Fans already know the room. They recognise the character. They have imagined performing the move, visiting the place, or ordering the food.
So let them.
Let Fans Enter the World turns familiarity into proximity. Rather than merely showing fans more of what they love, it gives them a way inside: physically, virtually, or somewhere between the two.
Here are five ways to open the door.
- Make a Fictional Place Physical
- Reconstruct a Lost Place
- Give Fans an Immersive Point of View
- Make the Story Action Performable
- Cross the Virtual–Real Boundary
1. Make a Fictional Place Physical
Rebuild a recognisable setting so fans can finally enter it.
IKEA Real Life Series — IKEA, Publicis Spain, 2019
IKEA turned three of television’s most recognisable living rooms into real showrooms. Using products from its catalogue, it recreated the homes from Friends, Stranger Things and The Simpsons, then installed them in stores across the Middle East. The rooms were immediately familiar to fans, but every sofa, lamp and table remained unmistakably IKEA. Rather neatly, the brand turned fictional interiors into somewhere people could physically visit—and commercially reproduce at home.
Icons — Airbnb, Weber Shandwick, 2024
Airbnb took places people had previously only seen on screen and made them bookable. Fans could stay in the Up house, spend the night at the Musée d’Orsay, visit the X-Men ’97 mansion, or step into other entertainment and cultural worlds. The idea worked because Airbnb did not merely decorate accommodation around popular properties. It used the platform’s core purpose—granting access to remarkable places—to deliver something conventional entertainment advertising could only hint at.
The creative move: Identify the place fans already know well enough to recognise immediately. Recreate it with enough fidelity to reward that knowledge, then give people something meaningful to do once they are inside.
