Author
Shantanu writes for Everything Experiential
More than 1,500 marketers from around the world converged in San Francisco at the Experiential Marketing Summit on 11 May 2015. Produced by theEvent Marketer magazine, EMS has become the industry’s most significant and substantial annual gathering. With more than 90 sessions, keynotes, workshops and classes, there’s always a lot going on—but our team at Sparks scoured the conference to bring you the six biggest EMS takeaways. 1. Story Doing The age of storytelling is getting an upgrade as marketers use live events to not just tell a story, but create a story in which attendees “do” that story…by creating that story and living it for a moment or moments in time. Storydoing is a buzzword that is starting to heat up, but, more importantly, it’s a philosophy being embraced by Fortune 500 experiential departments: Attendees become a part of the event and actually drive the experience themselves via highly interactive footprints, shareable engagements and customized event activities. 2. The Content Play It’s been the trend of the year for more than six months already, but at EMS we saw the different ways marketers are now using content—creating it, amplifying it and distributing it. In many cases, the actual event is now designed and used specifically to generate content for the rest of the marketing mix. And attendees themselves are now being used as both content creator and content amplifier. Bud Light’s Whatever, USA used 1,000 attendees to generate 37,000 pieces of content viewed by 15 million people. Numbers like that give our industry the power to reach more people than advertising. Bud Light vp and 2015 Grand Ex Award Winner Alex Lambrecht summed it up best when he proclaimed to a packed room of marketers that “the event has become a content factory.” 3. The ‘Temperature’ of Experiences Creating an experience that perfectly connects the brand and the target requires the right “experience temperature.” At Target, for example, live experiences are designed to be varying levels of “cool” (hip, exclusive, sleek) or “hot” (sexy, exciting, heart-pumping). And that temperature can be “raised” or “lowered” depending on the goal, strategy and event, EMS keynoter and Target vp-experiential marketing Dan Griffis told attendees. 4. Design Thinking Goes Beyond Design The practice of using “Design Thinking” to solve creative problems is moving beyond look and feel, with marketers using the proven principles of DT to build event strategies, on-site experiences and engagement protocols. Officially, “Design Thinking draws upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning to explore possibilities of what could be, and to create desired outcomes that benefit the customer.” Unofficially, it’s helping marketers apply proven methodologies to the construction of live engagements. As IBM Global Interactive Experience Leader Paul Pappas said at an EMS Design Thinking session: “The last, best experience that anyone has anywhere becomes the minimum expectation for the experiences they want everywhere.” 5. Streaming On Deck If there is one trend marketers agree will be huge but aren’t yet fully embracing, it’s streaming—broadcasting live events to others via the web, devices or via person-to-person platforms such as Meerkat… as well as from different points across a single event. Obviously b-to-b events have moved faster to stream content and activities from trade shows, conferences and proprietary events. But consumer marketers are activating live streams as well. Target’s sponsorship of the Grammy Awards was brought to life via a live Imagine Dragons broadcast that served as a streamable event and as the first-ever live broadcast TV commercial. Frito-Lay’s live stream concert at South by Southwest gave web viewers the ability to control the point of view (and some of the special effects triggered at the actual concert). And as personal streaming platforms such as Meerkat and Periscope take form, the ability to not only amplify an event in realtime but also use your attendees as the amplifiers themselves, is primed for growth. 6. Experiences Are the New Currency In a world where groceries get delivered at the touch of a button, Nike sneakers can be custom-design on a web site and Uber is everyone’s private driver, target audiences now have almost everything they want or need available to them at varying prices, immediate timeframes and convenience levels. No matter which session we attended at EMS, from Pepsi to YouTube to Microsoft to Intel, there was one common philosophy shared by industry marketers: That target audiences prefer experiences over material goods—that a live engagement, exclusive content, access and “moment” are proving better incentives for engagement than a discount, giveaway, etc. Put another way, there are few things they can’t get, buy or order—smart marketers must now provide something they could never get on their own. Lots of lessons learned at this year’s Experiential Marketing Summit indeed but these six were the most common topics crossing over from session to session, keynote to keynote, conversation to conversation. The next EMS takes place May 4-6, 2016 in Denver. About Kristy Elisano Kristy Elisano is the Vice President at Sparks, a globalevent marketing agency delivering experiences for brands such as Google, Verizon, Adidas, Michael Kors and Juicy Couture. Sparks has been awarded by Event Marketer magazine as one of the Top 50 Fabricators serving the events and exhibit industry in USA. (The piece has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
Read More
With a career spanning over twelve years as an experiential marketing expert, SaumenRoy, Head, Madison IES,is convinced that “businesses will not live or die by the attributes they promise, but by the experience they offer theirconsumers at every touch point.” After extensive exposure to urban, small town and rural ecosystems through his previous capacities, Saumencurrently leads the integrated experiential arm of Madison World. The company boasts of having broken even within two years of being launched and has grown from a five member team headquartered in Mumbai to four full service branches in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata with over thirty team members. Having worked with brands like Cadbury, Godrej, Marico, Airtel, Toyota,Michelin and Renault, Saumen, in conversation with Yamini Singh, stands firm with his conviction thatexperiential should be part of every brands long term strategy. Q- How significant is experiential for a brand today when it deliberates its marketing spends? A- Experiential is a significant component and I feel it is now a part of most brands’ marketing budgets. But what really matters is how the marketer perceives experiential. Is it part of their ‘strategic tool’ or is it simply an ‘on-off’tool. In my opinion and experience marketers who have used it as “strategic tool” have benefited more than who are using it as ‘on-off’ tool. And the easiest way to find out is by the chronological order of getting briefed. If an agency is getting briefed without any major time lags then experiential marketing is likely a strategic tool for the marketer. Q- What is the size of the experiential marketing industry as per your understanding? A- It is pegged at 4,258 as per the latest EY report. Q- What differentiates a great experiential strategy/campaign from one that is poor? A- Ideation and the process you follow to approach the brief is the differentiator for any experiential campaign strategy. If you start thinking with medium/touch point first you will end up thinking ideas for a mall activity and never reach at the core idea to address the business problem/brief. Q- What do most brands wish to achieve via experiential marketing? A- Frankly each client has different objectives and it partly depends on the product life cycle of the brand also. The broad common ground would be to give the TG the real time exposure of the product and services and make them experience, consider and eventually purchase. Q- An example of a great low-cost experiential activity. A great example would be Wockhadt South Mumbai launch activation- a hyper local activation I was part of.The task was to build buzz around the newly launched hospital and establish Wockhardt’s philosophy of ‘Life wins’. An apple, which has always been associated with good health, was packaged in a red box with a quirky slogan – “An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but should you ever need us, we’re just a call away”. The red box also contained the hospital brochure along with call-for-appointments and emergency numbers, thus enabling call to action. Many thousands of these red boxes were hand-delivered to families and employees in the area. Cabs plying in the area were branded with the Life Wins messaging and an apple box handed over to each commuter as well. We conducted a school-connect campaign to promote the hospital’s childcare services and distributed branded balloons across all SoBo Schools. Mumbai domestic airport was identified as another key touch-point for the drive where red boxeswere placed on the carousel urging people to pick them up. Q- A great example of a poor experiential activity. A- A promoter coming and telling you “sir, we have a free gift for you and I need your mobile number” is the kind of activity wherein the only objective is to hard sell and nothing else. This is a very poor way to position your brand in a consumer’s mind. Q- Do you have any predictions on the future of experiential marketing? A- I feel we need to embrace the digital and social media ecosystem and use it as an indispensible tool to amplify experiential. This is where the future lies. (The interview has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
Read More
Paperboat has weaved its entire marketing strategy around ‘nostalgia’. Be it the brands ATL activities or its BTL initiatives, all marketing moves are drenched in childhood nostalgia, a common ground to connect with consumers on, in turn helping the brand establish a unique identity amongst the clutter of other beverage brands. We caught up with ParveshDebuka, Head Marketing, Paperboat on the brand’s philosophies, its experiential initiatives and plans down the road. Q-How did you decide on ‘nostalgia’ as the central theme of the brand? A- Every Indian region has a particular drink associated with it. In North India, we spend winters dreaming about the arrival of our beloved mangos. The mango season starts with chatpata aachaar, khatta-meetha aam papad and tangy aampanna (stage 1) being made at home by our mothers and dadi-nani forces. Our motherly forces (with inconsequential advice from the menfolk of the house) made sure that every sip of the smooth aamras (stage 2,) was made with love and care. Its recipe will always be a shared yet a guarded secret. Similarly, in coastal areas, a glass of Kokum after the final cricket match between the two local schools not only quenched the thirst of little boys but also imprinted a deep love for Kokum. A stroll along the chawpati will always be incomplete without a kala khatta stain on your pristine white skirt; how can we ever forget the ‘bhaiya thoda our namak dalo please’ phrase. These are the drinks and memories we want to share with the world. The diversity of cultures in this country has given us unique drinks, recipes of which have been passed down for centuries. We are here to find a way of sharing these gastronomical gems with the world. . Q-What is the marketing philosophy for Paperboat? A-We believe in life and how easy it is to be happy. There is always plenty of opportunity for simple pleasures and we just want to bring that alive. For instance, when was the last time you made a paper boat? I made one long time ago in school and I got stuck in the second fold while attempting to make one last year. I spent twenty minutes trying to figure how to make one and when I finally did, I wanted to make ten more ! I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I even floated one in rain water. It is experiences like this that we want to live again. Q- What is the current marketing spend for Paper boat?A- We can happily say that our spends on the marketing function truly rides on the strength of the idea. The creative team is constantly working on churning out ideas that would expand the consumer base for paper boat. Q-What do you think gives Paper boat an edge over other beverage brands in the Indian market? A- We can vouch for a fact that no other beverage brand in the market have two adorable puppies. We just can’t have enough of our dogs Hector and Beverages. Yes, they are our cutest and most adorable assets and obviously give us an edge (with a lot of nudges, that comes with the dogs, I guess). Q- What are some of the other marketing campaigns that you look forward to executing down the line?A- Well, there is no fun in revealing surprises. We will spring one on you soon and you will know. Q-What will be the target market for such experiential campaigns? A-Anyone and everyone willing to walk with us hand in hand and see lies ahead of the curve. Do you remember thinking , ‘if I eat a watermelon seed, will a tree grow inside me?’ I remember this from childhood. And so does everyone else in my office. We all have similar memories.
Read More
It takes months of hard work, diligence and preparation to execute an event. And as soon as that last attendee moves out of the event venue, the organizers think that their job of delivering a spectacular event is over. However, contrary to the popular belief the job of an event organizer does not end here. This time at EE, we are listing down 5 essentials event planners must do after event execution. 1- Send Thank You notes Yes, sending a Thank You note to all event attendees today is equally important as sending those invitations to attend the event. By sending thank you notes an attendee feels acknowledged and special. The best kind of thankyouthat an organizer can send their attendees are personalized.The more customized the thank you note is the bigger and better will be its impact. The retention value of the event in the mind of its attendees is increased drastically through this small initiative by event professionals. 2-Ask for Feedback Even if an event professional has put in their heart and soul into executing an event, there is always a scope of improvement left. Through asking for feedback, event managers can better themselves in the future and incorporate the necessary changes in their overall event planning and execution techniques. Also with feedback asking, the attendee feels that their presence was acknowledged at the event and will probably never miss any of your future events also. 3-Decode Financial Aspects Yes, time for numbers it is. After the event has been executed event managers have to get down towards analyzing each and every penny spent on the event and evaluating the costs which could have been avoided. Also, finding out the exact value of profits made and revenue generated is integral for every event. This particular step will the agencies plan the budget of their future events well and manage the finances better. 4-Internal Feedback Apart from the feedbacks received from attendees, garnering the feedback on the event from your internal team is also important for event managers. It is crucial to find out where did the team face challenges and stumbled, what were the achievements and highlights of the event, who performed the best and what can be the areas of improvements should be the points to be discussed. Through this small exercise, an event planner will be able to better organize events in the future. 5-Unwind Whether your event was a Hit or a Flop, after an event has been executed a planner should always unwind and genuinely relax before the task of organizing the next event unfolds. Without the much needed relief, no event planner will be able to perform their best for the next event. Planning your downtime just as carefully as you plan your events is the key here, with some time off and rejuvenation event planners can gear up again to deliver one more spectacular event.
Read More
The countdown for EEMAX Global 2015 has begun. With the EEMAX Awards and Conclave scheduled to be held at Taj Lands End in Mumbai on 19th and 20th September 2015, the experiential marketing and events industry of not just the country but the entire world is eagerly awaiting to find out who will emerge as the winners of Gold across 25 categories. But taking the previous EEMAX conclaves in consideration, the events offers so much more to its attendees than just the awards. From flamboyant entertainment nights, to insightful panel discussions; EEMAX is known to be always packed with something for everyone. This time at EE, we list down 5 things to expect from EEMAX Global 2015. 1-Engaging and Insightful Panel Discussions One of the key highlights of EEMAX conclave has always been the interesting panel discussions the EEMA committee manages to whip up every time. These panel discussions and sessions are not only the perfect platform to learn, reflect and develop from the experiences of members in the fraternity but they also serve as breeding grounds for thought provoking ideas promoting more creativity. With topics like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Building Events Tourism and the Case study of Amsterdam Light Festival on the agenda this year, EEMAX has definitely packed a punch with this one. 2-Rubbing shoulders with celebrities Who doesn’t like being around Bollywood celebrities? I am sure everyone does and the organizers of EEMAX to know and understand this fact too. Hence, the international jury for EEMAX awards includes big names of the entertainment industry like Parineeti Chopra, Dia Mirza, Vikas Behl, Vivek Oberoi, Prasoon Joshi, Neha Dhupia and others. Also there are speculations of bigger names coming in to perform at the Entertainment Night. Well we simply can’t wait to click a few selfies can we? 3- Networking One of the most important highlights of EEMAX conclave is that it allows the members of the industry plenty of opportunities to interact, network and evolve as a community together. No one is big or small at an EEMAX conclave. The industry and its members are together and through networking at EEMAX are able to collaborate, create and evolve as the members of the experiential and events industry as a whole. 4-EEMAX Awards Without a doubt, EEMAX awards are the epicenter of the EEMAX conclave and with entries this year expected from agencies in India, Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and USA, it will be interesting to see who sweeps away the top honors in 25 different categories at the EEMAX Global 2015. 5-Afterparty Well, if there is anyone who knows how to party till sunrise then it is certainly the members of events and experiential fraternity. The after party of EEMAX Awards is not only known for the surprise performances by big names in the entertainment industry but is also equally popular for using surprise experiential elements to wow its attendees. The world saw multiple experiential engagements at EEMGAINE earlier this year and with EEMAX we can only hope for more surprises waiting in the wings. We simply can’t wait for EEMAX Global can we?
Read More
The month of August has been exceptional for the world of experiential. As most parts of the world are still struggling under the summer heat wave, a number of popular brands utilized this opportunity to turn things around and create memorable experience for their customers. With brands like Ferrari, Heineken and Sony leading the pack, below mentioned is our pick for Top 5 brand activations in August from across the globe. 1-Heineken transforms Somerset House into rugby stadium This brand activation takes the love of Rugby to an entirely different level doesn’t it? Through the initiative beer brand Heineken officially kicked off its Rugby World Cup 2015 campaign by using projection mapping at the Somerset House in London to transform it like a rugby stadium. The 270-degree projection, which was created by the agency Projection Artworks, and the highlight of the projection was that the walls of Somerset house looked like they were filled with rugby fans watching a game. The evening also featured an hour-long set from Everything Everything and appearances from legends like Jonah Lomu, Will Carling, John Smit, Matt Dawson and Scott Quinnell. 2-Casa Ferrari Carmel The activation had Ferrari renting out a Shell gas station in California. And a custom built structure a part of the activation, displayed a rotating schedule of vintage Ferrari cars. The concept of the pop-activation was applauded by the brands prospective customers who could now get a touch and feel of their favorite automobile brands away from the jam packed showrooms. 3-Cadbury free chocolate activation in London Through this campaign Cadbury had a team of six cyclists spreading the joy and fervor of Mondelez by distributing free chocolate across London streets on August 25th. The concept of the campaign was simple yet effective and hence brought immediate smiles on the faces of the passerby’s. The cyclists gave out Twirl, Wispa and Dairy Milk and other products from the brand and people were encouraged to tweet the happy moments with hashtag #joycycle. 4-Uber and Magnolia Bakery National Banana Pudding Day Talk about creating sweet experiences through brand activations. UberEats and Magnolia Bakery teamed up together for this one, wherein capitalizing on the National Banana Lovers Day theme , the brands tweaked the concept to make it National Banana Pudding Day. The first 300 customers who ordered a meal using Uber's city-specific food delivery option received a free small banana pudding from the bakery and anyone who bought banana pudding in stores got a free banana-theme temporary tattoo and a chance to win free pudding for a year if they used the hashtag #GoBananas and tagged the bakery in an Instagram post. Now this is one experience we must have in India too! 5-GoGo Squeez's 'Goodness Machine' The nutritious snack brand, GoGo Squeez partnered with MKG for the activation tour of its customized vending machine, called as "The Goodness Machine." The activation featured the brand's signature applesauce packet and kids were invited to participate by pushing a button, which activated a launching mechanism that shot out an applesauce packet attached to a parachute with the brand's label. The activation also featured a social media and video element, with a custom video recorder that recorded kids interacting with the machine.
Read More
A couple of months ago, members of the executive committee of EEMA had met the Chief Minister of Delhi Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, Dy Chief Minister Mr. Manish Sisodia, and several of their colleagues to streamline licensing process in the capital. Following a detailed EEMA representation, the CM had then appointed a nodal officer to engage with EEMA and find solutions to the community’s problems in the shortest possible time. The efforts and initiatives of EEMA have finally paid off as on 26th August 2015, after meeting with EEMA Treasurer, Rajeev Jain and Patron Michael Menezes, Delhi Govt. & Commissioner - Excise, Entertainment & Luxury Tax has agreed to ease the licensing laws in Delhi and declared that EEMA platinum members will now be able to organize their ticketed events in Delhi without submitting any entertainment tax before the event. According to the new amendment, the entertainment tax per the ticket sale can now be deposited after the completion of the event itself. In order to facilitate this arrangement, EEMA shall be formulating MOU guidelines for its members & Entertainment Tax Department. EEMA will also be submitting a Bank Guarantee of a stipulated amount as a surety on behalf of its members. After an approval from EEMA’s Treasury, EEMA members will then be able to do events within that amount without depositing any tax before the event. Additionally Mr. Sanjay Kumar, Excise commissioner, has also issued a list of 23 auditoriums which have been granted a permanent license for holding an event. These auditoriums include India Habit Center Auditorium Lodhi Road, FICCI auditorium Tansen Marg and India Habitat Centre Auditorium and others. Mr. Kumar has also shared a detailed report to the CM’s office to bring Entertainment Tax, Fire, MCD & Electricity under the purview of single window clearance for the convenience of the members of the events fraternity. Sharing his opinion on this major breakthrough, Sabbas Joseph, President EEMA says, “This is indeed a big win. Positive results have started to show and definitely there is more to come. This is a win - win situation for all of us and indeed a big gesture from the government to make Delhi an event-friendly city. Rajeev Jain, Treasurer EEMA stated, “This is indeed a big bold step by the Delhi Govt. & Dept. of Entertainment Tax. Change in the Entertainment Tax depositing framework for EEMA members is certainly a big gift to the industry and the number of ticketed & corporate events in the city will see a steep rise. Vijay Nair, Secretary, EEMA shared his opinions by stating, “This is certainly an encouraging development for the fraternity which could not have come at a better time. However, I fervently believe that is just the beginning and there is still a long way to go.”
Read More
Designing an engaging experiential campaign is never an easy job. However, this task is much more complex if the target audience to be catered is that of kids. For an activation specifically targeted at kids not only do brands and curators have to create a campaign which is easy to understand but they also have to fabricate it in a fashion that sustains their interests. A few brands and event agencies have however cracked the code and have come out with thoroughly engaging and effective experiential campaigns focused at kids. Below mentioned are our top 5 picks for the same. 1-Emirates Air Line and K’Nex challenge This campaign had Airliner Emirates joining hands with K’Nex, a construction toy company. As part of the activity families were taken to a 20 minute round-trip cable car ride from Emirates Greenwich Peninsula terminal and during the trip time the families were asked to build a construction inspired from the view and the building material for the construction was provided by K’Nex. Kids participated enthusiastically in this challenge and the winners of the challenge got free airline tickets and other prizes. 2-Dalda Meri Mom Sabki Mom Through this campaign Dalda brought the joy of motherhood and the happiness of home cooked meals into the lives of unprivileged kids. As part of the campaign activity 100 mothers cooked meals for unprivileged kids to celebrate the fact that one kids mother is also the mother figure to all kids. Interesting contests and mother and kids activities kept the children engaged throughout the activation. 3- Kidzania London. Kidzania London is a cityscape for children at Westfield and the space the technique of role-play exploration to facilitate kids trying their hands at over 60 professions over a four hour experience. A highlight of the space is that parents too can engage with their child’s experience by taking a seat in the audience. 4-ZeeQ Kahani Express ZeeQ, a popular entertainment channel through Kahaani Express aimed at honing the story telling skills of children. The pan-India inter-school initiative provided children an opportunity to use their imagination and bring out their creativity. A total of over 90,000 kids were touched through the campaign wherein an expert story teller would conduct the storytelling session which included specially designed picture panels, story development techniques with props along with workshops under the guidance of facilitators. The initiative by the channel was a much needed step for the society and was met with tremendous appreciation by kids and parents alike. 5-Pogo makes science Fun-tastic Popular Kid’s channel POGO too launched an initiative through which they made the boring laws of science 'fun-tastic' for kids. The channel organized, "Bheem Aur Mighty Raju Ka Fun-tastic lab", a two-day event where kids were engaged and entertained with multiple scientific experiments, workshops and games that helped simplify interesting theories of science. The event touched over 8000 kids and parents through optical illusions, levitation, dry ice and other fun activities and managed to create tremendous word of mouth for the channel.
Read More
After establishing its presence in 18 countries around the world, BlaBlaCar, an online marketplace that facilitates ride sharing, entered India in January 2015. However, despite being so new the brand has still managed to expand its presence in more than 700 cities in the country and has served over 3,00,000 fleets. In an exclusive conversation with EE, Raghav Gupta, India Country Manager at BlaBlaCar reveals the marketing strategy of the brand, its experiential initiatives and plans down the road for the brand. Q- What is the brand psychology behind Blablacar? A-Blablacar enables travel for 2-3-4 people, who might be looking to reach Jaipur from Delhi or some other short or long distance in an arrangement, where one of them is a car owner and the others can’t get train or flight tickets at the last moment. Usually likeminded people find each other through Blablacar and there are a lot of conversations that happen over the journey so the psychology of the brand is to provide care pooling services with the generation of strong social experiences. Q- The BlaBla Tour is an on ground initiative by Blablacar. Tell us more about it. A- The BlaBlaTour is an activity where the BlaBlaCar Team takes a BlaBlaCar and drives across cities to interact and meet with its members at parties in each city known as 'BlaBlaTimes'. The idea behind the on ground campaigns of Blablacar is to play on the social experience that a user gets through the application use. At BlaBlaTimes we invite our members to come and meet our team, other members who ride and share BlaBlaCar and to get to know each other in a social gathering. To break the ice we have a lot of games and engaging activities. Social media platforms are giving only digital experiences to customers today but as we operate through digital we at Blablacar also want to enhance the physical experience for our service users. The Blablabla times has already happened in Mexico, Europe, Turkey and was executed in six cities in India in July. Q-What are some of the other experiential initiatives by BlaBlaCar? A-Our target audience is young business professionals, students, business owners who travel a lot and hence use the services of BlaBlaCar. To cater to them we also partner with a lot of music festivals, especially with those where travel is involved. From coming October we will associate with a lot of such festivals and we also look forward to associating with college festivals that are majorly popular amongst the youth. Q- What will be the marketing strategy of BlaBlaCar as far as ATL mediums are concerned? A-. In terms of ATL, we have launched radio campaign recently in southern states and we have also launched a TV campaign in the same demographics as of now as these states are very important markets to us. Once we know the results of these campaigns then we shall scale up the same throughout the country. We also have an advertising tie-up with IRCTC currently, so if anyone goes to book a ticket online they can see a contextual banner of Blablacars and use our services too if they are unable to get the ticket. Q- Today there are multiple brands like Blablacar, who offer the services of ridesharing. So how is Blablacar different from them? A-Blablacar is the largest ridesharing platform in the world and much like other large companies we know that there will be companies who will get inspired from us and sell services like us. But I think that at Blablacar our intention is to create strong social experiences for our customers, many of who end up as friends after the ride. And that for me is the difference between Blablacar and others.
Read More
The definition of a conventional wedding celebration has witnessed a drastic transformation in the last two decades. With no restrictions in terms of the budget for their wedding, people today are willing to spend enormously to create random, out of the blue experiences on their special day. These experiences range from having nude weddings to getting married inside a zoo with animals to curating other experiences that are plain strange. In this list we at EE, share with you 5 strange experiences at weddings from across the globe. 1-Bungee-jumping wedding Though a lot of lovers harp about wishing if they could profess their love from the sky tops, none of them have actually made it true. However, Jeroen and Sandra Kippers of Brussels, Belgium, made the impossible possible as they were had their wedding wows 160 feet in the air in front of 20 guests. For those of you, who think the experience was strange enough, please wait. The real experience of the wedding was that after the vows, the couple made the wedding official by bungee-jumping over the side.Another highlight of this wedding was the floating reception that was executed in the skies again. Now, that is some strange wedding experience to have I must say. 2-Marriage at T.J. Maxx shopping center Venues are very crucial for a wedding and hence sometimes people take months to finalize a venue that can host their dream wedding. But, just imagine if someone decides to have a wedding at a shopping center surrounded by racks of shoes? Well, this strange experience is not hypothetical. Lisa Satayut (bride) decided to combine the excitement over bargaining at shopping centre with that of bagging her beau. Explaining that T.J. Maxx is her “happy place,” Satayut married Drew Ellis in the size 8 shoe aisle of a T.J. Maxx store in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. The highlight of this wedding was curious shoppers who waited long enough to watch the ceremony. 3-Nuptials inside a shark tank Yes, you read that right there is a wedding that actually took place inside a shark tank in reality. The happy couple April Pignataro and Michael Curry proclaimed their love to each other as they climbed inside a 120,000 gallon shark tank at Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, New York. The ceremony took place as sand sharks, nurse sharks, eels and a giant grouper circled around. The couple wore scuba gear and mikes that broadcasted their words to each other, as well as to friends and family. 4-Marriage while bicycling Talk about getting in shape for your own marriage? Well this couple took the initiative of being healthy a little too seriously as they had their wedding wows while cycling around in a beautiful city in Russia. The wows were taken as the couple was joined by 150 guests who also rode the cycle to watch the commitment ceremony live. 5-Chinese bride with 200 m-long dresses All the brides in the world want to look special on their wedding day but if there was an award for the most effort put in look so special then it would certainly go to this bride from Guangzhou, China as she accented her gown with a train that was over 600 ft long and weighed over 220 lbs. This was till early 2007, world's longest bridal train record which stood at 219 yards.
Read More
