Hasbro built a hotel where Trivial Pursuit answers are the only currency.

Trivial Pursuit was a staple in the US but almost unknown in Russia, so Hasbro and Leo Burnett Moscow set out to teach the gameplay rather than advertise it.

In spring 2019 they opened a two-storey cottage near Moscow with three bedrooms, a pool, a restaurant and a bowling alley, where cash and credit cards had no value. Every service was payable only with correct answers to game questions.

Booking required answering two questions on the hotel site and sharing the link. Guests who wanted to live 'like a king' had to display more knowledge, while the price of a humble instant-noodle dinner was the same currency.

Make people live the game instead of telling them it is fun

It put the product's mechanisms at the centre of a real-world transaction

Paying with answers made the game's fun the thing being sold

The two-question booking step seeded the mechanics before guests arrived

A physical, shareable experience earned coverage a paid ad could not

If a product belongs indoors as a pastime, the sharpest demo can be to build the world where the pastime is compulsory.

The Trivial Pursuit Hotel was shortlisted at the 2021 Cannes Lions in Brand Experience & Activation and won a Silver and a Bronze Lion, and it became one of the most-talked Russian creative cases that year. Hasbro and Leo Burnett Moscow built several other experience-led game campaigns afterwards.