Experts reveal the 10 biggest experiential marketing trends for 2018

Ankur Kalra

CEO at Vibgyor Brand Services Pvt. Ltd.

1. Personalization: As our industry learns how to use data smartly we are able to create personalized engagements for individuals which would be highly targeted and specific in nature; the era of random shooting is over. I do believe that brands and agencies who create content and engagements which touch, move and inspire individuals would be better suited to succeed in the time to come. 

2. Convergence of real and virtual experiences: Various technologies are being used today to converge digital, social and real experiences in our industry. This trend would become the norm requiring each and every engagement to provide an integration of technologies such as AI, VR, AR etc. 

Siddharth Ganeriwala

Founder at AURA Integrated Solutions

3. Crowdshaping: Crowdshaping, which means moving attendees into specific areas or experiences, is a subtle accent but extremely impactful and can be easily achieved by real-time data analysis, using smartphones and wearable technologies.

 4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Chatbots: These would be used to customize communication for an immediate answer to queries and AI will cut across a large spectrum ranging from registration assistance to a virtual concierge.

Atul Nath

MD at Candid Marketing Pvt. Ltd.

5. Data-driven EM & Activation: 2018 will be the year of data-driven experiential marketing and activation where brands will employ data mining extensively .

6. Integration of mobile & Technology: A clear and decisive move towards integrating mobile and technology into experiential marketing and activation appears to be a solid trend. Standalone experiential marketing will continue to decline.

Khantil Mehta

Director at Go Bananas

7. Innovation in IP segment: With sustainable event IPs emerging, more evolved experiential content will be created across all genres (sports, retail, music, fashion, summits etc)

8. Budget Allocation: Tremendous thrust in media planning towards events or experiential formats shall be seen in budget allocations with extreme detailing and focus on Return on Investment (ROI) and measurement tools.

Oum Pradutt

Founder & MD of Phase1 Events and Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.

9. Digital VS Physical: The convergence of experiential with digital footprints, will be one of the most embraced trends in the year 2018. People would get to witness ‘Phygital’ experiences in the events this year.

10. Augmented Reality (AR): We have seen the use of AR in bigger events before, but this year even smaller events would be seen experimenting with AR to engage with its audience more personally.