Emirates Airlines organized a virtual tour and quiz contest in the form of Emirates "Be There Challenge" at DLF Cyber Hub, Gurgaon on 18- 19 March 2016. As part of this contest, Emirates brought the experience of the Americas and Europe to Gurgaon. Participants experienced being in a city that Emirates flies to, using a Galaxy Gear VR and needed to guess the city’s name. Emirates connects India to the airline’s network of 150 destinations across 80 countries in six continents therefore the challenge left most participants scratching their heads. The device offered them a chance to experience four cities and a 360 degree view of each city. Winners of the contest, which was open to all, were gifted two Economy Class tickets to London, Paris or Brussels.
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Fashion social network Roposo has launched a style check-in feature which allows users to update their location along with their fashion posts. This feature enables others to see what is trending at stylish places across the country and who’s wearing what at the most glitzy parties and events. As users can also tag the places from which they’ve bought a certain item of clothing, others can discover the best markets and brands to shop from. With style check-in, Roposo aspires to connect India with the love of fashion. Actress Sonakshi Sinha has already used style check-in, becoming the first celebrity to add a location to her posts. Roposo co-founder, Avinash Saxena said, “Style check-in from Roposo is set to change the way Indians shop and discover fashion. This is the first product in the country to connect style with location. There are certain cities in India where trends catch on the fastest. Those in other geographies can now stay abreast with the most fashion-forward choices that others in India are making with style check-in. Since users can also add location to snaps of things they buy at certain markets, style check-in will fuel online discovery of offline sales. The feature is sure to revolutionise how India gets its dose of style inspiration.” Style check-in is also expected to have an impact on the Indian fashion business at large. Fashion production houses till now did not know which styles to produce for which city and had to rely on local sales. This meant the industry could not forecast demand for styles. However, now that they have access to real time photos of what people are wearing by location, businesses stand to benefit as they can spot which trends are making waves where. For the style check-in feature, Roposo will use either the device GPS to add the location tag to a story or search for a pre-existing location. Users will also be able to see all the photo posts which are near their location. All levels of geography, from streets, malls, cities to countries can be used to check in and custom locations can be added wherever necessary. Check-ins can be edited and location can also be added to old posts on Roposo.
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Every once in a while in the world of marketing, comes along a technology that makes people pause and take notice of it. A certain something that changes the conventional rules and brings in a new perspective of how brand custodians and prospective consumers reach out with and for a product in the market. And if the recent global trends are anything to go by, Periscope, the live streaming video app is that new technological innovation that is changing the way how brands are marketing themselves now. Since March last year, when it was announced that Twitter had acquired live video-streaming app Periscope, brands all over the world wondered how best to creatively use it. But they learned on the usefulness of the app fast and as a result some of the most immersive and successful marketing campaigns of late ’15 and early ’16 have been launched on Periscope. So if you are a brand, looking for ways to leverage on this app, we have got some insta inspiration for you as we look at how global brands are using Periscope. 1-Red Bull One of the early adopters of Periscope, Red Bull used the technology app in a way that build up their brand to a different level altogether. The beverage giant used the app to live stream their Red Bull Guest House event, their “ultra-exclusive weekend-long party in Miami Beach.” Though this marketing not only did fans of the brand found themselves yearning for a brand a little more than before but they also became a part of the party by being able to enjoy it at the same time as it was happening. 2-Mountain Dew Mountain Dew, the beverage brand from Pepsico used Periscope to reward their twitter followers. The brand displayed their cool gears on the app and then rewarded their fans on twitter who made the most impressions by sending them those merchandises. Simple yet smart. 3-Dunkin Donuts In an attempt to regain their market share from Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts has over the years used different marketing strategies. One of their most successful marketing strategies was emerged with the help of Periscope lately as live streamed their event “DD Summer Soundtrack,” a five-concert series with musical performances, videos, customized playlists of all the musicians and behind-the-scenes action on the app for its customers to enjoy. Since, this was the first time that any campaign by Dunkin Donuts was present on social media, its customers rejoiced and found themselves connecting with the brand once again. 4-Adidas Adidas included Periscope in their marketing strategy to live-stream Real Madrid soccer star James Rodriguez signing a deal with the sports clothing giant. This 20-second press event was broadcasted from their headquarters in Germany, and the fans of the soccer star as well as customers of the brand were happy to catch the action live and not just read about it on the papers. 5-DKNY Not all brands have so far used Periscope to directly relate it with their products and establish its presence in unexplored markets. However, New York fashion house DKNY did the same as one of their Periscope sessions involved streaming a feed inside their closet, through which people in different clothing markets too got a glimpse of what the clothing brand offered.
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Many would agree that the future of great brand experiences lies in innovative digital integration. Brands are increasingly looking beyond the audience in attendance and are trying to amplify the experience across various digital platforms. Here’s our pick of some truly engaging brand experiences that rode the digital wave with flair. Kokuyo Camlin reinvents the Digital Rakhi for Smartphone Users Brief- Camlin, the stationary brand, wanted to help brothers and sisters celebrate the tradition of RakshaBandhan through its Camlin Experience App. The idea behind the campaign was to integrate the brand and its presence into the lives of siblings who could not be together on this auspicious day. Agency-Big I Tuna Tying rakhis has been one of the most common traditions among children during Rakshabandhan. The Camlin Rakhi Maker was conceptualized to bring alive this tradition virtually. It explored a new dimension of scripting by enabling users to create designs with Camlin products that will be reflected in multiple sides to create a Kaleidoscopic effect. The addictive nature of the Rakhi Maker resulted in hundreds of virtual rakhis being created and shared on the occasion of RakshaBandhan. The Mumbai based digital agency created and incorporated the ‘Rakhi Maker’ feature to the Camlin 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. To help users create an endless number of intricate designs in a flash, the Rakhi Maker also enabled a kaledioscopic effect that reflected every drawing action in 20 sides. Users could choose from any of the art mediums and colours, and also alter the number of side reflections. Key Success Indicator – 1.5 lac users engaged with the ‘Rakhi Maker’ app during RakshaBandhan ASUS Sand art revisiting history of India Brief- ASUS India wanted to make an announcement about its local manufacturing plant in Sricity, Andhra Pradesh though a digital campaign that celebrated the glorious history of India. Agency-BC Web Wise There’s a lot that makes India incredible, and there are some incredible feats that are ‘Made in India.’ To celebrate this fact ASUS India unveiled a sand art video titled ‘Incredible Made in India’ on its Facebook page that revisited the historic feats that have distinguished the nation in the global arena. The sand art video showcased several historic inventions by Indians and institutions right from the invention of Zero, or building the world’s largest railway network, to the most economical Mars mission, and even Sachin’s 100 centuries in ODI cricket. It closes by adjoining ASUS India’s announcement to manufacture the Zenfone range in India. Conceptualized & created by digital agency BC Web Wise, the video went on to reveal that the high-end ASUS Zenfones will now be ‘Made in India’. Inspired by the brand’s tagline ‘In Search of Incredible,’ the core idea behind the video was to sensitize audiences and instill a sense of pride in all things ‘Incredible Made in India’. The use of sand art was done to creatively emphasize the ‘incredible’ nature of India’s accomplishments through history while projecting its readiness as a manufacturing hub. Key Success Indicator - The ‘Incredible Made in India’ video has garnered more than 176,000 likes on ASUS India’s Facebook page with 20,32,824 Impressions and 67 Million estimated Impressions on twitter. NBA Click to Calendar campaign Brief-NBA has a huge fan base in India and is telecasted on Sony SIX channel. However, since the sport is not on standard time in India and is aired as early as 4.30 AM in the morning, most of its fans miss the game. The channel wanted to roll out a digital campaign which could tackle Sports not on standard time problem and also increase the TRP of early morning games. Agency-WATConsult The agency came up with the idea of running banner ads on targeted websites which enabled the best ROI on campaign. Any user who scrolled the website on his mobile could see the ad banner on their mobile phones. Upon clicking the ad banner an automatic reminder at the timings of the game would then be set on the mobile phones of the user. Thus, reminding them about their favorite NBA game being aired on the channel at that time. The campaign was run during a period of 3 months. The campaign not only helped making NBA more popular in the country but brought the desired spike in the TRP’s of the channel. Key Success Indicator - 2,1396,949 impressions on mobile, 189556 reminders set and 70 % increase in TRP during the campaign for the channel.
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WeChat the ‘All-in-One’ social communication application launched ‘WeChat Games with version 5.1 release’ and ‘AskMe Official Account on WeChat’. The event was managed and executed by events and activations agency – Vibgyor Brand Services. ‘WeChat Games’ allows users to discover new games, share scores, post their achievements and compete with their fellow WeChatters. There are 4 games which have been rolled out – ‘GunZ Dash’, ‘2Day’s Match’, ‘Craz3 Match’ & ‘Pencil Pilot’. Users can discover the games on WeChat or download them on their smartphones separately from the respective platform App stores. WeChat users can play the games, share their scores, post their achievements & invite their friends to join the excitement. The games are also enabled with location based services, by which the users can challenge their nearby friends and other users on WeChat. WeChat also announced a partnership with AskMe with the launch of ‘Official Account – AskMeSearch’ on WeChat. As a part of this tightly knitted experience, WeChat users will be able to access online information on SMEs across local search, deals and classifieds through their WeChat application. AskMe from GetitInfomedia is a local search engine available across mobile, voice and web. People can post their classifieds through voice apart from web and mobile and these ads will now be available to WeChat users in India. AskMe will also provide information on the trending restaurants, deals of the day. It will also feature classifieds on vehicles, mobile, property and jobs. For the first time SME/Merchants would also be able to reach out to their audience on WeChat. The event saw thepresence of NilayArora, Vice-President, Marketing & Business Development, 10c India; Himanshu Gupta, Senior Marketing Manager, 10c India; Jack Lau, Business Operation & Global Alliance Head of WeChat at Tencent, JaspreetBindra, CEO, GetitInfomedia and popular Indian columnist, VirSanghvi.
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Brandscope India, an outdoor arm of Posterscope Group, performed a digitally led interactive campaign to bring alive the soul of new music based travel show ‘SoundTrek’ launched by Fox Traveller, a travel & lifestyle channel. The campaign was undertaken in an ambient location of malls in Mumbai and Delhi making optimum use of technology for capturing the target audience. This activity was supported by flash mobs, where groups of youngsters composed fun loving music by dancing over the virtual keys of a piano in a mall. Haresh Nayak, Managing Director, Posterscope Group, commented, “The changing out of home landscape calls for innovative ways of connecting with the consumer. As an agency that is at the forefront of innovation and technology, we are glad to be associated with clients like Fox Traveller who understand and are willing to use technology in the OOH space to connect with consumers digitally.” Debarpita Banerjee, VP – Marketing, Fox International Channels, said, “With the increasing clutter in media and communication, there is also a rise in innovative ways of reaching out to one’s desired TG. Our show promises to be a visual and melodious treat for music and travel buffs alike. It is this value proposition that we thought of bringing alive through the activation and flash mob. Instead of simple information dissemination, such initiatives compel involvement from the TG, and make for a more memorable message.” The activation works on augmented reality, wherein the patron walks over the defined area making music on the floor with the flow of the footsteps. This created a lot of surprise amongst the mall visitors as they walked by the sensor. Fabian Cowan, VP, Brandscope India, said, “The expanding out of home ecosystem demands that we serve solutions in an interesting, interactive and shareable manner, thereby allowing brands to become part of consumer conversations. We were privileged to be part of this activity with Fox Traveller as this exhibits our collective belief of creating and being part of immersive experiences in the out of home space.”
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Clutter. We are constantly trying to eradicate it from our lives. The way we operate, the systems we set up, the surroundings we live in; the one basic principle people live by universally is- more simplification, less complication. Riding on this theorem and with the aim to systemize the largely disorganized Indian events industry is tech driven solutions provider- Cvent. Posed as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, Cvent is an event management platform that was set up in the year 1999 in Virginia, USA, by a man of Indian origin- Reggie Aggarwal. Originally founded to meet the needs of the more developed, metric driven countries of the world where people were few, time was short and labour was expensive, Cvent offered a web-based software for event registration, venue sourcing, event management, email marketing, fee collection, web surveys and a host of other services with the aim of improving the life expectancy of an event planner through simplified solutions. It quickly captured the interest of several large scale organizations with the likes of Rolls Royce, Walmart, Volvo, Johnson & Johnson, Cisco, Nokia etc. and currently employs over 1400 employees globally. With the swift arrival of multinational companies into India over the last decade, more and more marketers have begun embracing experiential marketing techniques. Brands are beginning to realize the importance of engagement towards building their businesses. With this increased the frequency and scale of events within India and several small to large scale event management agencies cropped up in a short span of time. Cvent now recognizes the meetings and events industry in India as a large, potential market that could clearly use some expert assistance; its disorganized structure serving as just the ideal consumer base for its product. In a bid to break into the Indian market Cvent hosted a seminar for the benefit of event planners on 4 March at Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi, demonstrating the functions of what the company claims to be ‘an indispensable event planning tool’ and illustrating the scope of the software towards effective event planning. Brian Ludwig, Senior VP- Sales, Cvent commented, “In India event organizers are still using time-intensive, traditional methods of sourcing event venues, registrations, maintaining inventories, individually serving hotel and travel needs, and after all the effort, still not being able to accurately compare data. Agreed labour may be readily available in the country but certain things can simply not be achieved manually. Our software ensures seamless event planning right from the get-go.” While conducting the seminar Senior Account Executive, Kevin Singh, stated, “Event planning cannot get any simpler once you’ve hooked up with Cvent. Through the Cvent Supplier Network, event planners can send request for proposals to multiple venue options who then compete with each other and quote the most competitive price in the market; almost impossible to achieve if done manually. Once the venue is selected, our professional email invitations feature allows attendees to register at the click of a button, registrants can view the agenda and choose the sessions they wish to attend. They can also schedule meetings with attendees they wish to meet at the event. The system allows payment to be instantly collected and the refund process is automated. Real-time reports and event metrics can be easily retrieved and analysed at the click of a button to help evaluate trends or manage big data. Besides our, award winning customer support team is always there to assist 24/7, 365 days a year”. A unanimous issue faced by most event planners across the country is- justifying ROI to the sponsors. Afterall it is undeniably challenging to scope out an experience. In response to this Kevin Singh stated, “Our mobile apps- CrowdTorch and CrowdCompass- engage users and improves attendee experience at consumer oriented events and business related events respectively. Besides it also delivers clear metrics that allows event planners to justify ROI to sponsors. Cvent provides over 100 standard reports and unlimited custom reports ranging from registration reports, travel reports, financial reports, contact reports, email reports, cross-event reports etc that help greatly in measuring event ROI and speaking to sponsors in the language they best understand”. So the question remains, is this value for money in an Indian set-up? Can technology actually replace the comforting voice of another human being across the phone? Can automated solutions outshine the laborious methods of personalization? Will the Indian events industry embrace Cvent or reject it? We await the throw of the dice.
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JCDecaux India recently created an outdoor display landmark at Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru (KIAB) for BREN Corporation. One of Bengaluru’s infrastructure developers, BREN wanted to craft a presence through outdoor media to promote its brand values of creation and progress. KIAB, being the gateway to Bengaluru, gave BREN the perfect opportunity to welcome travellers to the city of Bengaluru. Since the message required strong registration and impact, the company decided to innovate at a high visibility site. The premium location of Roundabout Two at KIAB, maintained by JCDecaux, was therefore the obvious choice. Recently revamped, KIAB is noted for its great outdoor branding infrastructure, in terms of state-of-the-art structures and aesthetic surroundings. Roundabout Two at KIAB is one of the most sought after locations by brands, with its visibility of 100% to airport audience, as well as people passing through the airport vicinity. KIAB handled close to 13 Million passengers in 2013. Partnering with team JCDecaux, BREN developed an iconic 3D structure at the roundabout, which has been generating excellent recall and recognition for the brand, since installation. Created by OpusCDM, soft lights illuminate the structure and the brand on top is showcased in a scenic art environment. The hexahedral structure is supported by ‘Headway Humans,’ made of raw iron. Pulling and holding the main unit on either side, the Headway Humans denote the human spirit of striving for progress and balance. With the block placed on a vertex, the structure forms an unusual shape calling attention to engineering ingenuity. Mr. Alok Duggal, Business Head-Bengaluru Airport, JCDecaux India, says, “BREN’s requirement was to enhance their Corporate Image and hence we recommended an Iconic installation at the Airport roundabout. We are keen to have a long term relation with BREN and would like to be associated with all the brands which are getting launched under BREN umbrella”. Mr. Boopesh Reddy, Managing Director, BREN Corporation says, “We are pleased to execute such an attention-getting campaign at Kempegowda International Airport. We have been receiving overwhelming feedback on the BREN iconic structure, which has been executed in association with JCDecaux. We thank the JCDecaux team for helping us implement this iconic campaign”.
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