Toy-Sized Pop Ups Surprise Fans at Detroit Auto Show

CarBravo and its agency, MRM Detroit, are back at it again with a creative commerce play that puts some personality and fun back in the car shopping experience.

During the upcoming 2025 auto show in Detroit, CarBravo will blanket Downtown Detroit – and specifically outside Huntington Place Convention Centre – with 1,000-plus toy-sized pop-up shops. This guerilla-style campaign uses tiny cars to promote big savings by redirecting some attention from inside the traditional showroom to highlighting affordable – but still awesome – used vehicles from CarBravo.

This unique activation is in some ways a creative extension of CarBravo’s Cannes Lion-winning commerce play from 2024. In that award-winning campaign, Car Bravo acquired highly-inflated, used Barbie toy cars (because of the Barbie mania at the time) and sold them at fair and honest prices - just like the full-sized vehicles on their site.

This year, CarBravo and MRM Detroit are using 1:64 scale, toy-sized cars, SUVs, and trucks all perfectly presented as a 'pop-up shop' with a special QR code. When scanned, the code directs auto show enthusiasts to begin searching for their desired vehicle type at metro Detroit-area CarBravo dealers.

Launched in 2022, CarBravo was created by GM to help reinvigorate and elevate the entire used-car experience. Consumers can choose from a wide array of different makes and models with the peace of mind of a GM-backed certification. Consumers can shop online, in-person, or any combo of the two along their journey.

The first phase of the pop-up campaign is set to go live on January 11th. Approximately 800,000 people attend auto show in Detroit annually.

Steve Wineman, marketing and advertising manager, GM’s CarBravo said, “CarBravo is all about delivering a unique used car experience, and getting our message out via a thousand toy cars during Detroit’s biggest auto week is definitely unique. It’s a fun, playful way to tell our story, sell some cars and help everyone feel the usedphoria.”

Jeff Cruz, chief creative officer, MRM Detroit said, “CarBravo is all about a fun and positive shopping experience, so of course a thousand toy-sized pop-up shops serving as a smile-inducing invitation into our commerce site seemed right on brand.”