CarBravo blanketed the Detroit Auto Show with 1,000 toy-sized pop-up shops

Launched in 2022 by GM to reinvigorate the used-car experience, CarBravo needed to stand out during the Detroit Auto Show — a roughly 800,000-attendee week dominated by shiny new metal — while pushing affordable used vehicles.

Miniature retail: 1,000-plus 1:64 toy cars as pop-up shops, each QR code opening a search for real vehicles at metro Detroit CarBravo dealers.

The pop-ups blanketed downtown Detroit and the area outside Huntington Place Convention Centre from 11 January 2025; scanning a code sent auto-show crowds straight into searching for their desired vehicle type at area dealers.

No results figures were reported at launch. The activation aimed to redirect attention from showroom new metal to CarBravo's 'affordable – but still awesome' used vehicles and put auto-show crowds into its shopping funnel.

For the 2025 Detroit Auto Show, CarBravo — GM's used-car platform, launched in 2022 to reinvigorate and elevate the used-car experience with GM-backed certification — and agency MRM Detroit blanketed downtown Detroit with more than 1,000 toy-sized pop-up shops.

The 1:64-scale toy cars, SUVs and trucks were each 'perfectly presented as a pop-up shop' with a special QR code. Scanning it directed auto-show enthusiasts to begin searching for their desired vehicle type at metro Detroit-area CarBravo dealers — a guerrilla-style redirection of attention from the show's new-car glamour to CarBravo's affordable used vehicles.

The first phase went live on 11 January 2025, in front of an auto-show audience of approximately 800,000 people a year. Steve Wineman, marketing and advertising manager for GM's CarBravo, called a thousand toy cars during Detroit's biggest auto week 'definitely unique' — 'a fun, playful way to tell our story, sell some cars and help everyone feel the usedphoria'.

The activation extended the brand's Cannes Lion-winning 2024 commerce play, in which CarBravo bought up inflated Barbie toy cars during Barbie mania and resold them at fair, honest prices — the same personality, pointed this year at distribution rather than resale.

The QR code turns a collectible into a storefront, collapsing the distance between a smile and a dealer search.

Placing tiny shops outside the convention centre ambushes the show floor's scale with the opposite strategy.

It proves 2024's Barbie stunt was a platform, not a one-off — the sequel moved from pricing theatre to lead generation.

Shrink your retail footprint to toy size and the gesture becomes a keepsake: the smallest shop in town can carry the biggest inventory, one scan away.

The first phase launched on 11 January 2025 across downtown Detroit; LBB reported no performance figures at launch.