Carousel
On the microsite viewers move through the scene at will and trigger hotspots that reveal a behind-the-scenes version of the same shot.
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2009Chalkbot
Anyone can send a message by text, Twitter or web for a robot to spray onto the race route, then receive a GPS-tagged photo of it.
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Fiesta MovementFord2009
Fiesta Movement
The agents complete set missions and publish whatever happens on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and blogs, creating the campaign themselves with no traditional media buy.
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Whopper SacrificeBurger King2009
Whopper Sacrifice
A Facebook app asks people to delete ten friends in exchange for a free Whopper coupon, building the offer from the platform's own mechanics.
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Kitto, sakura saku yo.Kit Kat (Nestlé Japan)2009
Kit Kat Mail
Buyers write an address and a handwritten message on the pack and post it themselves, turning the product into a postcard.
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Island caretaker wanted. The best job in the world.Tourism Queensland2009
The Best Job in the World
Disguises tourism promotion as a job listing, so tens of thousands of video applications become tourism advertising made by the public.
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2008Awareness Test ("Moonwalking Bear")
Viewers are set a counting task and only complete the ad by discovering they missed the bear, so the lesson is experienced rather than told.
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2008Hotel 626
Visitors play through a first-person nightmare across 13 rooms, singing to a demon baby through their microphone and receiving a call on their own phone.
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2008The Great Schlep
Young Jewish voters are recruited to visit their grandparents in Florida and talk them round, with downloadable talking points and a Facebook sign-up.
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2008Hope
Supporters spread the image themselves through free downloads, screen prints and fly-posting, outrunning any paid media plan.
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2007Jaago Re (Politician)
Grows into a voter-registration drive with an NGO whose website helps hundreds of thousands of mostly young people sign up ahead of a general election.
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UniqlockUniqlo2007
Uniqlock
Bloggers install the clock widget on their own sites, becoming the distribution network, with a world map of installations encouraging them to keep it going.
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2007Why So Serious? (The Dark Knight alternate reality game)
Fans must work together to dig out the film's secrets, with each email address submitted erasing one pixel from the first image of the villain.
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2007Earth Hour
Asks everyone to do one simple, symbolic thing: switch off their lights for an hour.
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2006Elf Yourself
Visitors upload a photo of a face and watch themselves, their boss or their grandmother dance as an elf, ready to email onward.
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I Love BeesMicrosoft / Bungie (Halo 2)2004
I Love Bees
Players decode GPS coordinates and times that send them to ringing pay phones, so only a collaborating crowd can piece the promotion together.
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Get chicken just the way you like it.Burger King2004
Subservient Chicken
Visitors type commands and a man in a chicken suit appears to obey them, turning the promise of having it your way into a game.
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2004Lightbulb
A motion sensor lights a giant bulb whenever someone walks beneath it, casting each passer-by as the person with the bright idea.
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2003ecotonoha
Visitors type a short message that sprouts as a new leaf on a virtual tree, building a shared, growing artwork one leaf a day.
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2001Bostezo (Yawn)
Passes a yawn from person to person through a wordless day, inviting viewers to catch it themselves and so feel how instinctive communicating is.
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2000The Rant ("I Am Canadian")
Invites Canadians to join in, with tens of thousands submitting their own rants online and Joe performing live at NHL arenas.
1990s
1980s
1930s
1890s
Participation: how it works
Participatory advertising hands part of the idea to the audience. People play a game, make something, reply, vote, share or turn up, and that participation is the campaign. It is the defining technique of much of the best work made for the internet.
How to spot it
- The ad is incomplete without people taking part.
- Interactivity, personalisation or user-made content is central.
- The audience's contributions spread the campaign further.
Why it works
People value what they help create and share what they are part of. Participation also produces proof: the scale of the response becomes the story the brand can tell.