We Integrate Technology Into Experiential Campaigns, Targeting The Youth: Tao Zhang, realme India

One of the fastest-growing smartphone brands in India, realme has been making waves with its series of launch events aimed at introducing innovative devices to the market. In the past three months, the brand has organised three launch events, unveiling its premium realme 12 Pro series, the mid-range realme 12 series and the budget-friendly realme Narzo 70 Pro 5G.

For its fourth launch event of the year, scheduled for April 2, realme will be unveiling realme 12X 5G smartphone.

To shed light on the role of experiential marketing in driving brand awareness and customer engagement, Everything Experiential had an exclusive conversation with Tao Zhang, Chief Marketing Officer at realme India.

Excerpts: 

What is realme's approach to experiential marketing and how did they contribute to brand awareness and customer engagement? 

realme encourages experiential marketing, rooted in its commitment to user engagement. In an era where brands failing to adopt this approach risk lagging behind competitors, we thrive by embracing digital collaborations with virtual influencers like ‘Kyra’. Despite concerns over deepfake media, we remain dedicated to leveraging AI marketing for authentic consumer experiences. The brand's strong fan base, nurtured through extensive offline and online engagements, underscores the success of its experiential initiatives. 

Our experiential marketing encompasses various tactics such as pop-up shops, virtual events, parties and interactive installations. The multifaceted approach is to create immersive brand experiences and drive customer interaction.

realme often hosts live events and product launches. How does the brand use these opportunities to create immersive experiences for attendees and online audiences?

Events and product launches are great platforms for engagement with our fans and user base. These are immersive experiences for the attendees because they are larger than life, fun, real and therefore up close and personal for our fans attending them. 

We leverage live events and product launches as opportunities to create immersive experiences for both attendees and online audiences. We strategically build anticipation and excitement, setting expectations for what's to come. During the events themselves, we go above and beyond to exceed these expectations, delivering surprises and ‘wow’ moments that leave a lasting impression on consumers.

These events serve as catalysts for ongoing engagement and conversation, ensuring that consumers continue to think about and talk about realme long after the event has ended.

With realme being a tech-oriented brand, how do you integrate technology into experiential campaigns to enhance engagement and interaction?

We integrate technology into experiential campaigns, targeting the younger generation, by partnering with virtual influencers like Kyra. This aligns with our ‘Make it real’ motto, resonating with India's tech-savvy next-gen and amplifying brand engagement. While leveraging AI marketing, we remain vigilant about potential downsides like deepfake media, prioritising authenticity and trust in our interactions.

How does realme personalise experiential marketing initiatives to cater to diverse audience segments and create meaningful, individualised brand experiences?

It is important to personalise marketing initiatives and engagement with our fans and user base. We do this both through live, meet-and-greet sessions where users and fans meet with the realme team. We also do this online on social media and through live streaming of events where our users can reach out directly. We host contests and quizzes that our fans participate in and win exciting prizes. So, the engagement is real, experiential and also tangible.

What are some of the challenges realme has encountered in implementing experiential marketing, and how has the brand overcome these obstacles to deliver successful campaigns?

The only challenge that we have encountered is the need to increase our engagement and reach out to a larger community of users and fans. While in-person events can accommodate only so many people, we find live-streaming and social media engagement very effective and rewarding.

Increasingly, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) technologies are redefining experiential marketing by allowing brands to engage with consumers and fans in a manner that overlays digital information on the real world or blends physical and digital elements seamlessly. Live events and social media engagement cannot replicate this. At realme, this is not something that we have embraced just yet but we’re very open to new ideas.