The Corona crisis unfortunately forces many children to stay at home. Mercedes-Benz Switzerland would like to bring some joy into the children's rooms and encourage their creativity with "Kids Car Designer". In the App two vehicle models can be painted, decorated and then ordered as a craft sheet.

3D models of the A- and G-Class

The 3D models of the current A-Class and G-Class are available. The children paint these cars with various color and effect pens and then decorate them with stickers and glitter.

DIY craft sheet

The individually designed vehicles can then be sent free of charge by e-mail as a PDF craft sheet. The children can then assemble their own digitally designed vehicles as real colored paper models.

Decoupling from internal project because of Corona

Jeff and Staay Interactive have been jointly designing and developing a larger internal app project for children on behalf of Mercedes-Benz Switzerland since 2019. In the wake of the Corona crisis, the desire arose at Mercedes-Benz to transfer part of the children's app, which was actually planned for internal purposes, into its own app and make it publicly available to all children free of charge. Within a few days, Jeff and Staay added new features to the app and made it ready for the previously unplanned public launch.

The coloring app is available in four languages and is suitable for children of all ages. It can be downloaded immediately for the iPad free of charge.

"Always on the move," a campaign by the Association of Swiss Petroleum Importers, has launched a challenging design competition: What will the gas station of the future look like? The jury has awarded prizes to four projects and has now presented them to the public at the Motor Show.

The winning project "movo" was digitally recreated in 3D by Staay Interactive as an activation measure for the trade fair stand and literally placed in the center: A physical architectural model is presented in the center of the trade fair stand. In its center, visitors discover the animated winning gas station of the future in augmented reality using tablets.

The AR app invites you to discover the individual roofs of the gas station, which can be removed interactively so that you can also admire the interior of the rooms. At the touch of a button, the futuristic building can be raised to reveal the basement. The gas station visitors of the future use the free time while charging their electric vehicles for yoga classes, fitness or a coffee on the upper floors. The filling station of the future was designed and developed on behalf of Quade & Zurfluh.

As one of the first AR games in the world, the mini game can be played by four people at the same time, which hundreds of guests did not miss out on.

The game principle is simple: players choose one of four Mini models and drive it virtually around the physical Union Jack-style table. The aim is to get hold of the floating Mini logo on the pedestal in the middle and hold it for ten seconds. This gives you one point, and the player with four wins the game. However, if you are touched by another vehicle, the Mini logo changes vehicles and the hunter becomes the hunted. Various special features such as suddenly appearing holes in the table guarantee a varied gaming experience.

The game was designed and developed entirely by Staay in Zurich. "The biggest challenge in the project was that the planned Apple AR Kit technology turned out to be far too imprecise for this purpose during the project," explains Philip Eggenberger from Staay. The combination of special image recognition software with the in-house game server ultimately enabled the desired precision for the live race on the table.

Responsible at Mini Switzerland: Giusi Brullo (Head of Marketing and Product Mini), Sandra Haberthür (Specialist Events & Sponsoring Mini). Responsible at Staay: Philip Eggenberger (concept & overall management), Gian Andri Bezzola (concept & art direction), Dimo Notarfrancesco (lead programming), Markus Broder (project management), Marc Wegmann, Alex Bifulco, Robin Balan (all programming).

The development of the city of Zurich is closely linked to its electrification and thus to EWZ. During the three-week campaign phase, we therefore went on a digital journey through time: The people of Zurich played their way through the six most important eras since EWZ was founded.

Six games on the most important eras

Beginning in 1892, the more than 6,000 players were first immersed in the pioneering days when horse-drawn streetcars and gas lamps still dominated the cityscape. The task was to optimally control the turbines of the then brand-new Letten hydroelectric power plant and thus produce electricity for the city for the first time. A new era was unlocked every four days and with it a new game.

The elaborate graphics and infotainment sections allowed players to immerse themselves in the respective eras. In the mixed reality game, they replaced gas lamps with light bulbs in the city of Zurich, built dams in Graubünden in the 1930s and consumed as much electricity as possible in the era of abundance in order to come to their senses in the present. In the second mixed reality game, they switched off real electrical consumers such as neon signs. In the final game, the players controlled the intelligent smart grid of the future and experienced how ewz's role is changing from a pure electricity supplier to a full service provider.

The lighting in the city of Zurich switched off

To set an example for a more sustainable use of our limited resources, 125 players jointly switched off part of the public lighting in the city of Zurich for 5 minutes on a Thursday evening in mid-September as a highlight of the campaign. At 21:12, the lights of 46 buildings such as the ETH or Grossmünster went out, as reported by 20 Minuten.

Over 600 hours of playing time

Each epoch game impressed with its completely unique gameplay. The varied games have led to a pure playing time of over 600 hours and have been played almost 100,000 times so far. Together with its partners, ewz offered prizes worth over CHF 60,000 for the best players. Although these have now all been awarded, the "ewz-on" app with all the games and stories is still available in the app stores.

Responsible at EWZ: David Iselin (Project Management), Eva Boretti (Head of Digital Experience), Nicole Schirner (Head of Marketing & Communication), Harry Graf (Head of Media & PA), René Hauck (Head of Planning), Esther Rutz (Head of Content), Marc Meier (Head of Branding & Design), Katrin Rüesch (Activation), Bianca Zimmermann (Event Specialist). Responsible at Jeff: Peter Broder (project manager overall project, concept), Philip Eggenberger (technical management, concept), Joel Schuler (integrations, concept), Stephan Gimmi, Nicolas Jakob, Tine Dittmar, Tobi Harbeke, Raffaele De Giovanni (all graphics), Peter Day (teaser video, concept). Other partners: App development and game server: Staay; server infrastructure: Virtualtec; film: Hunter Film; ATL subject: KSP Krieg Schlupp Partner.