Author
With an extensive experience in the study of experiential and event marketing, Yamini Singh currently drives the editorial for BW APPLAUSE and Everything Experiential as its Executive Editor.
Acclaimed as the ‘Paulo Coelho of the East’ by Businessworld, the best selling Indian author by NDTV and amongst the 100 most influential Indians three times in a row by Forbes, Amish Tripathi’s upswing as a writer was neither planned nor speculated. The author of The Shiva Trilogy launched his writing career with The Immorals of Meluha, a book that broke into the top seller charts within its first week owing largely to its creative marketing strategies. At the exchange4media CMO League Conclave held at hotel Leela Gurgaon on 4 November, the IIM Kolkata graduate delivered an address on ‘The art of marketing and the science of story telling’. Here are 10thoughts that every event marketer can pick up on to tell his story even more persuasively. 1-The most irritating thing to hear is “how can we try this, this has never been done before”. Ignore this. Never succumb to this. 2-Best ideas will come from people outside the industry. These people don’t have blinders on and are free from set notions. 3-Based on the trial pack strategy often used by FMCG brands for products such as shampoos, I compressed the first chapter of my debut book into a small free booklet that I placed at bookstore cash counters. It was a cost effective idea that worked wonders. It worked simply because it was unique. 4-Bollywood portrays the essence of ‘real’ India therefore readily evokes emotions. Marketers should capitalize on this; it’s a sure shot winner. 5-The universe is not made of atoms, it is made up of stories. Do not try to understand these stories. Surrender to the universe and let the stories flow through you. 6-Great marketing means striking a balance between rationale, science and pure emotions. 7-After the launch of my first book I knew I had to steer people towards my book in order for them to experience it. So we played its trailers in movie cinemas to drive the traffic into bookstores. You may have a good story, but you need an audience to hear it. 8-Remain detached from failure and also success. Let neither affect you. This is the only way to produce the best output. 9-When I write a story I do not create the characters, according to me the characters already exist in a parallel universe and I’m simply reporting their lives. Consumers should also be approached in the same manner. 10-People will often not remember what you said or did but they will always remember how you made them feel, said Maya Angelou. This is exactly what every brand communication should be based on. Remember- every purchase decision is based on emotion.
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After IPL, ISL, Pro Kabaddi, IHL and IPTL it’s time to welcome a promising new entrant to the list of sporting leagues- the PRO Wrestling League- an initiative by ProSportify in association with the Wrestling Federation of India. The tournament scheduled to be held from December 10-27, 2015 hosted its player auctions yesterday at Hotel Hyatt Regency, New Delhi, amidst obvious excitement. Over 50 Indian and international players were put under the hammer at an auction by international auctioneer Bob Hayton. The event was hosted by Anchor Kubra Sait along with Cyrus Broacha who kept the audience entertained with his signature comedy. Present at the event were Kartikeya Sharma, CMD of ProSportify and Vishal Gurnani, Director, ProSportify along with Bollywood actor Dharmendra. The format of the auction suggested that every team will have a marquee player and the bid for each player started at the base price of INR 30 lakhs making it the richest wrestling league in the world. What followed was an assessment of business skills and a tough fight between the franchises to pick the players of their choice from a gamut of Indian and international wrestlers. Kartikeya Sharma, CMD ProSportify& founder of PWL said, “PWL is a major event towards the development of wrestling in India and we are thrilled to be organizing it. It is going to be a game changer in the non-cricket leagues. We had some of the best wrestlers in the world as part of our auction and we hope that each team emerge as a strong competitor to give an action packed event to the fans. It will be our endeavor to focus on the essence of the sport without any compromise and keep the culture and heritage of the sport alive. It is most definitely going to be the most watched sport other than cricket in India.” Speaking on the eve of the auction, Vishal Gurnani, Director ProSportify said, “We are proud that the world’s first ever professional wrestling league is being launched in India. Over the next few seasons, PWL is all set to emerge as the most successful non-cricket sporting league in India.The tournament will have a strong focus on experiential elements. We will decide, in the next five days, which event agency partner we would want to bring on board to execute the tournament in all 6 cities- Haryana, UP, Mumbai, Bangalore, Punjab, Delhi and, therefore, invite all prospective agencies to please come forward with their respective proposals”.
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Coming close on the heels of Delhi Government’s historic decision to provide a single-window clearance for events in Delhi, music maestro Zubin Mehta is all set to perform live in Delhi in concert with the Australian World Orchestra. On September 4th earlier this year three events in Delhi got online clearance, however this event would be the first 'ticketed' event to get the single window clearance. The event in Delhi is being produced by Showtime Group and will take place at Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium’s Weightlifting Auditorium on 30th and 31st October 2015. Nearing almost 80 years, Zubin Mehta has years of experience behind him having conducted some of the finest orchestras around the world. From Israel to New York to Australia, Mehta has made many a symphonies come to life by the wave of his baton and is widely acclaimed as one of India's finest contributions to western classical music. For years, Delhi had been losing big-ticket performances to its neighbors, Noida and Gurgaon, due to a tedious clearance process. The years of inconvenience caused to organizers resulted in an inevitable loss of revenue to the state from the lack of possible live events. The Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) under the charge of its President Sabbas Joseph took the giant step this year to take up this matter at the state level, which was met with appreciation and support. Following the proposition several developments have taken place including 23 venues in Delhi being granted permanent licenses for hosting events, and now, a single window clearance for all event licensing including entertainment tax, fire and electricity, with the exception of police clearance which falls under central government control and therefore has to be applied for separately. Travelling with the Australia World Orchestra for its first ever international performance Zubin Mehta is scheduled to perform with the largest Australian ensemble in Mumbai on October 25 and 26, Chennai on October 28, and in Delhi on October 30 and 31.
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PujyaBrahmavihari Swami is a senior spokesperson for BAPS, a worldwide religious and civic organization within the Swaminarayan branch of Hinduism. The Sanstha has built 1100 temples around the world, among which Akshardham in Delhi,Gandhinagar, Swami Narayan temple in Robbinsville and London have received global recognition. At a recent gathering of event managers at EMF ACE 2015 in Ahmedabad, Swami Brahmavihari delivered an eloquent and inspirational message tailored specially for the event community. Following are some excerpts from his address. If you look at it, events- big or small- are organized across the world in an attempt to get away from the daily grind of life, to get some respite from the monotony of routine. From this respect event organizers are the vehicles for bringing happiness to people. But in order to share happiness with others it is important for one to remain happy, calm and content within. But we all know that this is easier said than done; especially for people from your industry who are expected to sacrifice family time, work odd hours and meet gargantuan client expectations. The world is not fair and we all have our fair share of troubles. But the choice is ours- to accept these troubles and move forward or live in denial and remain critical. To cite an example- Charlie Chaplin was acclaimed as one of the most talented men on earth. His unique looks and ability to make people laugh simply through gestures won him popularity far and wide. On one occasion he saw a billboard advertising a ‘Charlie Chaplin look alike’ contest and decided to participate. To his surprise he secured the 7th place. What this incident indicates echoes in Chaplin’s memoirs- We live in a world where showmen succeed and real men fail. The point I’m trying to make is that we too live in a world where talent and celebrities surround us, but in the end our belief in ourselves will ultimately determine how comfortable we are in our own skin, thus how happy we are. Once a man visited a psychiatrist and explained he was depressed. The doctor gave him some pills and sent him home. Few days later the same man returned saying that his mental health has seen no improvement, so the doctor upped the dosage and sent him home. Another week went by and the man returned claiming that he’s still depressed and nothing is helping. So the doctor suggested that he should do fun things that lift sadness and told him that there’s a Russian circus in town that he should visit thrice a week. He said that the clown in the circus is hilarious and the man will surely not feel depressed once he sees him perform. At this the patient retorted “but I’m the clown from the circus that you speak of”. I narrate this story because I want you to understand that it doesn’t mean much to make a million people happy if your own being isn’t happy. At the end of an event when you look at the mirror do you see a happy person? An event manager’s profession is married to mental stress. Just like a mountaineer’s profession is married to physical stress. Once a mountaineer asked me if there’s an easy way up, I suggested he should take a helicopter. You must accept that situations will create stress, but you cannot be passive. You need to develop your own unique way to overcome stressful situations, to shield yourself and emerge unscathed. But this alternative doesn’t come to mind thus we complain. We are so comfortable being part of a system and imitating others that we fail to think out-of-the-box. It is said that a man with two watches is never sure of the time. An assistant at a clock shop would notice that a man would stop in front of the shop everyday and tune his watch to the time in the shop. This happened relentlessly for 30 days and made the assistant very proud of the accuracy of his clocks. So one day as the man stopped in front of the shop as was routine, the assistant confronted him and asked whether he was an important man to always want to be on time therefore tuning his watch everyday to the clock shop. At which the man replied that he works as the chief security officer at the factory nearby and its important for him to know the right time so he can blow the whistle in the morning to commence work and once at five in the evening to suspend the days work. At this the assistant responded, “wait a minute, I tune the time of my clocks based on the 5 o’clock whistle”. The point is that we are all like that- tuning to each other’s time when we should be adjusting our time to our hearts. It is important for us to make conscious decisions. My approach that I will recommend to you all is to Plan, Prepare, Perspire and Pray. Event planners often take a template and make repetitive events based on it. You should plan for unique experiences. You should be clinical in your work and prepare thoroughly. And perspire; do not give your work to others. Lastly, pray. Certain things are out of your control, fretting over those things is pointless. I once asked a student how his exams went. Without flinching or remorse he said, “oh, I’m definitely failing”. When I asked how he is so sure, he replied its because everything was out of syllabus. I then told him that a lot of things life will offer him will be out of syllabus- cancer, deaths of family and friends, losses- he needs to prepare for them and cannot avoid the consequences by saying that it was unexpected. Most important things in life one does not choose, one simply accepts. Your name, your parents, your face, your birthday, death, your nationality, your intelligence- you have influence over none of these things, so you choose to accept them. It is important to understand that life doesn’t run through your choices. Peace will come when you accept. Accept yourself and rise above your problems, especially ones that you haven’t chosen. Everybody can offer sympathies and a shoulder to cry on, but you are your own cure. Don’t victimize yourself. Take responsibility and readjust yourself. Overcome uncertain problems by sheer faith- faith in God, in gurus, in family- whatever it takes. Faith will give you the strength to take a negative situation and turn it over its head to make it positive. Lastly when things go out of control, do not admonish the soundwala, the electricians, your team members. Calm yourself, the situation and your team members. Guests will come and go, your people are here to stay. Keep them happy.
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The thing with Indian weddings is that they continue to be ‘bigger’ and ‘fatter’ year after year. Just when you think it cant get more outrageous in terms of opulence, you hear of an even more extravagant display of wealth, an even more ‘expensive’ performer at an even more exotic venue. At a recent event industry convention EMF ACE 2015 held at Ahmedabad, experts from the wedding industry Swati PandyaSood from Ferns & Petals, Keyur Patel from Prasang Events and Hemant Kale from Swaha WMC came together on a panel to discuss destination weddings and nailing the right model. It is evident that when exploring a new destination, partnerships with local service providers become important in order to pull together a show. To this Hemant Kale says, “When organizing a destination wedding local partners act like your backbone. Sure you may have thought of some great ideas but the support system to execute is formed by the local vendors.” But on what basis should one choose his partners? “Definitely not on the basis of cheapest cost”, states Kale. He adds, “Local partners should be carefully scrutinized, and once you have satisfactorily identified them, you need to simply trust them with their capabilities.” He suggests taking feedback from other event planners about a region before entering it. This allows one to have an inclination of the roadblocks that may be in store. Elaborating further on the topic, Keyur Patel suggests that before going ahead and suggesting a venue to a client it is extremely important planners know whether it would be feasible as per their budget. Many a times organizers get ahead of themselves and suggest a destination without anticipating the cost implications which is a terrible idea. Swati PandyaSood states, “At Ferns & Petals we pride ourselves for having a comprehensive databank of destinations, its local vendors, strategic alliance partners etc. This is extremely important to develop in order to provide the client with multiple options that lie within his budget. Now, the wedding industry repeatedly redefines the term ‘grand’ with every ostentatious wedding that takes place. But what should have a stronger focus- dreaming an impressive concept or assessing the practicality of the concept. For Hemant Kale the dream comes first. “Once I am convinced with an idea my focus immediately after is to sell the dream to the client. After that my sole focus is on ensuring the dream comes to life”, he says. Contradicting Hemant’s views Swati PandyaSood comments, “I would rather be practical and keep myself focused on something I am sure of rather than dream up something that may result in a potential disaster. This is a wedding we are talking about- it should be planned in a way that great memories can be created in a stress free environment for the guests. We cannot afford to get ahead of ourselves at the risk of causing inconvenience.” But one would think that to grow the destination weddings industry wouldn’t it become important to explore the globe and recommend newer locales? Swati says, “I am against repetition. Thailand, for example, has been done to death. But that being said, the client doesn’t care about the growth of our industry, he only cares about that one special day. In the end we are all operating as independent companies and incase something goes down it is our reputation on the line.” “Realizing a dream requires thorough research”, says Keyur Patel. “It can easily turn into a nightmare. Therefore it is important to move cautiously, plan and be prepared when organizing a destination wedding. You cannot afford to suffer any surprises.“ Speaking about their most important local partnerships, both Hemant Kale and Keyur Patel feel that management of logistics through an efficient hospitality partnership is the most critical.”
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EMF ACE 2015, in its second year this year, concluded on 11 October in Ahmedabad. The event was hosted by the Event Management Federation, an association of event planners in Gujarat, in the form of a conference, awards and exhibition. It saw in attendance several notable names from the industry including Director Ramesh Sippy, Mohammed Morani from Cineyug, Sabbas Joseph of Wizcraft, Prince Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of Udaipur, Pujya Brahmavihari Swami, Jaideep Singh of Live Viacom18, Actress Amisha Patel, Singer Neha kakkar, among others. Heres a look at the two day extravaganza in pictures: [gallery link="file" td_select_gallery_slide="slide" ids="24497,24496,24495,24493,24488,24494,24489,24490,24491,24492,24487,24486,24485,24484,24483"]
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With a supposed funding of $10 Million into his newly formed agency, The Social Street, Ex-DDB Mudra COO Pratap Bose has over two decades of experience in advertising up his sleeve. The new agency has already bagged some serious clients, one of which is Britannia Good Day that is rolling out a rather ‘exciting’ campaign later this month, assured Bose as he addressed the convention of event managers in Ahmedabad on 10 October at EMF ACE 2015. Speaking about what he knows best, Bose delivered a presentation on how brand activation has evolved over the years,moving into a series of examples that he thought were simply brilliant, and those that, well, sucked! Here’s a look at the winning cut first: Launch of TV Channel TNT in Belgium Budweiser Buddy Cup Nike Chalkbot at Tour De France Dominoes Pizza Emoji Carlsberg Cinema experience And the losers are… Brooke Bond Red Label activation Bose explains that the sheer number of Indian’s residing in Dubai took away from the novelty factor of the Brooke Bond Red Label campaign. He calls it a very ‘desperate’ communication to convince the consumer to feel a certain way about the brand. Coke Ind-Pak vendingmachine campaign https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE To our surprise the Coke Ind-Pak Small World Machine was also on the loser’s board! Bose explains that even though the entry won multiple Golds at Cannes Lions, the sheer fact that no one ever saw this campaign happen, in either India or Pakistan, proves that it was only filmed. And filmed very well. Sure the video went viral since it was high on emotional content but the activation doesn’t qualify as a brand ‘experience’. Therefore as a jury member at Spikes Bose knocked it right out ensuring it doesn’t win a single Gold.
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The mobile internet ban in Gujarat last month resulted in many a businesses taking a hit. One case specific to the Gujarat event industry is that of the 2nd edition of ACE 2015, organized by Event Management Federation, which was rescheduled due to this development. ACE that stands for Awards, Convention and Exhibit was eventually held across 10 and 11 October at YMCA Convention Centre in Ahmedabad. ACE 2015 was inaugurated by film Director Ramesh Sippy, Event & Entertainment Management Association President Sabbas Joseph and Prince Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar of HRH Group Udaipur. Smile&Soul was the title sponsor of the event. Day 1 featured speakers like Mohammed Morani, MD, Cineyug, Vijay Subramaniam, Director, CAA Kwan, Jaideep Singh of Live Viacom18, Shaju Ignatius from The Times Group and Pratap Bose, Co-founder, The Social Street. Singer Neha Kakkar entertained the audience right into the afterhours. Day 2 kicked off with a compelling motivational speech by PujyaBrahmavihari Swami targeted specifically at the event fraternity and on the topic ‘Performing under Pressure’. Weddings and Social events was the focus of the subsequent two panel discussions that featured Hemant Kale of Swaha WMC, Keyur Patel of Prasang Events, Swati Pandya Sood of Ferns and Petals and Nitin Arora of Katalyst Entertainment. Tarsamme Mittal of TM Talent Management and Vijay Subramaniam of CAA Kwan were part of the concluding panel focused atthinking global when managing talent, after which the house was set on fire with electrifying performances byLauren Gotlieb, Raftaar, Manj Music and NindyKaur. The two-day event ended with an awards ceremony hosted by Emcee Gitikka Ganju and Nitin Arora recognizing the best work by the event’s community in Gujarat. [caption id="attachment_21174" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Raftaar, Music Manj, Nindy Kaur[/caption] The list of winners across 13 categories is as follows: Best use of Technology Gold- Zion Unlimited Gold- RSP Events Silver- Go Bananas Bronze- Invasion Best BTL Activation Gold- Awoke Events Silver- All About Ads Bronze- Mascot Events Best Corporate Event Gold- Markcom Silver- Perfect Planners Bronze- Go Bananas Best CSR Event Gold- Seven Inks Gold- U&I Resources Silver- All About Ads Bronze- All About Ads Best Exhibition & Trade Fair Gold- RC Events Silver- Mudra Events Bronze- Brahmani Events Best Festival Event Gold- Go Bananas Silver- Krish Events Bronze- Shilpagaya Events Best Government Event Gold- Go Bananas Silver- Markcom Bronze- Prowess Productions Best Innovation at an Event Gold- Go Bananas Silver- Main Hoon Na Bronze- U&I Resources Best Religious Social Event Gold- Laksh Events Silver- Innovative Events Bronze- Prasol Events Bronze- Shilpagaya Events Best Special Event Gold- Gypsy Events Silver- Prayog Silver- A3 Cube Events Bronze- Blue Events Bronze- Shilpagaya Events
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Geometry has without a doubt nailed the rural marketing model in India. As pioneers paving the path into our not-so-kind burbs, the agency network in partnership with Unilever and other dominant players has truly cracked the code for experiential in rural India. Need we remind you of the Lifebuoy ‘roti’ campaign or the Vodafone’s ‘ear muff’ at KumbhMela! Two compelling campaigns that really left an impression with many a marketer; and executed by yours truly. Following the collaboration of Geometry and Encompass to form the Geometry Global Encompass Network last week, we catch up with John Goodman, CEO- Asia Pacific, Geometry, for an exclusive. Why did you feel the need to align Encompass with Geometry Global? What wasn’t working? If you look at the two businesses they are amazingly complimentary. Geometry has this whole history of shopper marketing and rural marketing in India, on the other side Encompass has the fantastic ability in urban markets in India driving massive experiential events. So if you put them both together there is virtually no overlap. Although we’ve announced the merger of Encompass and Geometry only yesterday we’ve been working together as a team for almost two years allowing us to best deliver to our client’s needs. This collaboration brings forth perfectly rounded service and scale. Also Encompass was relatively stronger in Delhi, conversely Geometry had a very small setup in Delhi, but now that the forces have joined we’ll be able to service our client needs better. This collaboration makes perfect sense for us; the frustrating thing is we didn’t do this two years ago. Geometry has executed some award winning campaigns in the rural markets but why has its focus been restricted to rural? Well, I wouldn’t say its focus has just been on rural. Just that we’ve been exceptionally successful in Rural markets when nobody else was. There was a lot of clutter in urban markets but nobody was doing rural marketing properly. In 1997 Unilever came to us with the need to increase its penetration in rural India. It really is the company that began driving rural marketing in India. They put the money behind our ideas and we developed a strong rural network. Together we worked on the puzzle piece by piece. Now rural marketing is not child’s play. There are a lot of forces working against you- lack of infrastructure, communication, and distribution creates a difficult environment. We overcame them by developing software, management and standardization of processes and it became a flourishing business for us. The urban markets that Encompass works in is a more competitive arena, in rural India we established dominance with Geometry and continue to strengthen our capabilities. Where do you think experiential marketing currently stands in India? Experiential marketing holds a very strong position in India because the growth potential is much higher for it. I think the television market is growing but slowly, whereas there is a huge opportunity with experiential marketing. To give you statistics the business that we have in China is roughly five times bigger than what we have in India and that doesn’t make any sense if you look at it. The business in India should be half or two-third of what it is in China. This is because in China people have realized they cannot rely on television to communicate and that brands need to get down to low tier cities and smaller towns to grow. Especially the international companies spend a lot of money in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, similar to the scene in India with Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore being the key focus areas. But that’s not where everybody lives and so in order to grow brands need to go to places where everybody lives. Demonstrations and experiences are the best modes of communication for such environments. So how different is the rural environment in China to that in India? Rural China is certainly different from rural India basically because of the nature of society and nature of economic change. In China the migration from villages to cities has happened a lot faster so now 50% of Chinese people live in big cities as opposed to 25% in India. Also, the nature of the political system in China ensures that the government is able to exert total control through representatives and widespread communication channels in all villages. What is the future of experiential in India? Here in India PM Modi has been able to mobilize a large part of rural India with the recent elections. 15 to 20 years ago there was no way to communicate with the people. We actually started with painting walls in villages for our clients like Lifebuoy. What’s changed now is that everyone is equipped with a mobile phone. The price of smart phones is dropping dramatically and that allows access to information, research and so on. Villagers are increasingly using Viber and Whatsapp which was unimaginable some years ago. Drawing a line between digital and physical is just ridiculous now because everyone is connected all the time. The landscape is changing dramatically today and our focus is on simultaneously diversifying and servicing the needs as they arise.
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WPP CEO Martin Sorrell yesterday announced that Geometry Global and Encompass would operate as a single entity in India by the name of Geometry Global Encompass Network (GGEN).The Network’s management will comprise executives from J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy, Encompass and Geometry Global and the business will be aligned with J Walter Thompson South Asia. Encompass was acquired in 2008 by WPP and aligned with J Walter Thompson. It is best known for planning and executing events and activations for clients such as Hyundai, Asian Paints, Fiat and Microsoft.Geometry Global (earlier known as OgilvyAction, a division of O&M) is well known for its shopper and rural marketing (Outreach) practices and works with clients such as Hindustan Unilever, Mondelez, Vodafone, Tata Sky, DuPont and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Geometry Global | Encompass network will continue to work closely with Ogilvy to benefit clients with the width of services. With over 400 employees in Mumbai and Delhi, the Geometry Global | Encompass Network will specialize in shopper marketing, rural marketing, large-scale events and exhibitions, urban consumer marketing, digital activation and field marketing. The Geometry Global | Encompass Network will be WPPs horizontal network working across the group. Speaking of the announcement, Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP plc said “When WPP decided to set up a horizontal activation platform we combined OgilvyAction, G2 and JWT Action (North America) to form Geometry Global. Today, Geometry Global is working for some of the world’s best brands in almost 60 markets around the world. Through this collaboration in India, we’re following up on one of our key global objectives of offering best-in-class full-service experiential marketing services that can help our clients sell more.” The Network will also work closely with Group M through a partnership called Geometry@GroupM. This joint team will use GGE’s proprietary tools and category and channel understanding to deliver shopper-marketing solutions to Group M’s clients. Over the last year, Encompass and Group M have operated Team1, a partnership delivering a combination of media and on-ground solutions to a couple of common clients through a single team. Geometry Global and Encompass will also continue to operate independently for purposes of retaining their areas of expertise and managing client conflict. The Geometry Global | Encompass Network will further extend their reach by collaborations with Go Bananas in Ahmedabad and Showspacein Chennai.
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