Chicago Children's Museum : Mister Imagine's Toy Store

Cancel your trip to Best Buy for your kids' Xmas gifts and watch this instead for a dose of inspiration. Energy BBDO and Xi (formerly Proximity) created a temporary, pop-up store to promote the Children's Museum's "Unboxed" exhibit. They tantalized kids with news of the opening of a wonderful toy store -- but when the store opened, all they had to play with were cardboard boxes.

The Caine's Arcade-esque store featured a music area, birdhouses, hot air balloons and even a giant castle, all made out of cardboard. The store also hosted workshops on how cardboard could be used to create cool things. There was even an augmented reality station where kids could hold up their boxes for some ideas on what kind of toy that box could become, with a little effort.