Millions of families watch toy unboxing videos as other kids review toys. But, toys are made to be played with. We created a place where families could not only watch others play with toys, but play themselves.

The Walmart Toy Lab is a colorful play area filled with the coolest toys. A world built to look like a toy factory designed by kid architects, the Toy Lab is a place kids can visit and pick any toy off a conveyor belt, and get to play with it for as long as they want. It’s better than any toy store, because there are no rules. Families explore through a live-action interactive film they control with a series of joysticks and controllers called “Funtrollers”. You can watch other kids play with each toy, learn about its features, and add your favorites to a list that gets sent directly to Santa Claus!

The goal of the Toy Lab was to shift people’s perception of Walmart after the demise of Toys R’ Us. Designed to increase discoverability to an online audience beyond the Walmart shopper, The Toy Lab would identify Walmart as a leader in interactive content while creating a showcase for every season’s hottest new toys.

Interactive video was the answer. But, we needed this new medium to feel simple and intuitive enough to capture a child’s imagination. Play patterns in Toy Lab needed to reflect the most natural ways kids discover and interact with toys. So we attended a toy conference for families and took 50 hours of research video investigating how kids discover and play with toys. Then, using that research we wrote, filmed, and designed the UX through the eyes of a child.

Enter Bert and the “Funtroller”.

Once families arrived at the Toy Lab through influencer marketing, ads on Walmart.com, and paid and earned media, our host Bert guided participants through a live action film, they could control via the Funtroller. Participants used the Funtroller to select toys to test, see toys up close, watch other kids playing, and make a wishlist to share with their friends and parents.

We created hundreds of experience variations to ensure that however families wanted to play with toys in the Toy Lab, our interactive experience would allow for it. To achieve this, we adapted 150 pages of live-action narrative scripts to interactive gaming mechanics.

During the shoot, we captured each of those variations in just four days. Finally, we clearly communicated the uniqueness of the Toy Lab across America so families everywhere would actually get to test the toys.