Viacom 18 Consumer Products, the consumer products arm of Viacom 18 has recently expanded the popular youth brand MTV from the broadcasting space to an on-ground experience in the form of a first of its kind MTV themed café- FLYP@MTV.
Scheduled to open its doors on December 24th 2015, FLYP@MTV is not just another conventional jazzy hangout place catering to the youngsters. Instead, the place is drenched in the vibrant flavors of MTV and offers a plethora of options for its consumers to engage with MTV as a brand better than ever before.
From an immersive MTV museum where consumers can view the channels archive content via oculus and controllers to an exclusive menu created by celebrity chef Ranveer Brar and from allowing consumers to pull off a ‘MTV Bakra’ on their friends to a live talent room for budding musicians, FLYP@MTV offers these facilities and so much more that too in a finite space.
Everything Experiential reached out to Saugato Bhowmik, Senior VP, Consumer Products, Viacom 18 Media on the overall concept of creating the experiential restaurant and how does the brand MTV benefits from it.
“The entire idea of creating FLYP@MTV was to create an experiential space where the youth of the country can come in and experience of DNA of MTV. The fun, quirkiness, boldness, attitude, stature, the overall ethos of MTV is something that we want to put out to our TG and that too in a format that they do not get bored with. Basically FLYP@MTV is an extension of MTV’s philosophy to kill boring. The youth gets bored very easily today and it is important as a brand for us to keep them engaged and connected with us through different offerings“-says Bhowmik elucidating on how the concept of the café was born.
Adding further he says, “The youth today begins their day by going to college or offices and when they come back they either go to a place to simply unwind and chill with different sets of people. We have created a space like this only for targeting the youth as FLYP@MTV is a professional working place by the day and this same space will transform into a happening party place at night. At this very place the youth can come in and start their work while loading up on complementary coffee, they can also customize their drinks by choosing the ingredients from our own herb garden here, if they are looking for a slight entertainment between work hours they can head over to the entertainment section where we will play various genres of music that MTV is famous for, they can grab a drink with their clients as well at the bar section and when they are done working they can change by renting one of our lockers and join the party as we have live band performances, DJ’s, multiple themed parties every evening. So it’s a diverse set of experiences that we are offering to our TG with the concept of FLYP@MTV as we at MTV understand that the youth today is vibrant and loves to flip.
FLYP@MTV also promises to be an ultimate engagement and connecting platform for its consumers as well. Bhowmik also states that all tables at the café will have a tablet for the consumers through which they will be able to check the different kinds of people in café as the same time as them and connect with them by sending a request on tablet first and upon acceptance meeting them in person next. Additionally, this experiential space by MTV promises to be a learning hub for its consumers as well, allowing them to attend art, modelling, music and other workshops organized by the brand without any extra charges.
When asked how many FLYP@MTV does the brand MTV plans to open by next year? Bhowmik responds by saying, “So FLYP@MTV in Delhi is the only café we are opening this year but plans next year are open in Bangalore and Mumbai next. We are going to cities like Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and even Jaipur too but we have not yet figured out the sequence. Plans are to have at least 10 cafes in the next 5 years.
Bhowmik also assures that since the audience for the café is aged between 20-35 years, FLYP@MTV is reasonably priced as the main aim of brand MTV with the experiential café is to engage with its consumers better rather than only churning out profitable numbers.
FLYP@MTV has developed by Viacom 18 in association with Funbars Hospitality Pvt. Ltd and is situated at N Block in Connaught Place in Delhi.
