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01 . The Challenge

A browser-based interactive advertising experience that turns a familiar claw machine game into a playful brand engagement tool, encouraging users to interact, discover prizes and continue to the campaign landing page.

The Google Interactive Display Ads – Claw Machine project reimagines a standard display advertisement as a short, playable experience. Instead of viewing a static banner, users can control a virtual claw, position it above a prize and attempt to collect an item. The experience combines 3D product presentation, simple game mechanics and campaign messaging within a compact advertising format. Brand assets, prizes and calls to action can be adapted for different promotional campaigns, product launches and seasonal activations. Designed for desktop and mobile browsers, the experience provides immediate interaction without requiring an app download. It creates a stronger connection between advertising content and user action while giving the sales and marketing teams a more distinctive digital advertising solution.

Capturing Attention Quickly
Display advertising has only a short period to attract users before they continue browsing.
Creating Intuitive Gameplay
The claw controls needed to be immediately understandable without lengthy instructions or onboarding.
Balancing Gameplay and Brand Messaging
The experience had to remain entertaining while keeping the promoted product, campaign message and call to action visible.
Maintaining Lightweight Performance
3D models, animation, textures and interaction needed to load efficiently within a browser-based advertising environment.
Supporting Different Devices
Mouse, touch and responsive layouts required consistent behaviour across desktop, tablet and mobile screens.
Managing a Short Interaction Journey
The game needed to deliver a satisfying experience within a limited time and guide users naturally towards the campaign destination.
Measuring Meaningful Engagement
The project needed to track interactions beyond impressions, including game starts, claw movements, prize attempts, successful grabs and call-to-action clicks.

02 . The Solution

We created a lightweight browser-based 3D claw machine experience with clear controls, immediate visual feedback and a short interaction loop. Users can move the claw, select a position and trigger the grabbing action. Animated claw movement, opening and closing mechanisms, prize reactions and result states make the interaction easy to understand and enjoyable to complete. Campaign products are presented as collectible prizes inside the machine, allowing the brand message to become part of the gameplay rather than a separate advertising layer. A prominent call to action appears at key moments, including before gameplay, after an attempt and following a successful result. The experience was designed with optimised 3D assets, responsive controls and simplified effects to support smoother performance across devices. Interaction events can also be connected to campaign analytics, helping teams evaluate how users move from impression to play and from play to conversion.

Google Interactive Display Ads – Claw Machine Experience Demo

Run the interactive HTML5 demo below

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Press Run Demo to start the claw machine experience.

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