United’s Retro Revive is a traveling advertising campaign for people to earn United Airlines points while enjoying retro video games and drinking craft beer. The campaign is designed using 8-bit images while keeping within a simplified color palette based off of CMYK. The imagery is meant to hint at the retro aspect of the bar arcades while touching on modern design concepts. 

United’s Retro Revive started as an advertising campaign to bring people to Chicago for some of the less tourist heavy attractions. The purpose of the campaign was to inspire people to fly United Airlines to Chicago. After researching some of the surrounding areas to the Loop, my research group noted that bar arcades have become quite the popular attraction. Continuing the research we discovered that bar arcades were not only popular in Chicago but also in other major cities. It was with that knowledge that United’s Retro Revive was born.

This campaign focuses around the traveling Retro Revive event. The event is created for people ages 21 to mid forties. The younger half of this target audience is drawn by the resurgence of popularity in retro gaming while the older half is drawn by the nostalgia. To enter the event one could either buy a pamphlet that includes a temporary points card and a bar arcade passport or they can enter free with their United Airlines tickets. 

The temporary points card works off of the existing United Airlines points system. The patron can either use their existing card for the event or the temporary points card if they are not a member of the United Airlines rewards programs. Upon receiving their card they would download the Retro Revive app and enter their information. The app allows the patron to see their points at all times as well as get information about the events and play games. Five points are earned for every dollar spent at a participating bar arcade as well as in the tournaments held on weekends. 

The passport is used to keep track of all of the bar arcades the patron visits. The more bar arcades they visit, the more points they earn. If a patron visits all of the bar arcades in a single city they also win a special prize. 

Each month the campaign would travel to a different city with the idea that the participating patron would use the points they earned towards their next trip. By picking major cities and giving patrons the possibility of buying into the event we didn’t limit our target audience to those who are already United Airlines patrons.