Puppy
Bowl
XXII

Animal Planet came to MAP360 with a brief that was simple on its surface and genuinely tricky underneath: set up a puppy adoption event at JFK Airport tied to the Puppy Bowl XXII broadcast. The goal was to drive awareness for the show, create a shareable moment in one of the highest-traffic transit environments in the country, and, if everything went right, send some dogs home with new families.

An airport terminal is not a hospitable environment for an adoption event. It is loud, transient, stressful, and full of people who are already late for something. The design challenge was not just branding, it was permission. Permission for people to stop. To sit down. To let their guard drop long enough to interact with a puppy and maybe make a life-changing decision.

The production pipeline for this project reflects how MAP360 approaches experiential concepting in 2026. Rather than spending days in Photoshop before we knew the client was aligned on direction, we used AI visualization to get to a shared creative vision fast, then tightened into production-ready comps once the concept was approved.

The footprint was built around a single anchoring element: a deep terracotta back wall carrying the Puppy Bowl XXII logo and broadcast details above a large TV playing the show on loop. A rustic wooden credenza below the screen doubled as a crate, keeping the dog-friendly function of the furniture visible but warm rather than clinical.

In front of the wall, the furniture arrangement was deliberately residential. A caramel leather sofa, wooden armchairs with cushioned seats, a coffee table, and a Persian rug over artificial grass. Framed portraits of dogs hung on the wall like family photos. The effect was immediate and intentional: this does not look like an airport activation. It looks like somewhere you would actually want to spend time.

The enclosure was bounded by a low white picket fence, which reinforced the domestic reading while keeping the space defined and the puppies contained. On the reverse of the back wall, a large-scale key art placement functioned as a billboard for anyone moving through the terminal without entering the space, ensuring the installation worked from every direction.

Furniture selection was a genuine collaboration: producers Jason Klein and Harris Freeman sourced options within the budget, and I made the final call on what came together as a coherent, liveable whole.

The space worked because the concept was right. Travelers who would never have stopped at a conventional brand activation sat down on the sofa, picked up a puppy, and stayed. The combination of a familiar domestic environment, live animals, and a television playing exactly what the space was promoting created a self-contained experience that needed no explanation and no hard sell.

Sometimes the most effective experiential design is the kind that makes people forget they are standing in an airport.