Get the DNA
A follow-up exhibition for BMW i, building on the Meet the Future stores — designed to convert brand awareness into participation by letting visitors become part of the brand's digital identity.
BMW i had already established its presence through Meet the Future, the store and design system Luxoom had developed inside a five-year flagship-store relationship with BMW. The next problem was different. Awareness of the sub-brand existed; what BMW i needed was a deeper customer relationship — visitors who didn't just understand what the brand stood for, but who saw themselves as part of it. Get the DNA was the follow-up commission, taken from initial concept and exhibition guideline through to the detailed design of the Paris and Brussels BMW i flagships, the BMW Welt Munich installation, and an adaptation for the Shanghai flagship store.
The exhibition extended the Meet the Future visual system, so visitors who recognised the design language from the store environment arrived already inside the brand, not in a separate exhibition about it. Around the cars, a curated programme of design partners pushed the brand's territory outward — 3D-printed lightweight objects from ESA, sound installations from the University of Art and Design Offenbach, smart-home technology from Samsung, eco design from Essent'ial and Studio Cheha, among others. The proposition was that BMW i belonged in conversation with space-agency engineering, art-school research, consumer tech and sustainable design, not only with other cars.
The conversion device was an interactive installation built around a single proposition: become part of BMW i's DNA. Visitors danced in front of a recording setup against a selection of brand keywords, and the captured movements were composited into the brand's large DNA animation — appearing in place of the amino acids that link the two outer strands of the helix. The animation wasn't a brand asset that visitors watched. It was a brand asset they had become part of.
A companion web platform extended the participation beyond the room. Visitors could access their own sequence of the DNA animation after the fact and share it through their own channels — the experience didn't end when they left the exhibition, and the content the brand needed for digital reach was generated by the visitors themselves rather than commissioned separately.
Get the DNA ran for six months across four flagship locations, with the DNA animation displayed both in-store and online. The installation made an abstract sub-brand tangible — beyond the cars on the floor — and gave many thousands of visitors a talking point to take with them. The project also became an idea-giver for further BMW i initiatives, several of which adapted the exhibition guideline that started here.
Tell us about your project.
The first call is about understanding the question — not pitching the answer. Even if the brief is still loose.
hello@luxoom.com→