Jägermeister Claw Machine - Creating A Grabbable Experience

The Brief

Our client, Jägermeister, asked us for a hook for the experiential bar they had created at Printworks, London. Printworks is one of London's biggest venues, with many brands creating eye-catching, attention-grabbing experiences, so, as with all of the beverage industry, the competition is fierce.

Our Attention-Grabbing Solution

After brainstorming with Jägermeister's marketing team, we decided an arcade game would work best. Customers entering the Jägermeister bar area would walk straight past it, and it would immediately grab their attention (pun intended). Instructions on the machine explained how to get a token: buy a drink at the bar.

We chose a classic claw grabber machine. These games have lots of lights and music and are very attention-grabbing.

The challenge was to source a brand new claw machine, print and wrap it in high-quality vinyl, source tokens and something for the claw to grab, then deliver it to Printworks and install it in the bar area, all within 7 days. To make it a stand-out piece that blended into the experience, our graphic design team also created a unique design for the vinyl wrap.

Our creative team worked on the design while our operations team sourced the machine, organised getting it to our vinyl printing workshop and on to the venue, and sourced tokens that worked in the machine.

We found a UK manufacturer for the machine we wanted and had it delivered to our vinyl workshop. To keep the prizes simple, we used ball pit balls in Jägermeister's colours: gold, forest green and neon orange.

Once the client signed off the design, we printed the custom large-format vinyl sheets. The outside of the machine was fully wrapped in our custom-printed design, and the entire inside was wrapped in the frosted forest-green texture most associated with the brand.

To keep the machine hard-wearing and the branding intact, the vinyl was laminated with a floor laminate. It gives the surface a rough texture, so it can survive knocks, rubbing and spilt drinks for years to come.

The mechanic had to be kept simple:

1. Buy a drink at the bar and get a token from the bartender.
2. Use your token to play the branded claw machine.
3. Grab a ball with the claw and hand it to the bar.
4. Catch a gold ball and you win a prize!

Risks And How We Overcame Them

We knew from the start that we were essentially providing a game of chance, and the UK has strict gambling laws around this kind of game. To stay clear of them, we removed the machine's difficulty module, making it a simple game of skill.

The next issue was that, with the right skill, the game could be too easy, meaning too many prizes and a direct cost to Jägermeister, who were providing them. So only gold balls won, and we limited how many gold balls went in the machine. The rules were printed on window vinyl and applied to the front window of the machine during installation.

Finally, the venue could not allow the prize to be a free drink or shot. That would undercut bar sales and create a risk for customers, and there are strict guidelines in place about alcohol sales. Instead, the prizes were items from the online Jäger shop and other giveaways, such as branded lanyards, branded phone cases (which we supplied), branded hats and branded power banks.

Future Developments

To develop the experience further, we would like to create bespoke branded tokens. They would need to fit the machine's slot exactly and would mean reconfiguring its coin mechanism, but they would give customers a fully branded experience from start to finish.

From buying a drink in a printed paper cup, to playing with a custom token, to grabbing a brand-coloured ball from the vinyl-wrapped machine and collecting a branded prize, the experience would be complete from beginning to end.

We have done a lot of vinyl work for Jägermeister and many other brands over the years, often for unusual projects, and we continue to take on this kind of work regularly.