Success story · AndTonic · El Corte Inglés · Disney

Star Wars Photocall AR

89.011

Users detected in the square.

Case summary

An interactive Augmented Reality shop window in Plaza de Callao where passers-by saw their reflection transformed into a character from the Star Wars universe.

Plaza de Callao is, without doubt, one of the busiest spots in the city of Madrid, and its most iconic shop window is El Corte Inglés's. To mark the release of the latest instalment of the most famous saga in history, Disney, El Corte Inglés and the agency AndTonic were looking for a way to activate the street and turn the shop window into more than an advertising space. The answer was the Star Wars AR Photocall, an interactive Augmented Reality shop window where any passer-by who approached saw the most characteristic elements of the Star Wars universe overlaid on their own reflection.

Client

AndTonic · El Corte Inglés · Disney

Sector

Retail & Leisure

Service

Gamified Marketing · Immersive XR experiences

89.011

Users detected in the square.

73.243

Smiles captured by the camera.

18.457

Became Imperials.

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01 The challenge

Turning the shop window into an interactive magnet

In outdoor advertising, Plaza de Callao is Madrid's reference point par excellence: a hyper-busy space where dozens of brands compete for the pedestrian's attention. Traditional formats —banners, posters, static shop windows, digital screens— have occupied the square for decades, and visitors have learned to ignore them. With the release of the latest Star Wars instalment just around the corner, Disney and El Corte Inglés, together with the agency AndTonic, wanted to activate the street in a different way, capable of stopping passers-by, making them the protagonist and multiplying the organic impact on social media without relying on purely static content.

02 The solution

An Augmented Reality shop window as a portal to the Star Wars universe

The solution is the Star Wars AR Photocall, an interactive Augmented Reality shop window where anyone approaching El Corte Inglés's window in Callao saw the most characteristic elements of the Star Wars universe —imperial helmets, lightsabers and other icons of the saga— overlaid on their own reflection in real time. The experience captures passers-by, turns them for a few seconds into the protagonist of the story and gives them an impossible image to photograph. A project that attracted tens of thousands of passers-by during the campaign and was nominated for several DOOH outdoor advertising awards, setting a benchmark for brand activation at the point of sale.

Next step

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Key learnings

What this case teaches the sector.

Seeing yourself transformed is the most powerful advertising hook.

Studies on outdoor advertising show that pedestrians look at a banner for barely two seconds. A shop window that shows them their own reflection transformed into a character from the brand's universe reverses that dynamic: the pedestrian doesn't look, they stay. Conventional advertising interrupts; Augmented Reality converts.

The passer-by becomes the campaign's best organic amplifier:

When someone sees themselves transformed into a Star Wars character on Madrid's most iconic shop window, they take out their phone, film and share. The pedestrian becomes the campaign's most effective distribution vector, generating massive organic reach at no incremental cost to the brand.

73,243 smiles are marketing's most honest emotional metric.

Behind every impression, click or reach figure there's a number. Behind a captured smile there's a real emotion. When a brand activation captures 73,243 measurable smiles, it stops selling abstract impact and starts selling verifiable emotional bonding between the public and the brand.

The shop window becomes the big city's new interactive medium.

Large urban shop windows are historic advertising spaces that many brands still use statically. Turning them into interactive Augmented Reality interfaces brings them up to date for today's consumer, setting a new standard for outdoor advertising where the brand doesn't display itself: it talks with the pedestrian.

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