Adobe Summit - '90s Digital Escape Room • Imaginex

ADOBE SUMMIT

’90S DIGITAL ESCAPE ROOM

ADOBE SUMMIT 2019

’90S DIGITAL ESCAPE ROOM

BACK TO THE 90s

2019’s No. 1 Experiential Agency Giant Spoon was approached by Adobe with the proposal to help create a technology-based “escape room” experience for attendees of the Adobe Summit 2019. The goal was to demonstrate the changes in online advertising since the first banner ad was uploaded to the Internet 25 years ago. Guests travelled between ’90s-inspired rooms alongside guides, learning firsthand how ad and marketing technology has advanced and become more convenient for users, before finally arriving at a modern-age Adobe service showcase. Giant Spoon called upon Imaginex to recreate the experience of using ’90s hardware components, and to light up a “Portal” room that transported you from the ’90s to the present day.

THE AGENCY ROOM

In the first of the three ’90s-themed rooms, attendees found themselves in an office space and were given the job of uploading an advertisement to a fledgling Internet before moving onto the next room. Imaginex restored old Macs and other classic ’90s hardware to the functionality necessary to carry out these tasks.

PHONE HINT

On the desk you could find a retro-style phone, gutted and rewired to play an audio hint when picked up.

FLOPPY DISK

Once guests received the hint, they were directed to select the correct floppy disk and insert it into the disk drive on the computer. Of course, rather than trusting old technology to work, a sophisticated scanning system was used to recognize when the correct floppy was inserted.

BANNER UPLOAD

After using the correct disk, visitors navigated a simulated retro operating system and started the “upload” of their ad by navigating to the correct file.

THE VIDEO STORE

The next of the rooms was a VHS movie rental store, where attendees were tasked with selecting a movie to watch after their day at the office.

MEMBERSHIP CARD

On entering the store, guests received membership cards which, when swiped at the clerk desk, showed a mock rental history.

TELEPHONE

A second rewired retro phone was on the clerk desk in the video store. This time it rang and was answered by an actor.

THE LIVING ROOM

For the final ’90s-themed room, guests found themselves in a living room, where they experienced ordering food on a young Internet and watched their selected movie.

ORDERING PIZZA

Using a similar operating system as was found in the Agency room, guest surfed the web, clicked on the banner they uploaded, and ordered a pizza.

VHS MESSAGE

Like the floppy scanner, the VCR waited for a VHS to be inserted, then proceeded to play a video message from Adobe on the CRT TV.

THE PORTAL

Stepping out of the ’90s, attendees walked down a motion-sensing LED hallway toward a high definition screen, and into the present day.

THE MUSEUM

As they left the exhibit, visitors looked over six separate video screens, each demonstrating an instrumental feature of Adobe’s 2019 Marketing Cloud services.