Everything Experiential celebrated its 2nd year anniversary on 5th September 2015, opening a new chapter with the launch of BW APPLAUSE- a magazine focused at the experiential marketing and events industry in India. The launch took place in a glittering extravaganza at Hotel Shangri-la’s Eros, New Delhi last Saturday, and saw in attendance the country’s leading event planners, marketers, agencies, event services providers and other stakeholders of the industry. The launch kicked off with the esteemed presence of Shri. Maheish Girri, Member of Parliament from East Delhi constituency, who in his opening remarks chronicled the importance of varied experiences in shaping one’s life. Shri. Girri, who is also the National Secretary of BJP, spoke in his inaugural address about the outstanding campaigning by Hon. Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi earlier this year that changed the entire world’s perception of Indian politics and events. [caption id="attachment_20111" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Shri Maheish Girri, Member of Parliament[/caption] Speaking on behalf of the event planner fraternity, Mr. Sabbas Joseph, President Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) and Co-founder Wizcraft congratulated Everything Experiential on its new initiative as he addressed the full house of event planners in a keynote address. Mr. Joseph stressed on the need for media platforms such as BW APPLAUSE and further elaborated on how the industry as a cohesive unit was getting stronger with each passing day. The day also served some exciting developments in the event licensing front that were shared by Mr Joseph in his address. [caption id="attachment_20104" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Mr Sabbas Joseph, Founder, Wizcraft & President EEMA[/caption] BW Businessworld Chairman Mr Annurag Batra in his address spoke about his journey as a media owner and the significance of events in his life. As he took to the dais with his signature wit he set the mood for the rest of the evening. [caption id="attachment_20106" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Mr. Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor BW Businessworld[/caption] Yamini Singh, Executive Editor, BW APPLAUSE shared her joy on the launch of BW APPLAUSE and expressed heartfelt gratitude to the industry stakeholders who had flown in from different cities to be a part of the launch event. The evening also witnessed four insightful panel discussions addressing the need of the experiential marketing industry. The first panel of the evening was themed "Story telling through experiential marketing- How to build a narrative that speaks to your TG" and featured Kanika Mittal, Marketing Head, Reebok; Pallavi Singh, Marketing Director, Harley Davidson and Amit Tiwari, Country Head Media & Digital, Philips. The panel was moderated by Suchetana Ray, National News Editor of BW Businessworld and highlighted how marketing trends currently had evolved from one way messages to a two directional communication chain. [caption id="attachment_20101" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Amit Tiwari, Philips, Pallvi Singh, Harley Davidson, Suchetna Ray, BW Businessworld and Kanika Mittal, Reebok India[/caption] The next panel discussion was chaired by intellectual properties creators Sanjoy Roy, Director, Teamwork Arts, Jaideep Singh, Sr VP, INS, Live Viacom18 and Jamie Stewart, Commune Sports & Entertainment who spoke on the subject of “Breaking the monotony in an experience”. The panel was moderated by senior political journalist Mr. Bhupendra Chaubey and highlighted how consumers today needed something more than the traditional buying and selling process for more evolved and engaged experiences. [caption id="attachment_20108" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Sanjoy Roy of Teamwork Arts, Jamie Stewart of Commune Sports & Entertainment, Bhupendra Choubey, Senior Journalist and Jaideep Singh, from Live Viacom18[/caption] Next on the panel were event agency planners Rajesh Varma from CRI Events, Ankur Kalra of Vibgyor Brand Services, Sanjiv Pasricha from C S Direct and Rajeev Jain of Rashi Entertainment. The panel was moderated by Everything Experiential Editorial Head Yamini Singh and aimed at decoding the client and his expectations from an agency partner. [caption id="attachment_20107" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Sanjiv Parischa of C S Direct, Ankur Kalra from Vibgyor Brand Services, Yamini Singh, Executive Editor BW APPLAUSE, Rajesh Varma from CRI Events and Rajeev Jain of Rashi Entertainment[/caption] The final panel of the evening saw senior media experts AP Parigi, Group CEO, Network18 and Jawahar Sircar, CEO, Prasar Bharti engage in a discussion with BW Hotelier Executive Editor Bikramjit Ray on how media is responsible for the best experiences served to an individual. [caption id="attachment_20102" align="aligncenter" width="612"] AP Parigi, Group CEO, Network18, JawaharSircar, CEO, Prasar Bharti and Bikramjit Ray, BW Hotelier[/caption] The special address of the evening was served by Ranjivjit Singh, CMO, Samsung India, who spoke about experiential marketing as an integral tool for brands today. He said, “It is only the experiences that you have in your life that stay with you and nothing else and thus brands today needed to sell experiences with their products and not the products alone.” [caption id="attachment_20105" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Ranjivjit Singh, CMO, Samsung India[/caption] Guest of Honor for the evening was Sh. Sunil Arora I&B Secretary who thanked the BW Businessworld group chairman Mr. Annurag Batra on launching an initiative like BW APPLAUSE and also opined how the events industry and its growth was a positive sign for the country. [caption id="attachment_20110" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Sh. Sunil Arora I&B Secretary[/caption] Sh. Sunil Arora then joined Mr. Annurag Batra, Mr Ranjivjit Singh, Mr. Sabbas Joseph and others to officially launch BW APPLAUSE. A gala evening of entertainment ensued.
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Move away angry birds; angry babies are here! Hoardings across prominent locations in the country are plastered with grumpy baby faces. Private life insurer, IDBI Federal Life Insurance has launched its funny, yet hard-hitting, outdoor campaign to promote its child plans category – Childsurance. The angry baby photos attract your attention and lead you to an important message – the child will not look this cute when he /she is angry at the age of 18 years! With inflation in education costs ballooning year after year, it is important that young parents systematically plan for the future needs of their little ones. The outdoor campaign created by The Social Street, like the other campaigns from the company, adds a bit of humour to communicate an important message. The campaign spans 105 towns in the country. Explaining the objective of this campaign, Mr. Aneesh Khanna, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, IDBI Federal Life Insurance, said, “According to a survey, about 60% of Indian parents are worried about the rising education costs. According to the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, an Indian dies in an accident every 90 seconds. With such uncertainty and rising costs, the biggest worry in the minds of today’s young parents is, whether their goals for their children will be fulfilled, especially in their absence. Our children’s insurance solutions address these concerns effectively. The plans not only help customers build a sizeable corpus, but also offer life cover. The waiver of premium benefit ensures that the plan continues even in the absence of the parent and children’s future needs are secured no matter what.” He adds, “The message of angry babies is so strong and striking at the same time that we thought an outdoor campaign would effectively communicate the campaign thought. The best part about this campaign is that while it gives a gentle nudge to young parents to plan for their children’s future needs, it takes does so by taking a complete departure from regular advertising featuring babies. While you would see happy baby faces in most advertising, ours features angry babies and this has caught the attention of the audience.” Say’s Pratap Bose Founding Partner and Chairman of The Social Street … ’’The Childsurance campaign from IDBI Federal is indeed an intriguing one, as the cute angry babies immediately draw your attention. Large scale formats in the OOH space, enables the imagery of the visual to be disproportionately large, so as to draw attention and drive home the point that your child’s insurance is certainly not something that you can take for granted’’ Nitin Rastogi Associate Vice President The Social Street adds “We executed The Childsurance campaign in 105 cities, with more than 900 billboards pan India in Phase 1, we planned & shortlisted each and every media considering the creative, even the way the baby looked towards the traffic as per the positioning of each site. The beauty of the outdoor is that you can use the creative suitable to each and every medium, which no other medium offers, and we’ve tried to explore this effectively in this campaign, in phase one we integrated the campaign with radio, and in phase two we’re planning to take it a step further with on-ground activation & digital” The company has also tied up with BIG FM 92.7 radio station for its radio efforts for the campaign. It will cover 11 towns – these are towns with high radio listenership and affinity with the target group. Radio campaign will be divided in 2 phases – in the first phase, IDBI Federal Life Insurance will run a radio contest and in the next leg it will engage audiences with interesting ideas like radio films and counseling sessions. The company also has plans to have activations and digital engagement to promote the campaign further.
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In an interesting move Omar Qureshi – Bollywood & Media Expert and has joined the Viiking Media & Entertainment Group as “Chief Creative Officer & Business Head”. Viiking is an Entertainment and Media conglomerate with business entrepreneur, filmmaker, actor, Sachiin J Joshi as its Chairman. It is part of the Viiking Group, that has business interests in Film Production, Beverages (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), Spas & Health Products, Gymnasiums, Spring & Mineral water, tissues, Sports (he has a huge shareholding in the star cricket enterprise - CCL apart from owning the team ‘Telugu Warriors’); has recently forayed into luxury hotels by bringing down the famed Planet Hollywood hotel to Goa luxe. Viiking is also the producer of several big ticket films like the Aishwarya Rai – Bachchan starrer ‘Jazbaa’ and Ram Gopal Verma’s next, ‘The Secret’ among others. With Omar Qureshi coming on board as CCO, the Group now enters the sizzling hot Digital Media and Creative Content market. For TV, web, mobile and the big screen of movie production; including marketing, promotions and distribution. As well as a focus on music verticals. Omar Qureshi brings with himself a humongous experience across numerous media platforms- in print (as Editor of the famed ‘Stardust’ magazine); web, mobile and on-ground – launching a glut of products with Indiatimes.com of the Times Group – as Entertainment Editor for the Group. Making Indiatimes a highly valued company with his contributions. His initiations with Aamir Khan’s ‘Lagaan’ spun off many businesses for Times Internet Ltd. And helped in it becoming India’s fastest ‘Superbrand’. In 2008 he was asked by the Times Group, to head zoom TV as Editor-in-Chief. Omar’s Review show on zoom was also one of India’s most watched shows. Commenting on Omar’s entry Sachiin Joshi, Chairman– Viiking Ventures and Viiking Media and Entertainment – “This is the most fabulous handshake to happen in the business of Media and Entertainment in a long time and will remains so for a long time. We, as a Group, are expanding in the areas of Movies, Movie content, short and long form content for digital. Movie Production, Marketing and Promotions across all our properties. And who better than Omar – with his immense experience in all these zones – to spearhead these areas. He is a household name with Bollywood and a known face with TV, Media and even the audiences. His experience and expertise shall only add greater value to Viiking as a Company. We intend not only to become the biggest players in the Digital Content space out of India, we will also have the in-house expertise to select and make the best possible content for Movies and the music space, that seem to be suffering from dearth of enough creativity. Omar is a master of that territory and we are very excited.” Speaking about his new professional outing Omar says – “When smart business meets smart content the result is a spark that can set benchmarks and blaze new trails. With the kind of Group support and resources at the disposal of The Viiking Group, the ventures we are looking at shall be The Place to visit, for sampling any kind of content across genres. With a focused eye on Bollywood and Entertainment, we shall also foray into other genres. And with niche TV viewing going through asphyxiation by the larger GECs, and with content suffering from scarcity of originality, we hope to create shark tanks of expert teams, the best of breed in their domains, who will create businesses that will become a landing page for most consumers. Also, with the Group’s interest in Bollywood and Tollywood movies, also looking internationally, I see a beautiful synergy and an exciting new zone that shall be the mother of all Digital Content, hopefully, sooner than we think. With the kind of vision, 70mm foresight and drive that Sachiin Joshi has, this seems immensely doable.”
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Right when the country was busy preparing to celebrate Teacher’s day on September 4th, a landmark initiative was taken by the Delhi government as it implemented Online Licensing process, making it the first state in India that has set in stone such a path-breaking initiative. The news of licensing process for attaining NOC’s for organizing events being shifted online comes as good news for the event industry stakeholders as now planners can obtain multiple NOC’s required to host events in Delhi through a single window and without a human interface. While the online clearance has been put in place for non-ticketed events in Delhi for now, it will take around another month for the online process to be implemented for ticketed events; that would be another major achievement. A report prepared by the excise commissioner Sanjay Kumar on “ease on event regulations” is currently in Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s office for consideration. The report takes into accounts the views of industry insiders like Rajeev Jain, Treasurer, Event and Entertainment Management Association and Karan Arora, Book My Show and advocates about granting licenses on annual basis to certain venues on payment of certain fees after which permission for every event will not be needed. Commenting on the momentous achievement for the industry, Sabbas Joseph, President EEMA, says, “The decision by Delhi government is much appreciated and now we wait for states like Maharastra and others to follow Delhi’s example.
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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.
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In a timely and creative expression of its penchant to help art lovers express their creativity online, Kokuyo Camlin, the stationery and art brand, tweeted to Google with a fun take on its new official logo. Google unveiled a new logo on its homepage on Tuesday with a Google Doodle animation that wipes away the old logo and draws the new one. Kokuyo Camlin’s video response builds upon Google’s first major redesign of its logo in 17 years, through the creative route ‘If its Crayons, its Camlin’. The video, shared today on Twitter, expresses how the universal appeal of Camlin’s art and stationary products also extends to the virtual world, while highlighting the colourful and interactive look & feel of the new Google logo. Link to the post on Twitter Link to the Facebook post Expanding on it’s core proposition of “Let’s Have Fun”, the video also represents the Camlin’s dedication to helping art lovers bring their imagination to life virtually and create masterpieces sitting anywhere. Kokuyo Camlin Chief Marketing Officer, Saumitra Prasad said, “As marketers of Camel, the pioneer and largest brand of Crayons, we are delighted to see the new logo of Google inspired by Crayons. As Kokuyo Camlin aims to make learning fun for children through it art and stationery products, we are happing to see the world moving towards the same direction where art and creativity is being encouraged.” The video was conceptualized and created by Kokuyo Camlin’s digital agency, Big I Tuna.
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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?
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Percept ICE, a company of Percept Limited, managed and executed the Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI) Arjun Awards 2015. The award function was held at the Sahara Star hotel in Mumbai on 14 August, 2015. An innovative initiative, the Arjun Awards was designed to extend an opportunity to every employee to contribute towards achieving the vision of Customer Trust Surplus. The entire organization was divided into 8 Zones. Every Corporate / Non Sales function was attached to each of these zones with 1 Leadership Team member assigned as a Mentor. The objective was to get everyone in the company to contribute towards the success of Sales. The initiative was launched to bring synergy and competitiveness amongst the functions. The project enabled increase in sales, generated greater sales support and facilitated corporate functions to unite together (close to 50 functions were synergized in this initiative) for a common cause to implement “Capacity, Productivity, Sustainability” (CPS) in the organization. The initiative was appreciated and accepted across the hierarchy and was the largest act of collaboration across the organization. No other company in the industry has ever launched a single initiative of this scale for so many employees under one umbrella. A total of 500 Awards were handed out to all the top executives. Invitees to the BSLI Arjun Awards 2015 Day Conference were welcomed in traditional Maharashtrian style with Dhol, Tutari and Lazim Players. The Conference was hosted by popular anchor A K Rahman. The event kick started with a grand “Shivaji” act by Punit Pathak’s dance troupe. It was then followed by the 1st set of Awards. The famous story telling troupe “Illuminati” paid tribute to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam through a classic UV act leading into the 2nd set of awards. The “Mann Ki Baat” segment which was specially designed to interview 8 Leadership Team members was followed by the final round of day awards. The conference wrapped up with an inspirational session by “Deepa Malik”- a Paraplegic Indian athlete who has won numerous accolades for her participation in various Adventure Sports. The day conference was followed by a gala evening of fun and celebrations. As the overall theme of the event was ‘Arjun’, all the pre-function activities were designed in accordance with this theme by Percept ICE. The invitees enjoyed the games organized including Fish Eye Dartboard and Archery. A royal throne and an elegant palace set made for a popular photo-op corner. The Gala Evening function was hosted by the TV personality “Ragini Khanna” along with A K Rahman. The ceremonial evening was opened by singer Archita Bhattacharya followed by 8 special Grand Finale Awards that were handed out to different teams. The Punit Pathak dance troupe performed another classical rendition. Renowned singer Shadab Faridi was the show stopper of the evening with his diverse variety of Sufi and other popular music as he left the audience mesmerized with his performance. Commenting on this unique recognition event, Mr Vishal Dhale, Head Reward & Recognition Sales, Birla Sun Life Insurance Co. Ltd.said, “We initiated this unique employee recognition platform with a vision wherein the best across the organization can come together. The initiative aims at recognizing those individuals and teams who have raised the standard of performance multi-fold and contributed significantly. Smart-phone apps have become the audience facing interface for these awards, going into the several touch points of customization and engagement that were created in the pre-event areas. I can proudly say that our maiden BSLI Arjun Awards have given our first 500 Arjuns the awards that have enabled to raise the level of achievement, vision, scale & planning. The Arjun Awards was at par with any of the world acclaimed international awards property. It is with great confidence that I can claim that the Arjun Awards struck all checkboxes on the lists of all attendees; the satisfaction score created through a strong feedback mechanism is testimony to the fact.” Percept ICE conceptualized and executed the entire event flawlessly, inclusive of logistics and travel arrangements. Commenting on the successful management of the event, Ms. Nazneen Karimi – Chief Executive Officer, Percept ICE said, “I had personally planned and detailed out the entire BSLI Arjun Awards 2015 event given the fact that it was a launch initiative of the Birla Sun Life Insurance Group. The entire event was organized perfectly and every element incorporated ensured that the objective and overarching theme were well coordinated and communicated through the range of activities and entertainment acts performed. The Percept ICE team pulled all the stops to guarantee a successful and memorable show.”
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