Wow! Twenty Years…From painted backdrops to dynamic LEDs, from socializing to going social, from executing events to crafting unforgettable experiences –what a long way we’ve come. Reminiscing on the evolution of brand Phase 1through its two-decade journey is a truly overwhelming experience. I started out as a stage-lights-and-sound-smitten individual who was passionate about theater, entertainment and the arts. Musicals made my nerves tingle with awe and excitement.The experience of live-delight was something I just couldn’t shake off my mind. I was privileged to be part of the CATS ensemble where I was exposed to artistry and entertainment in its ultimate form. Moving on, after college, I joined Godrej for a four-year stint which was a phenomenally positive experience. It was then when I had the crystallized clarity that I wanted to create something that would seamlessly blend my passion for entertainment with the business world. The journey from a little dream to now has been nothing short of spectacular. We conceptualized and executed ‘Hollywood’, one of India’s oldest New Year party brands, on the very first year of Phase 1’s inception. We went on to conduct the first Tech Ed event in India with Microsoft, piloted the concept of employees as the talent on stage, and were one of the earliest players in the market to do international events! Over the years, we’ve nurtured long-lasting relationships with exclusive clients across various industry verticals including IT, Automobiles, FMCG, Life & Style, Infrastructure, Pharma, and Retail. Our relationship with Prestige, Titan, UB and most notably Novell goes back a long way and there’s a perpetually growing bucket of new partners and clients who continue to inspire us. We value these relationships above all andare truly privileged to work with some of the best brands in the industry. As with any other business, we’ve had our fair share of elating ups and over castdowns – but what we have now as a cumulative result of these twenty years,is a rich, sophisticated, legacy-leaving body of work that we can’t be more proud of! If there is one thing I would attribute our growth to as an organization, it’s got to be the potent mix of our skilled people who are the real catalysts of our success, along with our dream big and never-fail-to-deliver attitude. Phase 1 is an intimate hub of leaders – of dreamers and doers – who breathe the brand and its values. With some of the best from the talent pool onboard with us, we are able to consistently step out of line, take calculated risks, challenge convention and do things differently. Our success story of two decades can therefore be summed as a story of constant adaptation and revision and change – where the focus has been on staying relevant at all times. We’re all set to create new benchmarks in the industry with a focus on exponential growth, radical innovation and embracing digital in totality. Our vision is to be the leaders in crafting unique and engaging experiences in the smartest form, anywhere in the world. An exciting venture we’re invested in at the moment involves creating a never-seen-before interplay between creativity, technology and brand experiences.We’re living in a fast-changing digital world of hashtags, clicks, taps and apps – digital is dominating the zeitgeist of our time and we’re ready to exploit its full potential. Phase 1 has also developed a strategic focus on becoming a purpose-driven organization with CSR and employee happiness at the center of our focus. We are changing the very nature of our work to become more collaborative, constructive and cohesive and have a specialized team of ‘Funsultants’ and Chief Happiness Officers constituted this year to create a culture of wellness, inspire our people and infuse a spirit of joy within the everyday framework of our organization. Our two-decade stint meets yet another milestone event that’s dedicated to each and every one in the Phase 1 team. We’ve relocated to a spanking new studio – a fluid and visceral space that blends work with play and offers a stunning view of the Bangalore metro. I want to thank all those wonderfully special people who have helped me, stood by me and nurtured my crazy impulses through this journey. I’m unabashedly expressive with the ones I love, so they know exactly who they are.Our clients for their unfaltering faith in me. My family for being my biggest source of strength and for having my back at all times. My beautiful wife for always believing – it’s a privilege to share my life with her; and my kids who are my biggest assets, for teaching me more about myself and for making me a better person everyday. Let the good times roll. (The article has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
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In a dog eat dog world, brands are like scavengers. Anywhere they see a thriving consumer populace, they come scurrying, to catch them first and catch them young. And one place that hits the mark with most brands as their favorite feeding ground is- THE MALL. Thousands of unassuming customers. Fat pockets. Just saying these two things to a marketer is reason enough for him to invest ina mall activation. That’s the reason why 15%-20% of all activations today happen at malls as opposed to any other venue. A veteran player in this game, responsible for executing over 500 activations in malls for over 100 different brands is Candid Marketing. Atul Nath, Managing Director, Candid Marketing, in conversation with Yamini Singh, gives the lowdown as he traces his journey from mall to mall. Q- Your first experience of executing an activation at a mall? A- It was back in 1999 when the first two malls opened in India - Ansal Plaza in Delhi and Crossroads in Mumbai. Malls were a real novelty for consumers and for brands way back then and most marketers didn’t really know how to effectively use them as an activation playground. Not many people know but in the very early years, we represented Ansal Plaza for all marketing activities. Q- The challenges of activating at a mall? A- Malls are relatively one of the easiest venues for executing activations. They offer a fairly controlled environment with a captive audience willing and able to engage with brands. The only real challenge in malls is to separate entertainment-seeking-consumers from serious brand-interested-consumers. Getting this balance is crucial for delivering the right target audience and the right level of effectiveness for the brand. Sometimes, in the endeavour of chasing numbers, clients tend to compromise on the quality of target audience. Q- There is a strong emphasis on malls as a venue for activations. Is there an alternative for achieving the same level of engagement? A- Malls offer a predictable environment for engaging with consumers in large numbers. Unfortunately, open market places in our country are unpredictable in terms of getting permissions and space. Add to this the vagaries of weather conditions in many regions, and outdoor areas become a real challenge. At the right time and at the right mall, one can get a ready and captive audience without having to invest in attracting an audience. Q- What is the most common client brief you receive when planning a mall activation? Mall Activation briefs are not very different from other activation and event briefs. Brands are generally seeking engagement opportunities with its TG in accordance to their priorities and objectives. Q-What elements should a newly established event company keep in mind while executing a mall activation? A- A clear communication and list of deliverables with the Mall or Mall representation agency is crucial. Q- What have been your leanings from mall activations? A- There was a time when there was enough to do as an activation in a mall to attract consumers, not so much now. It is crucial to create a strong creative and engaging connect with consumers to deliver a brand message effectively. (The story has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
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What a trip it’s been. What an up and down, heaven to hell and back again goddamned trip.Where does one start ? Two decades of crazy change, of ridiculous revolution, of mayhem, chaos, havoc and turmoil. If you look back carefully though, look with the right kind of eyes, you can pick up the trail - a wavering, seemingly fragile, but unstoppable line of progress. A pre-internet, pre mobile-phone, pre event management era has unstoppably evolved into today’s great digital, economic and social transformation. We’ve lived through a revolution, and like every revolution there have been winners, and,sadly, a great many losers. Here at the 70 Event Media Group, we can, I think, count ourselves as being amongst those who did win out over the past two decades. We did it - as often as not - on our own terms and in our own way. You have to picture the scene back in 1997 to really appreciate the sheer outrageousness of the challenge that every one of us has faced whilst building our business and our Industry. It was in North India, and Coca Cola had hired 70 EMG to produce a series of very large format music concerts – free to the public – for audiences of 25,000 plus. No mobile phones of course, no email, very little trussing, no MOJO metal barricading, no ‘Book My Show’, no Facebook, no specialized Security Agencies, no chemical toilets, no House-keeping Agencies, no nothing, really. It was, shall we say, somewhat basic. To save money (of course) the Client hired the Gurkha Regiment as security. 25,000 fans in Agra go wild at the sight of Shaan&Sagarika on stage. Cue the wholly predictable chaos and carnage at the front of stage, with blank faced 17 year old soldiers trying to maintain order with the butts of their fully loaded, automatic rifles. We flee the City leaving behind 25,000 very happy fans, and an equally happy client. You couldn’t make it up. Cut to 17 years later and India Bike Week has sold its 9,475th ticket for the year. Many of the 450,000 actively involved fans on Facebook are following the live, online stream of the Festival, House-keeping, Ticketing, Registration, Security, Music programming, Camping, and other crucial elements of the Festival have all been outsourced to professional agencies. Sponsors, partners, stakeholders have contracted with 3rd Party event and design agencies to build their stalls, and manage their customer engagement programs. And 70 EMG’s role, together with our partners at Fox Life, has changed beyond recognition. Yes, we have our Ops people on the ground, making sure things run smoothly to the quality levels we expect at any of our events, and yes of course we are running the show(s) – no doubt about that. But the bulk of our job is to ‘Engage’. Engage with the bikers, the festival goers, exhibitors and stake holders – of whom there are many thousand. For us, the Festival is the culmination of an 8 month community building and activation process where we’ve been talking to consumers, riding with them, often teaching them about what a Festival is, and why they should come. We’ve done it online, but we’ve also done in in bars, at the roadside, at restaurants and on the street. It is one of the milestones that we are most proud of. The morphing of an Agency that was entirely client facing and reactive to the client brief, into one that also has a world-class ability to define and build consumer communities, connect with them, help them grow, and then use that skill and knowledge base to build Festival and event brands that can disrupt and dominate entire industries. Especially now.Especially in 2015. Especially given that whilst it seems that we are in danger of being flattened by the digital juggernaut;whilst it looks like we might be endangered by marketing spends being taken away from us and shoved into digital banner advertising and viral videos of dubious creative and cultural worth. ‘Seeming’, however, is not necessarily the full story. There is, in fact, another Revolution happening – not just in India, but across the world. As Karl Marx said “Every Revolution creates its own antithesis”, and Karl was a very clever man. Applied to today, what he meant was that, whilst the rise and rise of the digital age seems unstoppable, so is the human instinct for connection: real, shoulder to shoulder, see, smell, hear each other, connection. The antithesis to the flickering screen - the black mirror, is the heaving nightclub, the packs of bikers out on their Sunday morning rides, the jumping in unison, festival crowd loving the top 10 DJ. We are at the epicenter of a new Revolution – one that will co-exist and drive that other digital one. And it is going to grow and grow and grow. After all, we are in the business of creating happiness are we not ? That is – when you get down to it – ultimately what we do. To be in India over the past 17 years and see this process evolving in front of our very eyes has been one of the great privileges of working at 70 EMG. HausKhas on a Thursday night, Bandra on a Saturday. Literally hundreds of thousands of young Indians out and about, with money in their pocket and the need for human comfort and connection. Bars full, restaurants full, music concerts and club nights full. Festivals being launched. And this is just the very start. It is, in fact, the beginning of the beginning. In ten years time, the consumer entertainment brands we create today will be massive. If we design and run them right, if we devolve ownership of them to the communities and fans that turn up, we’ll have our own Revolution on our hands. So – change and progress - and along the way, the very best of times… The launch of Seven Steps – our award-winning Wedding Management agency.The launch of ‘The Set’ our equally award-winning, in-house design studio. Opening up Jag Mandhir and the City Palace in Udaipur as private Wedding Destination venues in 2001. Venice in 2010.Kenya and Uganda in 2012. London in 2006.Vancouver in 2013.The launch of not one, but two, enormous Temples -and feeding, cleaning and tenting 180,000 pilgrims a day.Developing one of the world’s top 3 Classic Car & Bike Concours, building the world’s 3rd largest Jewelry Exhibition, Conference and event. Helping the AAAI to re-imagine and re-design GoaFest. Launching India Bike Week AND the Zambhala Yoga & Wellness Festival in the middle of a howling, global recession. The fantastic clients we’ve had who have become friends and business partners. The slow, steady professionalization of our Industry with brilliant suppliers and partners to help carry the burden of over 400 events a year. Working with international clients new to India – Cartier, Remy Martin, Zara, Harley Davidson – and helping them to develop and build their businesses. Adapting to the era of ‘the Pitch’, and to the rise and rise of the dreaded Purchasing Department. Winning, losing, laughing, weeping. What fun we’ve had. What fun. And here’s the thing. Its just the start of it all. The opportunity out there is awesome. Sometimes we feel like we’re at the foothills of the Himalayas, gazing out at a cloud shrouded Everest. Our Corporate & Brand Activation business shows no sign of slowing down. Our wedding management, special events and design businesses are posting record growth. We have at least four more festival and consumer focused event brands we’re in the process of launching. So thank you India. Thank you to all the hundreds of 70 EMG alumni – past and present –with whom we’ve had such wild and rolling times. Thank you to the many clients we’ve learned from, the partners who’ve saved us. Most of all perhaps, thank you Xerxes Antia, KainazSethna, Thanush Joseph and DarayashGocal. You’ve been amazing. It’s been a rollercoaster. Thank god. (The story has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
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Harshad Chavan boasts of a really dynamic career graph as he dabbled from having a serious corporate career to setting up his own event agency Cream Events, which was later acquired by the Edelman group. He then decided to retire at the age of 40 to pursue other career interests but recently decided to make a comeback and has now joined Toast events in the capacity of a Managing Director. In an exclusive conversation with Everything Experiential, Harshad Chavan spills the beans his new ventures at Toast events, reasons for his retirement and what brought him come back. Q-You took a voluntary retirement at the age of 40 after leaving Cream Events. Any specific reasons why you left and what inspired you to come back? A-Work started really early for me. With a career spanning over 23 years, I have had a fantastic opportunity to juggle from a serious corporate career to setting up my event agency which was acquired by a large multinational. When I retired from Cream Events, it was purely to take time off, travel, catch up with friends and spend time with family and kids. Coming back from retirement was not on the cards and definitely not so soon. But, when the team from Toast events came to me, with so much conviction and larger than life dreams where they were confident that I would be able to help them get where they wanted to go, I just couldn't get the thought out of my head. After a lot of deliberation and with support my family I gave in and the rest is what you see. Q-What do you bring to the table as a Managing Director for Toast Events now? What can we expect from the agency? A-When the team came to me with the statement 'We want to make Toast big. Come on board', it did strike me like a bolt of lightning. They set up a company and were doing some great work and I was on my time off and a mission was the last thing on my mind. Their dreams were big and I couldn't say no. They had too much faith and i wasn't going to let them down. The vision is to make this company big. We will be expanding across various businesses in due course offering our clients a literal one stop solution for their brands. Talent Management is our first new division. We will work with our talent to creating them into brand themselves. The talents we will be signing on will range across Bollywood, Music, Live Talent, etc. Kangna Ranaut is our very first talent and it only gets bigger from here. Q-What made you return with Toast Events and not any other agency? A-Toast Events Pvt Ltd was founded by 5 individuals who i mentored during their tenure at Cream Events Nilesh Gurav, Wilson Dsouza, Trishala Jailwala, Karan Kapoor and Michelle Sanghvi.. Their vision was unbounded and they chose to move on last year to explore themselves. In April 2015, they started Toast Events, little to my imagination the company is 6 months old today and I am on board and adding reality to their vision. Having been employed by a team mentored by me in their previous organisation, makes me feel great to see their evolution. Today, they are a lean (mean) team doing some fantastic work in the experiential space. Q-Speculations are ripe that you have also financially invested in Toast events? A-No. My investment here is primarily in the direction of creative guidance and strategy.
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Vanesa Group, which came into existence in 1983, is amongst the leaders of aerosol manufacturing in India. The brand currently valued at 350 Croreand under the Denver India umbrella aims to further expand its wings in the experiential domain with its key products Denver and Envy 1000 deodorants. In conversation with Saurabh Gupta, Marketing Head, Vanesa Care we gain insight on the brand’s marketing roadmap and the importance of experiential. Q-How important is experiential marketing for Denver? A-Experiential is extremely important for any brand but it is rather critical for us due to the nature of our product which will not sell unless and until experienced by a prospective consumer. We at Denver realize this and as a trade practice we send in a lot of testers with our products. Any retailer who buys as little as 6 units from us is given 1 tester for people to try. Even in an ice-cream shop today flavors are experienced before making a decision on what to purchase, so experiential is clearly important and we at Denver have made it the crux of our marketing strategy. We understand the fact that it is only when a consumer likes the experience it is only then when he will buy the product. Q- Denver’s experiential initiatives are largely targeted towardsthe college goingdemography- a sub segment of the youth age bracket. Any specific reasons behind this? A-It is not true that we are catering only to the college going audiences. Yes, our past experiential initiatives and associations might be targeted towards that direction but if you look closely to the overall campaign you will realize that the story is different. Our latest communication campaign for Denver deodorants is the one, where Saif Ali Khan is playing Golf in his office is very aspirational and is relatable to everyone in the youth bracket that aspires to be successful. As depicted in the advertisement that when Saif hits the shot the ball goes towards various directions but finally enters the cup so with this communication we have tried to symbolize is that the entire youth bracket who goes through a series of hurdles and struggles like the golf ball before finally achieving success. At Denver our aim is to create an aspirational product. In this pursuit, apart from the college going audiences we are also trying to focus on the prospective customers who have just started their professional career. Q-Your competitors in the deodorant segment, Axe and Wildstone, have done a fair amount of experiential while Denver feels to be venturing into it now. Why so late? A- I do not agree to this as the birth of Denver as a brand happened at India International Trade Fair which was an experiential event itself. Also we have been doing our bit in experiential also but as one of the most important parameters of such initiatives is the budget and target audiences and thus our experiential initiatives have been limited in that sense of reach. We have done experiential campaigns such as branding of the BMW car during Formula 1 race and also we have been the sponsors of the French open for the past 3 years. So yes experiential has pretty much always been an integral part of a marketing plan but it has so far been only executed in pockets. Q- A mainline productthat’s put your brand on the map is the Denver Beer Shampoo. What defines its marketing strategy? A-Through the beer shampoo we have tried to penetrate into a niche segment that is conscious about vanity and personal care. The benefits of beer for hair is known to a few people only but through this product we are trying to create that awareness and establish ourselves in the minds of an elite target group. We also do understand that people will be hesitant to experiment with a new product for their hair and hence we have launched 7Ml sachet for the product as well so that people can try on the shampoo first and then after they are satisfied with its inherent qualities they can purchase the product. Experiential is the going to be an integral aspect here as well so we are in the process of launching the first round of the Denver Hair Spa Session, wherein we will be calling bloggers, journalists, and writers to experience the shampoo. In the second round, we will be reaching out to various press clubs in numerous states and the third round will be executed in malls and colleges. Q- Is there a separate budget for the experiential marketing initiatives of Denver? A-That is right. Usually out of our entire revenue we take out 2%-3% of the amount as an experiential marketing budget. So if our company is making 200 Crore then 6 Crore of the amount is segregated for experiential. The amount is not small however a challenge is covering the entire country with it. Q-Is there a pre-defined method to allocate the money from the experiential budget to different regions? A-Yes, every year we have a key market and a focus market in place which is derived after a careful scrutiny of the sales report and figures. As an example for this year our focus market is West Bengal accordingly and hence we will be designing our experiential marketing initiatives accordingly to cater the same target market. Also the Indian calendar for the year is already set in terms of festival dates and this is something that also determines our experiential marketing budget allocation. Q-Are there any fixed elements that you wish to incorporate in your experiential initiatives? A-It all depends on the mandate at the end of the day. If we have a new product launch then the campaign is designed around it. As an example our campaign running currently ‘the real scent of success’ will be the message all our experiential ventures will carry. Our main aim at the end of the day is to develop an integrated marketing campaign where all media channels display the same message but in their own way. Q-What are the upcoming experiential campaign that Denver looks forward to executing in the near future? A- Currently we are in the process of executing activations at malls and also we have tied up with an American licensing agency who have a good experiential connect with brands partnering with them we look forward to executing a lot of high street experiential initiatives. Also currently we are in talks with Warner Brothers as we want to collaborate with them and then carry forward a full-fledged product launch and then an experiential campaign. We are also working on mobile campaigns in form of organizing road shows and exhibitions and in the future we will be branding some exotic cars and then take them to different locations. We are expecting that people will be taking a lot of selfies with these cars and hence the brand imagery will be leveraged through these experiential initiatives. (The story has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
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Our weekly Saturday afternoon meetings were routine affairs. Over samosas and chai, crucial decisions were made, as back then, we were primarily a TV production company. Six years down the linewe became a factorychurning out formats, inventing soaps, re-imagining game shows, and the weekly meetings then were an opportunity to catch your breath, let your hair down and assess. Our colleagues, Sharupa Dutta and Manika Berry Asgaonkar, looked stressed and suggested we stop! Stop? How would that work? My partner, Mohit Satyanand, mulled over the thought, but after some number crunching, announced that the only people making money from the shows were the channels, who used to pay us in 90-120 day cycles. In essence we could, if we wished to, take a break. Hara-kiri has many forms: this was its finest! The channels, unhappy about our decision, delayed payments even further. The overheated TV scene collapsed with channels sputtering out, sacking people and financially ruining the producer fraternity. We were cash strapped, overstaffed and having to paddle hard to stay afloat. Mohit then calculated that given our outstanding payments across channels and money owed for an ongoing Television Awards project sponsored by Onida, we would have enough to keep us afloat for a while, till we reinvented ourselves. However, Onida ran into serious financial problems and decided to wind down the awards. Stung by non-payments, many of our trusted colleagues left in search of fresh pastures. In the same year, Mohit, his sister Kanika and Val Shipley had begun a bi-monthly get together where friends and family would gather to listen and make music. And, thusThe Friends of Music (FOM) group was born. A slew of today’s stars, SusmitSen& and Indian Ocean, Mohit Chauhan, Bobby Cash strummed and sang their way to stardom from those early concerts. We took heart and expanded our work to include dance and theater. In the eighties and nineties, the British Council in India was a hub of activity. SushmaBahl, the council’sDirector of Arts, had boundless energy, a rare vision, and the experience to work across international borders. Having seen me perform in Primetime Theater’s ‘Me and My Girl’, she invited me to visit the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1999. This set the agenda for our first cross-festival presentation in 2001. Working closely with the Festival Fringe, the International Film Festival, the Edinburgh Tattoo and the Edinburgh International Festival, we created an annual platform of work from across India, enlarging our presence from six productions to sixteen. Many thought we were mad, but our long-term objectives paid off as we presented an array of artists: AditiMangaldas, Mrigaya, Indian Ocean, LilletteDubey and her Primetime Theater group, Adi Shakti, LushinDubey, DadiPudumjee and the Ishara Theater Company, to name a few. Even Shah Rukh Khan, made his way to Edinburgh, in a celebration of the best of Indian arts. The year we presented Ishara Puppet Theater’s `Transposition’, the infamous liquid bomb incident took place at Heathrow as we landed. We arrived in Edinburgh after a 16-hour delay, only to find that 24 of our 30 odd suitcases and outsized puppet boxes and bags had been lost! Five days and three cancelled shows later, BBC ran a story on our predicament. Hours later, a passenger Dana Macleod, rang to say strange-shaped bags were going around the carousel with stickers bearing her name. Thus, the show was back on the road! SushmaBahl&Edmund Marsden drove British Council’s agenda and for three years we worked together, we worked to create offsite weeklong programmes for artists, managers and art administrators. This culminated in the setting up of the six-month long ‘Great Arc Festival’ across the UK. Commissioned by India’s Department of Science & Technology and steered by an innovative Amitabh Pandey, the then joint secretary, this project virtually brought us to the brink of bankruptcy due to the intransigence of government organizations. `Reinventing’ sure sounds cool but the process is terrifying! Television paid salaries which the arts could never afford and Investments in shows and festivals meant that our balance sheets were red, year on year. Setting up or collaborating with existing festivals led to some degree of success, with annual presentations in Singapore, Wellington, Perth and Melbourne. Prompted by our then Counsel General, Navdeep Suri, we then set up the Shared History Festival in South Africa. With an audience returning to the theater, New Town had now seen a rise in property prices, new businesses opening and residential blocks being re-built. Our accidental business model kicked in as we expanded out of Johannesburg to include Durban, Cape Town, Pretoria and Pietermaritzburg. We were able to amortize costs across the cities and build on revenues in a unique private public partnership model. A series of Art Therapy & and Theatre workshops run by Puneeta Roy and the Tehelka Foundation, helped us reach out to a demographic somewhat different to our average theater-going population. Governments rarely credit the direct contribution that Arts interventions make to marginalized communities. At Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT), an organization providing support services for street and working children in Delhi set up in 1988, we laid great emphasis on theater, music, dance and visual arts as therapeutic tools for homeless children, most often violated and abused. Salim, a four-year old boy, lost his family during a religious procession. The police brought him to us and our social workers sent out photographs and we were able to reunite Salim with his family. He was later cast in an Academy award-nominated short film and went on to become a full time contemporary dancer and actor. Vicky Roy, an enthusiastic photographer, one of our older kids who had a rare ability to capture incredible imagery, went on to win the All India Photography Award and a commission by the World Photography Association in Amsterdam. Other SBT kids -Kapil, Pawan, Shamshul, Shameem, Viraj and Kumari were trained as puppeteers with DadiPudumjee and went on to become independent artists. In India, we have 110 million children out of school. And thus, even if the GDP spent on education were to double, it would take 20 years to build the brick and mortar to house this population and train teachers required. Hence, new ideas and out-of-the-box solutions need to be found, to deliver education to these children. Story-telling forms through the arts could be one way of delivering much needed literacy to those who live outside the system. Recently we took the Kahani Festival to Dantewada, Chattisgarh, an area at the heart of the Maoist insurgency movement. Thousands of kids from a 100km radius were bussed in for the three-day programme of workshops, music, dance, storytelling and art. Their day of discovery was to access the wonders that non-verbal forms like puppetry and dance brought to their lives. Transfixed and transformed, they left enriched, even if for a fleeting moment. As India’s economy gained momentum, we began consolidating our position by setting up a slew of platforms: for theater (META), literature (Hay Festival, Kerala) & and puppetry (Ishara International Puppet Festival). Entertainment districts traditionally contribute to a city’s economy. Broadway offers up $9–-11 billion and London’s West End £3–-5 billion through its restaurants, nightclubs, theaters, bars and concerts. The Edinburgh festival too contributes £225m of additional spend during the seven weeks of the festival. At our annual DSC Jaipur Literature Festival, which brings together 250 speakers over five days and attracts over a 100,000 visitors, the additional contribution to the city’s economy has been estimated at approximately Rs 15–-20 crores. In India, where tourism and culture should contribute a greater share to the GDP, we are still stuck in the 5-6 million visitors. India however has a million heritage sites, all waiting to be rediscovered and leveraged. Faith and John Singh, in their landmark initiative in Jaipur, showed that built heritage can be preserved with help from the city and local communities. AmanNath and Francis Wacziarg pioneered the conservation and conversion of crumbling forts. Maharaja Gaj Singh (Bapji) of Jodhpur has demonstrated how investment in the arts builds bonds within communities and creates a platform for development and progress. In today’s polarized world, it is imperative that we use the arts as a window into other cultures. The arts know no language and have a universality that allows the viewer to absorb the exotic, within a given context. India needs to learn from this. Our concept of jugaad, which rescues us in the nick of time, is no match for years of diligent planning and preparation. Why can't state governments use lottery money for the arts and sports, much as the UK government does to fund arts infrastructure projects? While a few first steps have been taken in creating an education policy, which includes the arts as formal coursework in schools, there has been little thought of how this will be delivered in the short term. Barring the initiatives of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) and sporadic schemes brought about by the Ministry of Culture and its many institutions, there are few initiatives to realize the needs and aspirations of India’s creative class. These shortcoming need to be redressed. It is sad to see that the capital city of Delhi has not one new public space, with a sense of aesthetics or pride reflecting the national culture. Projects based on the lowest bid will never create excellence and will only lead to further corruption of the nation’s soul. Every journalist loves to do a story on the dying art forms or the revival of an art form. In India nothing ever dies, artists like the societies they inhabit, adapt and move on. In a country like India, all you need to do is create a ground that is fertile and enrich it with the nutrients of imagination, social and economic inclusion, vision and resources. May a million fireflies rise in to the night sky illuminating our hearts and our minds! (The story has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
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With an illustrious career in marketing spanning over 20 years,Navdeep Dhindsa today leads Cheil India’s specialist team of event marketing and activations specialists. Educated at PPS, Nabha and at Hartmann College, Navdeep went on to earn an MBA in Sales & Marketing before working on a number of leading brands across different product categories including Consumer Electronics, FMCG, IT and brands from other media-averse categories such as Liquor and Tobacco. In addition to brand activations for audiences in both urban and rural markets, Navdeep has handled a wide range of product launches and high-profile national events for Samsung, Philip Morris, P&G, Bharti Walmart, Cisco and suchlike. In an exclusive conversation, Navdeeptalks about the need for experiential, the challenges of running a campaign and extracting the most from it. Q-You have 20 years of experience in the field of marketing, how has experiential marketing evolved in this time? A-When I started working, there was excessive focus on ‘exposure’. It was said and believed that if you exposed the brand in the best possible manner, then the leads would follow.But a lot has changed over the years and I fervently believe the change is all for the good. Gone are the days of the museum-like brand space where consumers were invited into a stagnant atmosphere without any engagement with the brand at all. Today in this dynamic world, all brands understand the need to engage the consumer and let them experience the product versus simply being exposed to it. And because the payoff is quite high, brands today are willing to spend a significant part of their marketing budgets on experiential campaigns that resonate with the consumers. Q- How important is it for brands to engage customers through experiences? A-How many of us switch channels when an ad appears on TV or skip them while watching a video on Youtube? We also do not pay any heed to pamphlets being distributed in our residential complexes. So obviously there is a strong need today to market brand products in an interactive way that generates curiosity in consumer’s mind and induces him to experience it. Through experiential marketing you step into the shoes of the consumer, you understand him, listen to him and then narrate his story back to him with your product as its protagonist. It is a win-win situation for both – the consumer and the brand. Q- Share with us a challenging campaign brief that you take pride in having designed and executed. A-Every brief is a challenging brief these days. Consumers are exposed to different things and the market itself is very competitive so the ideas which we think of should not only draw TG attention but also help brands to reach out to a larger group. One of the recent campaigns we conceptualized and executed for Reckitt Benckiser was for their flagship brand, Dettol. The objective was to spread awareness globally about the importance of washing hands. Our team came up with an integrated experiential idea #GiveLifeAHand led by on-ground activation. On the occasion of Global Handwash Day, this campaign was launched in 32 countries wherein we went to different schools and educated children on the steps to a healthy hand wash. The baton of good health was passed on from one country to another through live global handwash relay. People were also invited on social media platforms to share the #Handfie for a selfless cause of care. The response of the campaign was overwhelming and the campaign was awarded as best brand campaign by GMO of RekittBenkiser. So that’s the beauty of integrated experiential marketing. As an agency, Cheil Worldwide believes in ‘Ideas that Move’: Our intention is to move products and move brands but most of all, we strive to move people through our work. I think the work our agency did for Dettol was a great example of that promise in action. Q-In your opinion what are the elements that make for an enriching experience for consumers? Today, consumers are always on the move. That’s why more than ever, brands need to communicate seamlessly and in an integrated manner across all touch-points.One should think of integrated campaigns with a mix of on-ground, digital, mobile as well as print so that it covers the entire consumer journey and creates top-of-mind recall in the consumer’s mind. Q-Cheil India is known to use the latest in technology in many of its campaigns. Any specific reasons why? A-Our biggest client is a leading technology giant so the usage of technology comes most naturally to us. Also, we believe that technology lets you do so much more in a smarter and more meaningful way. It helps you to deliver your brand story to the consumer in a more interactive manner which builds curiosity in the consumers’ minds to experience the brand/ product. Q-After the brief from the client has been received, is there a specific process that you follow to formulate an experiential campaign around it? A- We are a company driven by ideas. We believe it is important to understand the consumers and their behavior first so that we can use that learning to come up with a powerful and moving idea. Once our planning team does the research and finds the most powerful and relevant consumer insights, our integrated team brainstorms together and works on ideas to meet the campaign objective. Q-What are the elements that an event agency should think of before designing an experiential campaign? A-Before designing an experiential campaign, it is extremely important to understand the message that needs to be communicated. Secondly, it is also important to know whowe are speaking with. Who the consumers are. What are their motivations. Thinking of it as one series of events is usually not enough to create the buzz required. One must be consistent in order to get the desired experience. Pay utmost attention to feedback. Today in this dynamic world, and more so, thanks to the power of social media, reputations are made and marred in absolutely no time. Listening continuously allows us real-time information about what our worthy consumers think about us. Q- What changes in the world of marketing can you predict in the next 5 years? A- I fervently believe in the fact that we are in the business of telling stories. We have been doing it for some time now and I believe we will continue to do so. The consumer has been and will continue to be the hero of these stories. However, I think what will create the difference is the way in which these stories are told. The way we engage and interact with consumers will change phenomenally. The way we create key consumer experiences will also see a stark change. Already, we find that technology is blurring the lines between different media like – ATL, BTL, Digital and Media. This leads to an immersive experience. I also believe that ‘transparency’ will be the new black. Brands will be expected to deliver what they claim more so now than at any previous time. Summing it up, I think it is a whole new level of integration that we are looking forward to. Consumers in the upcoming times will be served with totally memorable and more immersive experiences. (The story has been extracted from BW APPLAUSE)
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Motorola as a mobile brand has always somewhat shied away from taking the experiential route as far as the marketing strategy of its products is concerned. With other competing brands such as ASUS, MTR, Samsung going all out on experiential it was rather an intriguing question as to why Motorola restrained itself in this regard. However, with the recently launched Moto X play, the brand has decided on jump on the experiential bandwagon and aims at turning its marketing strategies around. In an exclusive conversation with EE,Rachna Lather, Marketing Head, Motorola reveals about experiential campaigns of the brand and what defines its marketing strategies. Q- Motorola launched Moto G third generation last month itself and today you are launching Moto X. Why so many successive phone launches? A-Most of the phones that we have in our series of Mote-E, Moto-G and Moto-X are very popular in the world over. Moreover our customers want to be updated with the latest technology present in the market. However, technology is dynamic, and changes so fast that we are compelled to launch phones so quickly. Q- But don’t you feel launching different phones under the Motorola brand name so quickly is going to impact the sales of the individual phone series itself? A- No, actually. As with every phone that we produce we cater to a different market segment and separate customer base. While Moto G caters to the younger lot who college is going, or in their first jobs phase, Moto X is for a more seasoned veteran user who expects more from their smartphones than just hardware. Also the price bracket for all our series isdifferent. The target age for Moto-X is 15-35 years which is more elaborate than that of the Moto G series. Q- What are some of the other products Motorola is about the launch by the end of the year? A- There are many in pipeline currently. But we have already made announcements about Moto X style, Moto 360 second generation, so that is about to happen before the end of the year. Q- What is going to be marketing strategy for this newly launched phone? A- With this phone we have tried to establish the concept of how your phones loves you back and that is how we are going to position it. We are going in with a 360* approach this time around as well. ATL is obviously going to be an integral part of the marketing plan but this time around we will also have an experiential driven campaign kicking in. We are looking at an engagement with customers through a ‘Moto Tour Bus’ wherein a person can come in to engage with the brand and also display their passion. Currently we are working out on the logistics and the campaign is slated to begin in the mid of next month. We are currently looking at a 15 city tour which will include tier 1 and tier 2 for now. Q-But why is Motorola investing in experiential so late? A- So far the overall marketing for the brand have also been limited. Till now all our marketing activities were driven by flipkart and hence were more sales oriented but this year onwards we have taken charge and you will see a shift with experiential coming in a big way now.
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