Mastercard — Tap, Pass & Play

Mastercard Turkey wanted to show how contactless payment touches every moment of daily life. For Istanbulites, the most everyday moment is public transit: millions of card taps a day, turnstiles, the next stop. Turning the most mundane moment of contactless payment into the most fun — that was the brief.

McCann Istanbul's creative idea was clear: transform the card-tap into the start of a game. The commuter would tap, pass, and play. But this couldn't be an ordinary screen game — it had to be real-time, social and shareable.

Waiting at a transit stop is the city's emptiest time. You look at your phone, put in your earbuds, ignore everyone around you. Everyone is in the same place but no one is together.

Yet a game can turn strangers into teammates in 30 seconds. You laugh together, shout, cheer — then carry on. Building real-time social interaction in a physical space through a digital interface: the exact territory outdoor media has never entered.

With Maybelline Press & Play we had turned a billboard into a game screen. But that experience was single-player — you play, others watch. For Mastercard we added the missing piece: your opponent is playing too.

Bringing McCann Istanbul's "card tap = game start" concept to life meant building on the foundation we laid with Maybelline Press & Play. But this time it wasn't single-player: we needed to match two strangers in real time and have them play against each other — something no outdoor activation in Turkey had ever done.

Scope

• Realtime matchmaking engine: instant pairing of two card-tapping players
• WebGL-based PvP football game: phone = controller, giant screen = arena
• Giant interactive screen installations at 4 locations (Istanbul transit hubs)
• Low-latency bidirectional communication (phone → server → screen, both players in sync)
• On-site team: player guidance, technical support, daily operations

Team

• Project Management & Experience Design: Atilla Baybara
• Technology Development: Utku Olcar
• Client Relations: Şaban Yılmaz
• Operations: Yiğit Sarı
• + Game development, backend and on-site installation team

• 45 million+ social media reach. The campaign went beyond Istanbul and became a national conversation.
• Turkey's first realtime-matched outdoor gaming activation. Two strangers, one card tap, one football match — never done before.
• Tens of thousands of interactions. Commuters started coming to the stop to play.
• Sustainability integration. Trees planted for every player made the brand message tangible.
• Evolution of Maybelline Press & Play technology. From single-player billboard game to real-time PvP — same foundation, new level.