M&M's: Sweet Moves Experience

The background

As part of an ongoing partnership with Mars Retail Group, UNIT9 has created a series of playful installations for M&M’s stores across the world to inject some fun and encourage shoppers to interact with the brand and its iconic characters. The installations needed to centre around movement, as well as provide users with a shareable takeaway to maximise engagement. We also needed to integrate cutting-edge technology in order to bring the M&Ms retail experience into a new immersive era.

The execution

‘Sweet Moves’, is an experience that promotes dance by using body-tracking technology to turn users into an avatar made up of M&M’s lentils. Guests are able to choose a backing track based on the type of dance they prefer – from super chilled, to high tempo – as well as select their favourite M&M’s colours and background. As the tune plays, guests can bust their moves in front of a screen and watch as their body movements are matched in M&M form. 

We incorporated hidden easter egg moves to add some extra fun, such as a tornado effect when users wave their arms, and an explosion when users dance with serious energy. At the end of the experience, guests can select their favourite 10 second clip to download and post on socials.

The results

The ‘Sweet Moves’ installation is now live at M&M’s World in London, the Gloria store in Berlin, the Disney Springs store in Florida, and the Mall of America store in Minnesota. We’re excited to be bringing the installations to New York very soon. 

With nearly 500,000 visitors trying the experiences across all sites so far, the activations have proved to be a highly successful and well-received addition to the M&M’s retail experience.