The Irish playwright and critic, George Bernard Shaw, once said, ‘we don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.’ And, he’s right, joy doesn’t disappear when we grow up, we just learn to put it away. Somewhere along the line, fun starts to feel frivolous, like a toy left on a shelf in Andy’s room. 

Society teaches us that play is something you grow out of and pack away with the rest of your childhood. I learned this the hard way, having once been booted from a bouncy castle for being “too old”. At the time, I played it cool, but the moment stuck. When did fun start requiring an age check?

Play is serious business 

While today’s hustle culture pushes us to grow up and get serious, science tells a different story. Play isn’t just a nice to have; it’s essential. According to the National Institute for Play, it can boost creativity, reduce stress, and even slow memory loss in adults. It’s a vital tool for wellbeing and creativity and a form of exploration that traditional wellness often overlooks. 

Brands can learn from this too. Take the Bank of England's initiative, where they invited young people to pitch ideas for new bank note designs. Thousands of responses poured in, proving that imagination and creativity still matters in branding, even in today’s AI world. As Buzz Lightyear put it, exploration can take you to infinity and beyond - not just when it comes to discovering a product, but also in reconnecting with parts of yourself. 

Reimagining the daily grind

I’ve always imagined what life would be like if play became as ritualistic as our morning coffee or our daily doomscroll. What if we bounced our way through inflatable castle entrances, instead of shuffling through revolving doors? What if we slid our way down slides, instead of trawling down flights of stairs? What would a world look like if we actually gave ourselves permission to feel boundless joy - to press pause on being serious, and hit play instead?

These are questions we ask ourselves when we are asked to design for brands. We always want to look at how we can make people feel and create that lasting impression. Above all else, we want to offer immersive experiences that stick with people. Experiences rooted in stories, connections and micro-rituals that stay with audiences even after they’ve left - just like as a child you’d replay fun memories over and over again way after they’d ended. The ultimate goal? To shift mindsets, not just moods.

Some brands are already levelling up 

It’s not just me on this mission; plenty of brands are already baking play into their DNA and building it brick by brick. Take the LEGO House in Denmark, for example. It’s not just for kids clutching minifigures. It’s a space where people of all ages can get hands-on, curious and build without feeling ‘too old’. It's tactile, open-ended and rooted in the deep human urge to make something just for the fun of it. That’s creative marketing genius. 

Then there’s IKEA, the flat-pack furniture giant that once hosted a massive hide-and-seek game in one of its Belgium stores back in 2014. Suddenly, shopping became a shared adventure. A playground of pillow forts, curtain caves and football-filled bins. It’s no wonder that it led to thousands of people attempting to recreate the game in IKEA stores worldwide - turns out, when you give people a taste of Neverland - people really just keep playing. 

Brands could be doing more

Undeniably, brands should be doing more to tap into the power of play. It doesn’t have to involve big, elaborate displays or huge investments either. Play is already wired into us. You’re not teaching people something new, you’re unlocking something they’ve forgotten.  As long as brands lead with experiences centred around wonder, the act of play will follow. People remember how you made them feel, and they’ll keep coming back to the brand that gave them permission to feel that way.

Because play is never just play, It’s the spark that brings people together, the thread that connects us to who we used to be,and who we could still become. The brands of tomorrow will be the ones winning hearts by making space for joy today. Because once you’ve felt that spark again, you wouldn’t want to let it go, and the secret might just be to just keep playing.