Mercedes Tourismo Live Painter
We turned a B2B fair into a sales floor — by turning a bus into a canvas.
MERCEDES-BENZ TÜRKİYE · OCTOBER 2014
Brief
2014, Istanbul Tüyap, Busworld Türkiye. The hall was packed — every European bus manufacturer lined up side by side, all polished, all gleaming, all looking nearly the same. Mercedes-Benz Türkiye's Tourismo was right there with them.
The brief was sharp: across the four-day fair, Mercedes' stand wasn't just supposed to be the most-watched one — it was supposed to be the one that changed the most decisions. Because Busworld isn't a showcase. It's a B2B buying floor — travel companies don't come to look, they come to commit.
Event agency Capital Events brought us in: they needed an activation that would hold attention across four days. We split our answer in two — one side for everyone walking by, the other side reserved for the people sitting at the negotiation table.
“A purchase decision isn't made on the contract — it's made the moment the buyer feels "this is already my bus."”
Insight
The default thinking at B2B fairs goes: get attention, draw a crowd, hand out brochures, convince the buyer with product specs. All true, all also exactly what the other 30 stands in the hall are doing.
The real question was different: can we make the decision maker feel something even while they're still sitting at the negotiation table? When a travel-company owner sits down at Mercedes' desk to talk about an order, while the contract details are being discussed, what if something is changing outside — what if their own logo, their own colors, their own name are slowly appearing on a Mercedes Tourismo? The moment they stand up and walk out, what they meet isn't a bus. It's a preview of the bus that could already be in their fleet.
That moment isn't about which sentence closed the sale. It's about a buyer experiencing the feeling of ownership for free, before they've signed anything.
The Idea
We built a large art zone at the center of the Mercedes-Benz Türkiye stand. In the middle of it, deliberately set apart from the color circus of the fair, stood a single white Tourismo.
First audience: everyone walking through the hall. A visitor stepped up to a touchscreen kiosk and drew anything they wanted. Their drawing was instantly projection-mapped onto the side of the Tourismo — there was a millisecond-thin link between the pen in the visitor's hand and the color appearing on the bus. Their work was printed, dropped to their phone, shared on social media.
Second audience: travel companies in the meeting room. This was the heart of it. The Mercedes-Benz Türkiye sales team brought every prospective buyer onto the stand. The moment a customer sat down for the negotiation, outside, our artists began live-painting the customer's logo, their corporate colors — sometimes even their fleet numbers — onto the Tourismo. When the meeting ended and the buyer walked back into the hall, what they saw was "their" bus.
This did what no "custom color options available" line in a brochure could ever do: it made the buyer feel ownership of the product before the contract was signed.
A White Tourismo Canvas
We built a dedicated art zone at the center of the stand and placed a Tourismo, painted pure white, in the middle of it. Stripped from the color noise of the fair, the empty canvas pulled every passing eye.
Touchscreen Drawing Kiosks
A visitor drew whatever they wanted on the kiosk. Their drawing was instantly projection-mapped onto the body of the Tourismo, printed, and sent to their phone as a digital file.
Live Design During Negotiations
This is where the real work happened. While travel-company buyers sat at the negotiation table with the sales team, our artists were live-painting the Tourismo with the buyer's logo, colors and identity in real time.
The Walk-Out Moment
The instant the customer walked out of the meeting and stepped into the hall, what they faced wasn't a generic white Tourismo anymore — it was "their" bus. The feeling of ownership began before any contract was signed.
Execution
Live Painter is a format Harikalar developed in-house — we built the kiosks, the projection mapping software and the print + digital share infrastructure ourselves. The Mercedes Tourismo became the canvas this time around, but the real strength of the format is that it serves two different audiences on the same surface, at the same time.
Scope
- Art zone design inside the stand — lighting and layout to isolate the white Tourismo
- Touchscreen drawing kiosks + custom Live Painter software
- High-lumen projection mapping onto the bus body
- Instant printing and digital sharing system — Mercedes-branded frame
- Dedicated live-painting operation for prospective buyers — custom logo and color prep for each company
- 4 days of live artist crew + technical ops
Team
- Project Lead & Concept: Atilla Baybara
- Technology Development: Utku Olcar
- Operations: Yiğit Sarı
- Client Relations: Şaban Yılmaz
- + Live Painter artists, projection and technical install team
Results
- 1,600 visitors painted the Tourismo across 4 days — every drawing was printed and shared digitally
- The stand became the most-talked-about area at Busworld Türkiye 2014 — the live painting on the bus was visible from every corner of the hall
- The Mercedes-Benz Türkiye sales team's strongest opening tool — travel companies in the meeting room walked back out into the hall to find a Tourismo dressed in their own logos
- A B2B activation that directly shifted purchase decisions — the only format that gave a buyer the feeling of ownership before the contract was signed
- The first major B2B deployment of Live Painter — this project became the proving ground for every later use of the format
- Client
- Mercedes-Benz Türkiye
- Event
- Busworld Türkiye 2014
- Date
- 2014
- Location
- İstanbul Tüyap Fuar Merkezi
- Duration
- 4 gün
- Event Agency
- Capital Events
- Concept & Production
- Harikalar
- Project Lead
- Atilla Baybara
- Technology
- Utku Olcar
- Client Relations
- Şaban Yılmaz
- Operations
- Yiğit Sarı
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