THE TOOL SHAQ
A SHAQ-sized fan experience for Final Four.
In 2024 & 2025, The Home Depot wanted to make a splash as NCAA Tournament partners - so we went big… SHAQ BIG.
To bring the “Tips from The ToolShaq” campaign to life at NCAA Final Four, I was tasked with creating an actual “Tool Shaq” for fans and filling it with interactions that leaned into the punny campaign while giving Home Improvement tips through a basketball lens.
Role: Experiential Concept & Creative Direction, Copywriting
How to Seed a Bracket
Center to the experience was the world’s first “living bracket” - a photo backdrop recreating the tournament bracket using team colored live roses, over 4,000 in total.
Talent Holograms
Fans were met by holograms of Shaq and Sabrina at their true heights. We scripted and shot this content so that Shaq and Sabrina would actually interact with each other - passing the ball back and forth & practicing free throws with each other.
The “Court Yard”
To integrate our newset ambassador, Sabrina Ionescu, we created a seperate space called “The Court Yard” - a living basketball court where fans could play “Spread The Floor”, a shooting game featuring a giant Scott’s Seed Spreader that rebounded and shot basketballs back to fans.
The Big Dance Off
You can’t bring Shaq to The Big Dance and not have a dance off. Using “Pose with the Pros” technology, we let fans test their dance skills against Shaq to receive a shareable video of their dance off.
SHAQ-A-MOLE
The Home Depot wanted to feature a game that incorporated lawn care and was simple enough for fans of all ages, so we created Shaq-A-Mole - tweaking the classic game to educate fans on lawn defense against pests and weeds.
How to Work The Paint
Fan Fest’s core audience is families, so we wanted to include a space where kids an parents could sit down for a few minutes and create together. Fans were given a wooden court replica that they could “design” and scan for a shareable video of it being “painted” by an animated paintbrush.
