Vanessa Serradas

Adidas

Designing a mobile AR experience that turned a street exhibition into a collectible hunt for Adidas' World Cup ball archive. Adidas partnered with Eletromidia to turn Paulista Avenue (São Paulo, Brazil) into an open-air museum for the World Cup ball, 15 iconic balls from the archive displayed along the street, from the Telstar to the present, timed to the reveal of the Trionda, the official ball for the 2026 World Cup. The exhibit needed a reason for people to stop at each ball, not just walk past it, and a reason to come back more than once. The answer was to turn the balls into something people collect, not just look at, using augmented reality tied to each ball's real location on the avenue. I designed the entire mobile experience end to end: the AR capture flow, the wallet where captured balls live, the map that sends people back out to find more, and the gamified discount system that rewards collecting.

Designing a mobile AR experience that turned a street exhibition into a collectible hunt for Adidas' World Cup ball archive. Adidas partnered with Eletromidia to turn Paulista Avenue (São Paulo, Brazil) into an open-air museum for the World Cup ball, 15 iconic balls from the archive displayed along the street, from the Telstar to the present, timed to the reveal of the Trionda, the official ball for the 2026 World Cup. The exhibit needed a reason for people to stop at each ball, not just walk past it, and a reason to come back more than once. The answer was to turn the balls into something people collect, not just look at, using augmented reality tied to each ball's real location on the avenue. I designed the entire mobile experience end to end: the AR capture flow, the wallet where captured balls live, the map that sends people back out to find more, and the gamified discount system that rewards collecting.

Client:

Adidas

Client:

Adidas

My Role:

UX/UI Designer (contractor, via CONTEXT)

My Role:

UX/UI Designer (contractor, via CONTEXT)

Service Provided:

OOH media, virtual experience, mobile, AR design

Service Provided:

OOH media, virtual experience, mobile, AR design

Watch the AR in action

Watch the AR in action

Watch the AR in action

Watch the AR in action

The discovery moment: from the street to AR

The problem: A row of balls on display is a one-time look, not something people engage with. The challenge was turning the exhibit into an AR game people actually wanted to play, one that made them want to capture each ball, learn its history, and come back for the next one, earning real Adidas discounts along the way instead of just walking past.

What I did: Finding the first ball is easy, curiosity does that part. Keeping someone playing after that depends entirely on how the experience feels, so I designed it to have zero friction from scan to capture. Scanning the QR code opens the phone's camera directly into AR, no extra screens, no login wall in the way first. The historic ball appears spinning in 3D on the sidewalk in front of the person, with a single "Capture" action to lock it in. That capture triggers a short animated reveal, a holographic trading-card treatment of the ball, before confirming it's been added to the person's collection.

Every step from scan to collection was built to feel instant and rewarding, so capturing the second ball feels just as easy and fun as the first, which is what actually gets someone to keep walking down Paulista.

The collection: building the wallet

The problem: Capturing a ball needed somewhere to live, and needed to feel worth having, not just a checkbox.

What I did: I designed all 15 ball cards for the wallet, one for each ball in the collection, and grouped them into four color families pulled from Adidas' own brand palette, so the collection reads as organized rather than a flat list the moment you open it.

The wallet has two views, a card layout that shows each ball with its year and origin, and a compact grid for scanning a growing collection at a glance, both animations I defined myself. Tapping into any ball opens an expanded page telling its story, things like the origin of the Telstar name and what made its panel design a first, with its own scroll motion that I designed specifically for that format. A floating camera button gives direct access back into capture mode from anywhere in the wallet, so finding the next ball is never more than one tap away.

Getting people back on the street: the map

The problem: Exploration only works if people know where to go next. Without a map, the hunt has no direction.

What I did: I designed an Explorar view showing every capture point along Paulista, with captured points marked in color and available points in gray, so a person can see at a glance what's left to find and exactly where to walk. Tapping a pin drops a location card with the address and, if already captured, the ball found there.

Turning collection into reward

The problem: Collecting for its own sake runs out of motivation fast. There needed to be a reason to keep going past the first ball or two.

What I did: I designed a milestone system tied directly to the wallet: capture 5 balls and unlock a 5% Adidas discount, 10 balls unlocks 10%, non-cumulative and redeemed straight through AdiClub.

Progress toward each milestone is visible on the profile, alongside a level system that turns "how many balls do I have" into "what level am I."


Outcome

The activation launched successfully and ran the full length of the campaign without needing early changes, with people actively finding balls across all 15 points on Paulista through its final days. Both Adidas and Eletromidia kept promoting it on their own channels right up to the deadline, and the client was pleased with how the experience performed on the street, not just in prototype.