The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025
Deutsche Telekom turns Hamburg's model world into a climate simulator — Epica Grand Prix
Visitors raise the temperature on iPads and watch Venice sink and Neuschwanstein burn inside Miniatur Wunderland — Epica 2025 Responsibility Grand Prix.
Deutsche Telekom · Grabarz & Partner · Miniatur Wunderland (Hamburg)
What it had to solve
Deutsche Telekom, whose sustainability work sits under its 'Green Magenta' label, wanted to make the consequences of global warming tangible. The obvious route — rational arguments and data — had not worked, so Grabarz & Partner proposed maximum emotion inside Miniatur Wunderland, Hamburg's beloved 16,000-metre model railway.
How it works
In March 2025, Deutsche Telekom and agency Grabarz & Partner turned Hamburg's Miniatur Wunderland — the world's largest model railway, with more than 16,000 metres of track — into a climate warning. Visitors held iPads over the famous dioramas and, using an AR app built by Curious Company, could raise a simulated global temperature by two or five degrees.
As the slider moved, the models transformed: Venice sank beneath rising water, a castle was consumed by flames, Monaco was battered by a hurricane, and the forest around Neuschwanstein caught fire. The digital destruction was overlaid on the real exhibits with 3D tracking, and scenes had to be repainted by hand in digital form so the effects matched the actual miniature world perfectly.
Four areas were chosen to dramatize different climate impacts, and scientists from the German Climate Research Institute, including leading climate researcher Mojib Latif, joined to guarantee the science. The project required convincing Miniatur Wunderland's founders to host it for a week; Grabarz & Partner told them honestly that the installation would bring no extra visitors or money — only a chance to do something good for the future.
Roughly 30,000 visitors experienced the installation during that week, while a campaign film shot in the museum and an online version let people trigger the same two- and five-degree scenarios at home. In December 2025 the work was named the Epica Awards Responsibility Grand Prix, jointly with AXA's 'Three Words'.
Why it lands
- It made climate data physical: visitors did not hear about degrees of warming, they turned a dial and watched a place they loved die.
- Borrowing Miniatur Wunderland's craftsmanship gave the message credibility and scale no fabricated set could match.
- Putting the control in the visitor's hand made the catastrophe feel self-caused and therefore personal, not distant or political.
- For Deutsche Telekom, the campaign matched its 'Green Magenta' sustainability record, so the brand was not lecturing from a position of weakness.
What it did
Around 30,000 visitors experienced the installation during its week in the museum, with a press conference held inside the operating attraction; the film and website spread the story nationally and internationally. The work won the Epica 2025 Responsibility Grand Prix, shared with AXA's 'Three Words'.
What you can take
To make abstract risk feel real, borrow a beloved place people already know, and let them pull the lever themselves: controlling the damage makes the danger feel personal instead of preached.
Since then
After the week-long run ended on March 30, 2025, the campaign film and interactive website kept the experience alive, and the installation collected industry recognition including the Epica 2025 Responsibility Grand Prix. Deutsche Telekom framed the work as part of its group-wide climate program; Grabarz & Partner described the pitch to the museum as proof that purpose-driven work can be built on honesty — 'the only thing you get out of it is doing something good.'
Sources
- Responsibility Grand Prix: A model evocation of climate disaster
- Miniatur Wunderland: Mit AR in die Klimakatastrophe
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