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.
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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.
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Taking technology a notch higher to further enhance customer experience, Flipkart, announced the launch of ‘Ping’- a brand new ‘social shopping’ experience on the Flipkart app in a media launch event yesterday, organised by CRI events. The press conference held at F Bar & Lounge, Delhi was followed by a Bloggers meet in the evening. Amit Tandon, standup comedian and Astitva band performed in the evening during the Bloggers meet, adding entertainment quotient to the entire event. Using Ping, Flipkart users will get to chat with friends while shopping, and share experience using text, photos & emoticons in real time. Shopping is way more than the act of viewing a catalogue, selecting a product and buying it at the click of a button and thus, with Ping, Flipkart aims to fundamentally redefine the shopping experience and make it near ‘real-life’ in ‘real –time’. “Shopping is primarily a social activity and going for it with friends and family has been the norm since time immemorial. Online shopping, on the other hand, has largely remained a solo experience. ‘Ping’ aims to transform online shopping by allowing users to talk to each other real time in order to make decisions and decide on what to buy!” said Flipkart’s Chief Product Officer, Punit Soni. Punit further added, “The unique blend of messaging and shopping is a unique and first ever experience that one can now enjoy online at Flipkart! Commenting on this breakthrough innovation, Peeyush Ranjan, CTO and Head of Engineering, Flipkart, said, “A research conducted by our team revealed that the inability to shop collaboratively is the number one barrier for online shoppers these days. Flipkart Ping, conceived and built completely by Flipkart's in-house technology team, aims to resolve this very challenge and provide a one-of-its-kind unique shopping experience to our customers." “Ping has been built keeping in perspective the user experience journey of Flipkart customers. Highly advanced architecture was employed to ensure dynamic traffic surges are handled well. It has also been optimized for efficient results even on slow 2G networks. Ping will also support android wearables where user can read and reply to messages from their android watches.” said Peeyush. Currently in its beta stage of development, Ping will be available to customers through an invite only model in the first phase. Talking about the app launch, Anand Bhaskar, Head - Concepts & Communication, CRI events, said, “This is a great initiative by Flipkart and we are proud to have partnered with them on the launch of this app. We truly believe that this will go very far in terms of changing customer’s online shopping experience.”
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Kokuyo Camlin, the stationary brand, has created a new way to help brothers and sisters celebrate the tradition of Raksha Bandhan through its Camlin Experience App. The brand has added an elaborate ‘Rakhi Maker’ feature to the app, which lets users create artistic digital rakhis and share them virtually. Using a select set of powerful tools in the Rakhi Maker, anyone can create a stunning Rakhi design within minutes. Beyond designing personalized rakhis, they can tag and share the Rakhi with a loved one on Facebook within the app, or download it and share via email. Android users can download the Camlin Experience app on their smartphones to try the Rakhi Maker feature. The Rakhi Maker is also accessible via a micro-site. To help users create an endless number of intricate designs in a flash, the Rakhi Maker uses a kaledioscopic effect that reflects every drawing action in 20 sides. Users can choose from any of the art mediums and colours, and also alter the number of side reflections. The Camlin Experience App and Rakhi Maker have been conceptualized & created for Camlin by Mumbai-based digital agency Big I Tuna.
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Candid Marketing, is currently executing an activation campaign for Godrej Kala Hit as Godrej Consumer Products Limited has undertaken awareness campaign #HarKoneMeinDanger as part of its marketing activity for Kala Hit. The campaign kicked off with an event at Delhi on August 18, World Mosquito Day. The event was attended by Ravinder Gupta (Mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation) & Sunil Kataria (Business Head Godrej Consumer Product Limited). Gupta and Kataria jointly flagged off the Godrej Kala HIT canter, which is a 4000+ km drive from Delhi to Bangalore with the objective of educating people about Dengue. On its way to Bangalore, the HIT Van will demonstrate how HIT - Track the Bite app can help people stay informed and safe from Dengue. The canter activity began on August 22 and will travel across 15 cities over a period of 8 days. Three teams will go from city to city in a fabricated HIT van. The first team will leave from Delhi and will conduct the activity in Delhi, Agra, Gwalior, Jhansi, Rewa and Nagpur. The Mumbai team will go from Mumbai to Nashik , Surat, Vadodara, Indore and Nagpur. The third team will manage the activity in Bangalore, Tumakuru, Devangere, Hubballi, Kolhapur, Pune and Mumbai. The activity has so far received an amazing response from the consumers. Commenting on the activity, Mr. Mihir Shah, VP-Client Servicing, Candid Marketing said, “We are associated with the brand since a very time long & understand the core objective of the new campaign , We have managed the campaign right from being part of ideation, designing to execution thereby providing a complete package, identifying the right strategic locations for engagement. Idea was to communicate to the consumer that Desh ke Kone kone se machhar ka safaya by using KALA HIT. Innovatively designed vehicle attracted lot of eyeballs & overall response from the target audience is also very positive.”
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Known for attracting a large number of audiences in their best possible mood, music festivals are breeding grounds for creative brand activations. By creating experiential initiatives in and around these music festivals not only do brands get an opportunity to showcase their fun element but also get a chance to truly reach out to potential consumers when they are in the mood to experiment or submit themselves to an experience. Be it Lollapalooza, Coachella, or Bonnaroo, music festivals have been closely associated with brand activations for years now and this time at EE, we share with you the top 5 brands that used music festival brilliantly to create brand experiences. Coachella Lacoste Live Desert Pool Party Can there ever be a more lethal combination than that of a pool party and cutting edge music? Well at the fourth edition of Coachella, Lacoste helped create this combination through the ‘Lacoste Live Desert Pool Party’ at a private estate near the festival grounds. The production work of the festival was done by Made With Elastic and the event included an activity installation that invited guests to shoot paint-covered tennis balls at a massive polo shirt called “Polo Gigante.” The activation saw a large number of crowd coming in to get the best of both worlds. Samsung at Lollapalooza Lollapalooza 2013, witnessed 300,000 fans coming in from all nook and corners of the world and 130 music acts being performed at the Grant Park in Chicago from August 2 to 4. Samsung as a brand utilized this great opportunity to enhance the festival experience of attendees by creating a Samsung experience center here. At the "Samsung Galaxy Experience," Samsung offered henna tattoos on festival grounds. Guests could pick a design from photos displayed on the Galaxy S 4 and Galaxy Note 8.0. At another station, flower wreaths were available that could also be customized by choosing designs on the phone. Glad and Keep America Beautiful at SXSW The 2013 South by Southwest music, film, and technology festival ended on March 17, with an around 150,000 people turning out to be a part of the 10-day event extravaganza. Plastic housewares brand Glad and Keep America Beautiful partnered at the festival to create immersive and unconventional experiences at the same. The brands installed 13 trash, compost, and recycling areas, collecting much of the festival's waste and illustrating the premise of keeping America beautiful plus adding another layer to the activation, artist Jason Mercier created a mural of America made from SXSW trash, the digital prints of the which were available for download. Heineken's at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Coachella valley music and arts festival returned to the Southern California desert in April, 2013 and around 80,000 people congregated to join the musical festivities. The music festival was also hugely popular for a lot of brands who wanted to utilize the opportunity through experiential but among the 9 brands that executed an activation it was only brand Heineken that truly stood out in the crowd. Heineken's activation at the festival included a cold storage for cases of festivalgoers' beer, which was tracked using a fingerprint scan and kept cold until guests were ready to imbibe. V Squared Labs also created the visuals for the brand's dome on the festival grounds which received a thundering response from the audiences an added a magnificent visual element to the event altogether. Ford at Bonnaroo More than 80,000 music lovers gathered at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, from June 13 to 17. To showcase the spirit of the musical genre garage rock, Ford created a garage in the middle of the festival for its Fiesta Garage. While the festival saw Bands like Maps & Atlases and the Rubens performing, the garage created by Ford allowed the attendees to enjoy the festival by sitting in mismatched armchairs and other elements. Also available were free customized T-shirts from the brand and iPads to browse the Internet and to upload photographs.
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The second edition of the Embassy Pedal for the Planet corporate cycling event organized by Embassy Group, , saw a participation of 550 cycling enthusiasts marking this unique cycling event as a well conceptualized, green initiative to encourage cycling to work among corporate in Bangalore. This edition of Embassy Pedal for the Planet event was also aimed at supporting the education of government school children in the city. It generated close to Rs 3 lakhs through registrations besides goodwill and support from various sponsors. The registration fee collected will be donated to the NGO, Colors of Life that works with the Embassy Group education initiative to support 2100 children across 10 government schools in the city. The corporate cycling event saw contestants from companies like HP and Samsung sweat it out at the Embassy Manyata Business Park from 6.30 AM. Embassy Pedal for the Planet seeks to boost cycling as a healthy alternative to get to work and encourage green living. Jitu Virwani, Chairman and Managing Director, Embassy Group, “We are delighted with the impressive turnout for the second edition of our event. Pedal for the Planet emphasizes the sustainability initiatives adopted by Embassy and we plan to set-up an in-house platform to encourage cycling enthusiasts within our business parks to interact and share common interests.” There were 4 race categories with a route distance of 6 km for the CXO Race, 10 km for the Individual Race, 8 km for the Team Race and a Fun Ride of 4km which was open to all the participants. The CXO Race saw a close finish with Rajesh Krishnan, VP, Memory Division, Samsung India winning first place. Divyam Singh from Momoe won the Individual Race, followed by runner up Ashok Kumar, HP Enterprise. While the Team Race category saw team Swaroop & Anthony finishing first. There were exclusive prizes given to the winners and runners up of all of these races.
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KidZania Mumbai, the Global Indoor Theme park, hosted a Kabbadi match on August 20, 2015 with UMumba team of Star Sports Pro Kabbadi, as a part of their existing partnership. This event saw a blend of theme of KidZania with the ideology of the UMumba team as sports encourages players to perform with excellence and KidZania encourages kids to develop their talent and skills. Apart from the match, the Zupervisors at KidZania performed a dance, welcoming the players and entertaining the parents and visitors. The UMumba team is currently led by Anup Kumar and coached by Ravi Shetty. It is owned by Unilazer Sports & promoted by Ronnie Screwvala. UMumba is currently one of the semi-finalists in the Pro Kabbadi League. The match between the two highlighted the sportsmanship of the UMumba team and enthusiasm of the kids.
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Food Port, a food company that promises to deliver fresh, chef made meals right to your desk had their first activation executed at Cyber Hub recently. The activation which was conceptualized and designed by Chuo Senko focussed on promoting FoodPort Mobile App that will make it easier for people to order fresh food delivered at their desk.This activation was the first for FoodPort and it garnered tremendous response for the company. “We received excellent response from TG / download and orders exceeded our expectations on Day 1 and we are excited about the prospects of doing it in other locations of Gurgaon. It will be series of activations that will happen in different Office complexes, Malls, RWA and Market Places in Gurgaon” – Utpal Das/ Group Director: Chuo Senko Advertising IndiaPvt.Ltd.
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A lot of event agencies determine the success of their event on the basis of the number of attendees present in the gathering; a few others feel the success of the event can be directly allocated to the number of tickets sold. However in reality both the metrics cannot really help an event organizer in correctly analyzing if the event they just executed was a success. Come to think of it, all the 100 crore films that you see in the Indian film industry are massive money spinners but are they good films? Similarly a wedding which has been attended by over 500 guests but bores them all, cannot be termed as a successfully organized wedding. So what should be the parameters of determining the success quotient of an event? Event industry experts say it has to be ‘emotions’. The event and experiential marketing industry is fascinated with the word ‘experience’ today. Every time a new event mandate is handed over to them, all they want to do is to elevate the experience quotient of the brand in picture through the event. However what most event organizers do not understand is that no experience will ever be memorable for an event attendee if it fails to create any emotions in them. Even getting beaten up by a goon is an experience but is that something that would emote a positive emotion in people? Is that something a prospective consumer would want to remember? No, similarly the centerpiece of an event or a campaign designing process today has to be solely the intention of generating positive emotions among people, failing which an experiential campaign or an event, irrespective of its budget will not be able to serve its purpose. Taking an example from some of the best experiential campaigns like ‘Unlock the 007 in you by coca-cola’ where a prospective customer had to bring out the bond in them through a challenge, brought a lot of positive emotions in people who completed the challenge successfully. As a result the campaign even though touched only a few people at a time but is still considered as one of the most effective experiential campaigns by the brand ever. Similarly, Burger King came up with an interesting campaign “We are all the same inside” to extend its support to homosexuality. The campaign saw homosexuals entering the burger king outlet and all were given burgers with different customized packaging. However when one opened the burger they were all the same in taste and appearance inside, illustrating the premise of every human is the same inside irrespective of their preferences. The campaign brought out the emotional best among people and also won a Cannes lions for the same. Many people fail to understand what has brought in such unprecedented success for EDM festivals in the country? Well, the answer is simple, all of them have captivated the emotions of music, friendship and enjoyment for the people who attend them. Brand marketers and event agencies need to understand today that all events have experiences and they can be good or bad but it is only emotions that truly affect people. Hence, an event or campaign design today has to be able to move and touch people first before wowing them with all creative and experiential elements.
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