It’s a nippy winter night but you can feel the slight warmth in the air because of all the twinkling lights strung to announce the celebrations. Everywhere you look, festivities are in order. You have to go to your far off relative’s daughter’s wedding, while your son has bought tickets to a rock concert and your daughter has plans to go to the diwali mela. Yes, it’s that time of the year again. But what do the newspapers next day read? The stage at a wedding broke, riots broke out in a concert, and someone got caught in a naked wire at the diwali mela, but we barely even raise an eyebrow. So much for big party celebrations. Why do big scale events in India always turn out to be even bigger failures? Is it because event management companies don’t care about the security of their attendees or do they just become careless and adopt the Great Indian Jugaad when it comes to maintaining security? Or should we blame it on the fact that we don’t value lives in our country? We got in talks with Avishkar Tendle, Managing Director at Natura Adventure Crew, to understand the current situation of large scale events in India. Are we really safe? EE finds out. EE: Is India ready for staging adventure themed events? How do you see this industry in next five years? I think India is at the cusp of getting big on adventure themed events, these sorts of events are already growing. Since customer engagement is the holy grail for all the BTL activities, adventure themed events are bound to be on the rise because of the ability of adventure activities to engage the audience. The next few years are very critical in ensuring that Adventure stays on a safe and an upwardly progressing path, considering there are more number of events which have adventure fused into them from making the bride groom fly on to stage to doing bungee jumping at malls, it is equally important to make sure the number of accidents don’t increase just because the total number of events have increased. EE: As communication is witnessing a shift towards events and creating experiences through them, what is the most important component of an event? Customer engagement. As I said earlier customer engagement is the key and essential component of an event, ability to engage or the lack of it can make or break a brand, it’s about creating a high impact through an experiential medium, this trend is being seen in multiple places from experiential education to experiential marketing. EE: How does the safety quotient vary with the nature of an event? I don’t think safety quotient varies with the nature of events, what changes are the number of parameters to create a safe environment, if it’s a simple MICE event on the lawns of an resort, then the parameters will be highly limited. For example, considering if there is any possibility of injury to the client due to open electrical wires, slippery pathways etc. At the same time if it’s a massive event with 10,000 people then you have those many parameters to deal with to make an event safe. Based on an event you cannot say I can only strive for 60% of the safety level, it is critical to achieve 100% on all the parameters irrespective of how many parameters are present. EE: How is safety in indoor shows different from safety in outdoor adventure events? It varies a lot, whenever we talk outdoor’s we have to take into account weather conditions, and any other factors which might disrupt the event. Is it going to be raining? Is it going to be windy? What wind zone does my venue come into? Is my structure prepared to handle those wind and rain conditions if it were to occur? How am I protecting the audience in case of any calamity? Am I equipped to handle stampede? Is my emergency evacuation plan ready? Is there a person who is going to take that call of evacuation? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves when we are into the midst of organizing an event. At the same time Indoor safety is completely different. Are we prepared in case of a fire emergency? Can we handle crowd properly? Are there more people inside the venue than there are supposed to be? etc. EE: How critical is safety addresal? Are we equipped to handle the safety needs of events? Does anyone want bad press because some participant got injured while taking part in their brand’s activity? By default safety is the most critical aspect of an event, whether it is an adventure themed event or not. Even a music concert should have safety as a critical aspect. Is the truss erected safely? Is there proper crowd management? What happens in case of fire? etc. When it comes to adventure events, safety becomes a non-negotiable aspect. Is the adventure operator qualified? What experience does he have? Who are the people managing that activity? Are they qualified? What is the equipment being used? Is it certified? Is there a log of usage of that equipment? All these questions are necessary and important. These questions asked at the right place at the right time are likely to avert a major incident. EE: Please share the safety drills and mandates followed by you for ads and films? How do you train your teams to meet 100% safety assurance? We at Natura are very paranoid about safety. We follow the dictate of “when in doubt don’t do it, or change it”. Every activity that we do, whether it is an adventure activity or an aerial performance, we will only go ahead if we are convinced that it is safe. There is always a site Manager on our events. That person is single handedly responsible for the safety of that activity. He has a checklist in his hand, every time before our system is engaged, he goes through it one by one and checks if everything is in place and ready to go. During rigging we change the systems constantly if we think there is a small possibility of risk. We change it till the time we are convinced at the risk of delaying the setup and eating into the rehearsal time. It is always better to be slightly delayed than being sorry. We only use certified equipment and keep an extensive usage logs of that equipment. So that we know if we need to replace something and when to do it. We always have a backup independent system to our main system, incase our main system fails, our backup swings into an action and avoids the accident. We always have a person certified as an internationally trained First Aider on all our programmes and we make sure all the in-house team is re-certified every two years (check out Wilderness Advance First Aid course curriculums that we attend – http://www.nols.edu/wmi/. EE: What does it take to have a good adventure infrastructure? Does it currently exist in India? Adventure Infrastructure is almost nonexistent in India, we do not have paramedic or rescue teams to jump into action in case of a calamity, even our urban ambulances are not very well equipped, our disaster management teams are a national joke, we don’t have a set of protocols and procedures in place for adventure nor do we have an audit team that can govern these policies. Currently the adventure tour operators of Maharashtra Association and adventure tour operators of India are working on such principles to be put into place but on the flip side we have innumerable destination alternatives when it comes to adventures venues. At the end of the day we have the mighty Himalayas which attract thousands of foreigners, and there are few operators who specifically cater to them and adhere to stringent international standards but those constitute about 1% of the total adventure operators. EE: What are the challenges in delivering adventure content in India? Cost is the major challenge, since people right now do not realize the sort of effort that goes into making adventure systems safe. Right now, everyone wants to involve adventure content into their event, but when it comes to paying for it, everyone wants it at lower costs, and costs are always reduced at the expense of safety.Safety is treated as an add on to an event and only taken into consideration under few circumstances e.g. when the client has larger budgets or when the client has asked for it specifically or the event manager has had a past incident and does not want that to happen again. If being safe is treated as a non-compromisable aspect of an event then the costs should be built into the budget. EE: At Natura, what is your approach to execute, conceptualize and manage adventure theme events? It depends on what service is requested from us by the event management companies. We usually sit down with the event management company to understand the client’s brief and the intention behind the event. Based on the intention we come up with an entire concept of the event, and infuse different adventure activities which align with the event. At times we even create new activities to achieve the engagement. Our operations team then gets into action and starts the preparation for the event, recon trips are done, rigging plans are created, team is finalized, and show flow is created all leading up to the setup day. Based on our experience of managing adventure themed events, we have devised another approach in which we deploy our proprietary design of the Adventure Challenge tower, which houses 6-8 adventure activities in a mere space of 50ft X 50ft, This tower has turned out to be a perfect product for the event managers wherein they can provide engagement of 6-8 adventure activities in the smallest space possible thus bringing Adventure to your doorstep in the urban environment. (www.adventurechallengetower.co.in) EE: How do you manage the regular pressures of conventional event management and blend in a high degree of safety control in it? It’s a constant tightrope walk for us, traditionally we are always taught to take as much time as possible when you are executing adventure activities. This is where Natura is very unique, since we understand the time pressures in conventional events; we have optimized our operations in a way where we achieve efficiency during setup and execution and at the same avoiding any compromise on the safety. There is a strong documentation culture and a log which everyone needs to compulsorily adhere to during an event, these internal checklists and systems enable us to a achieve high degree of safety at our events.
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Ankurit Foundation and Dell India are co-organizing Escape Velocity- Innovation, Science and Technology Fair in Bangalore from June 13th-15th 2014, for children aged 6-17. The fair brings together several private and public science and technology organizations under one roof for the first time in Bangalore. On 13th June Friday the fair is open exclusive for school students through field trips. On14th and 15th June the fair is open to all parents and kids of Bangalore. 800+ government school kids will visit this fair free of cost. Escape Velocity is going to teach the magic of science and technology to Bangalore kids and youngsters in a manner never experienced before. This inaugural fair is going to amaze everyone with top-notch technologists conversing with children, state-of-the-art technology booths from the best technology companies in the world, science experiments mixed with fun and learning, hands-on workshops for immense learning and live shows that will make kids imagine the impossible. Dell, Microsoft Research, eKavach, Xerox Research Labs, Cisco, HP, IBM, Tata Steel, Strands Life Sciences, Agastya Foundation, Taralaya, Science InBox, Science Adda, Novatech Robo, Litmus & Bubbles, IAMaths, SkyFi Labs, KQA, EduCAT will be participating in various categories that encourage children to innovate. Dell India is the title sponsor for the event, Microsoft Research is Silver sponsor and IBM , eKavach & Tata Structura are Bronze sponsors. Demo Booths from these organizations will include state-of-art technologies in the fields of medical advancements, internet of things, technology in retail industry, genome, astronomy, etc. A spokesperson from Dell commented, “Dell is proud to have partnered in this initiative as it helps promote progressive learning. As a brand we have always believed in enabling education through the power of technology and this platform is a step in that direction.” A spokesperson from IBM stated, “IBM has continued to champion innovative approaches to teaching and learning math and science. IBM’s support to Escape Velocity is a step to encourage children and make them excited about pursuing STEM careers.” To facilitate exploratory science learning there will be science pavilions, stalls, hands-on workshops and science games. The idea would be to make science concepts fun and easy to learn. There will be exclusive Live Shows in the areas of Chemistry, Magic of Science, Electrical Appliances, Magnetism, etc. Mini Sumo Robotics competition would be organized for robotics lovers. Karnataka Quiz Association will be holding a science quiz for quizzers. There are several prizes to be won by University of West Florida and Science InBox. Innovators, doctors, authors, scientists will talk to kids about innovation, science fiction, and exploration etc. in a series of Tech Talks that will run throughout the event. A very cool technology called World Wide Telescope by Microsoft Research will be demonstrated in a mobile planetarium dome. There will be lot more attractions for the kids including science quizzes, wherein kids will have loads of fun while experimenting and learning. Venue of the fair is Oakridge International School, Sarjapur, Bengaluru. The fair is a ticketed event and tickets can be purchased online at mycity4kids.com and bookmyshow.com. Tickets are also available at Crossword and Justbooks stores.
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Smart brands have realized the edge experiential has over traditional marketing techniques. Another known fact is that the impact of an experiential activity has the capability of increasing manifold the moment it’s spiked with digital innovation. Brands have indefinite opportunities to innovate in the experiential space and many are trying their hands on revolutionizing old marketing tactics. EE picks some examples of brands who have beautifully married digital with experiential in these notable campaigns: 5. Virtual rail by M&S In the Marks & Spencer store in Amsterdam the brand placed a floor-to-head height screen that was enabled with a touch censor. One could swipe through the catalogue looking for various outfits. Shopping became an easy and fun affair for the buyers with the help of videos being played on the rail. This virtual rail also recommended matches to items that people selected or scanned in the store. 4. Virtual mannequins: We are the future A hi-tech system was installed in a retail store where once a piece of clothing had been taken off the rack, a virtual mannequin appeared on the screen wearing the corresponding piece of garment. This digital system made shopping a less tedious affair for the buyers. Once they removed a hanger from the rail, they could see models in their chosen garments to provide them with an idea of how the apparel would look worn. 3. Adidas Digital Media Campaign: Crash & Collide Crash and Collide digital media campaign with JD sports brought together many interesting opportunities for the consumers to engage with the brand. This experiential campaign integrated with digital media engaged several people to be a part of the activity. Youngsters crowded the store to get clicked and be seen on the live digital window placed in the store. It also gave consumers the chance to win £1000 of merchandise. Launched at 10 places in the United Kingdom, the activity managed to connect directly with the target audience promoting brand messages at the same time. Guests at the event were then motivated to connect with a Facebook app which generated a unique cover photo for them allowing amplification of the activity. 2. HomeShop 18: Scan and Shop live TV shopping channel- HomeShop 18 started India’s first virtual mobile aided shopping experience at Terminal 3 of New Delhi’s IGI Airport. This cutting edge technology of creating a virtual wall ‘Scan and Shop’ offered premium merchandise to its customers. Once introduced by Tesco, it is interesting to watch an Indian brand participating in the same league. The digital wall displayed a large range of products, clothing, fashion jewellery, electronics, mobiles, tablets, accessories, perfumes etc. Scan N Shop helped users to order merchandise by scanning the QR code displayed against each item. HomeShop18 also enabled the easy cash on delivery payment method followed with mobile payments subsequently. This had let the tech savvy and smart phone users experience an innovative method of shopping. 1. Coca Cola’s ‘Small World Machine’ Coca Cola has always been a trailblazing experiential marketer and they continue to do so. Through its online video campaign called “Small World Machine”, it managed to connect people across borders. This initiative helped in linking India and Pakistan through a live communication portal. Two camera equipped coke vending machines were set up in Lahore and Delhi each. The brand used 3D touchscreen technology to project a video on the screen of the vending machine, simultaneously filming a live emotional exchange through the unit. This move enabled people in India and Pakistan to exchange gestures like shake hands, draw peace and happiness symbols etc. This marketing strategy helped people to improve the already strained ties between the two nations. It helped people emotionally connect with each other and experience the cutting-edge technology and enjoy the drink at the same time.
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Cosmetics brand Maybelline New York hosted a multi-city integrated Google Hangout with Alia Bhatt and thousands of fans across India. The activity was conceptualized and executed by FoxyMoron, an independent digital marketing agency. Visitors at Shoppers Stop in Delhi and Mumbai were in for a treat as they got the chance to interact with Alia Bhatt LIVE via a Google Hangout. Since Alia’s latest make-up favorites from Maybelline New York are the new Color Show nail colors and the Lip Polish range, she quizzed her fans on the names of the shades and had a fun session with them sharing make-up and beauty tips. In addition to this, a few lucky shoppers were handpicked by Alia Bhatt from the crowd and received nail art tutorials from an artist present during the Hangout. Commenting on this fun way to interact with her fans, Alia Bhatt, brand ambassador of Maybelline New York, said, “I’ve always loved Maybelline New York not only for the innovative products they launch, but also for the initiatives they take up to engage with their consumers and fans. The experience of talking to so many fans in two different cities at the same time and sharing some of my thoughts on beauty was fantastic. It was such an interesting way to brighten up a regular Friday evening and at the same time get some amazing feedback from the fans on my work and Maybelline New York’s new launches.” Across India, over 92,121 fans tuned-in LIVE to the Hangout which received an overwhelming 92 Million impressions and a reach of over 14 Million across Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram. In the lead up to the Live interaction with Alia, over millions of fans across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sent in their questions for her with #IWantToAskAlia and #HangoutWithAlia and so far, the digital savvy brand’s engagement rate has increased to 6.1% on Facebook. Leena Shoor, Marketing Manager, Maybelline New York India, said, “As a tech savvy make-up brand, Maybelline New York has always aimed to engage with its consumers and fans in a very innovative manner. In order to continue representing the essence of the brand of being fun, edgy and fashionable, Maybelline New York introduces various novel initiatives with new product launches. Taking the brand to a next level of engagement, Maybelline New York decided to host this one-a-kind multi-city integrated Google Hangout with Alia Bhatt who is the face of the brand and represents the brands core values.” Harshil Karia, Co-founder, FoxyMoron, said, “Maybelline New York India a well renowned and loved brand by consumers all over. And, Alia Bhatt the brand ambassador truly represents the spirit of the brand. The multi-city integrated Hangout was yet another innovative platform for these fans to interact with Alia like never before. Through the innovative use of technology, Maybelline has paved the way for digital to play an integral role in engaging with consumers.” The popular make-up brand represents the young, contemporary cosmopolitan girl who is attuned to fashion and loves to experiment with make-up products. Hence, all of its campaigns have been clutter breaking in the cosmetics industry. Over the years, Maybelline New York has pioneered various brand engagement strategies through innovative use of the digital platforms to get fans and consumers to sit and take notice, get educated and eventually use the unique products on offer by the brand.
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So, the real is in front of you yet it’s just not real, the experiential approach has unfurled itself in various domains. One such experiential concept is use of augmented reality. In today’s experiential scenario augmentation has become a unique way for brands to engage with consumers, using a virtual platform to provide a real life experience. It blurs the bar between real and virtual building consumer interactions and faith within the brand. EE today lists down few peculiar examples of how brands have been turning the virtual as real within their experiential space. KFC’S WOW@25 CAMPAIGN The idea behind KFC’s wow@25 campaign carried out by blink was to emphasize on its price. In this particular campaign, on scanning any currency note with the app or micro site, kFC’s wow menu according to the price appeared on the note itself. There were quizzes for the users, along with exciting prizes. RAY BAN’S VIRTUAL MIRROR Ray Ban and FittingBox’s virtual mirror provided a reality experience that virtually lets you try their collection. Shopping online is always doubtful but with this new experiential technology, Ray Ban brings the in- store experience to our very own living rooms. CADBURY’S DOSTI KA SHUBH AARAMBH To celebrate friendship day in India, Cadbury initiated Dosti Ka Shubh Aarambh App; in which users sent friendship bands on facebook, using their Smartphones. These friendship bands could be scanned and a special message in the form of facebook update via Augment Reality was visualized. Asian Paints 3D Video Mapping Blink and Asian paints conceptualized the idea of using 3D mapping to a visual experience of how Asian Paint will come alive in their room. An interactive installation was executed at City Center Mall in Chennai; India, where a mock furnished living room was created, using 3D mapping technology, allowing people to browse through each room. COLGATE’S CLEANING ACTION CAMPAIGN An augmented reality campaign was carried by Colgate 360 and Blink Solution, the campaign was initiated with the propaganda that Colgate 360 cleans mouth 20 times better than a regular toothbrush. The player had to pick either a regular brush or Colgate 360 and clean as many germs, of a slate; as they can in a specific time limit. The Colgate 360 effortlessly wiped the slate clean unlike the other toothbrushes providing the users a clear picture, instilling faith and recognition towards the brand and justifying the experiential.
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In such stiff competition, all brands are competing in the race of standing out from their fellow competitors and making their events larger than life. What helps them in achieving this goal is by integrating technology in their ventures. Technology that keeps changing every minute every second holds immense potential in amplifying an event. By integrating the most appropriate technology in your event, it can create wonders. Marketers repetitively face challenges in order to break through the clutter to create brand experiences which seek appropriate emotional and rational responses from their target consumers helping them to accomplish their objectives. When we talk about making our events better and different from our competitors, we need to think out of the box and provide our target consumers with a platter full of fancy, special and unusual dishes. Today what a potential buyer wants to invest in is something that is new, latest, and beneficial as well. Just by partnering with technology, events can become all the more engaging and welcoming. Technology is present everywhere and it can become insurmountable distraction to help brands achieving indelible experiences that can spark long term relationships. Samsung PROM audience measurement system is a great technology which if incorporated can be highly interesting and engaging. This system uses a camera along with facial recognition software to identify the gender, reaction and ethnicity to advertisements shown on the screen. Just by considering this data, this interactive system can showcase different advertisements catering to the audience standing in front of the monitor screen. This is a great technology that can be used for demonstrating products at trade shows, by displaying features and benefits of a product based on demographics and reactions of the potential audience. Another bright way of application of this technology can be at events where participants put on their web cams, giving the organizer the liberty to customize content based on the information received through the attendees on each screen. It is a great way to make an event virtually interactive and engaging. Kaon V-osk is another interactive technology that can amplify an event to a great extent. Kaon creates three dimensional high definition models of products to assist the sales and marketing department of brands in showcasing the features and benefits of their products. This virtual kiosk provides an interactive touch screen that enables users to interact with a product virtually. Salient features can be programmed into each layer of the high definition, 3D image. This is a great feature to be incorporated in tradeshows, corporate events and museums etc. It eliminates the need to ship or store products at events. It’s a game changer technology for brands, who intend to sell consumer appliances, food processing machinery, medical equipments or any other small or big equipment that needs storage capacity which can be avoided by displaying the products on this kiosk. The V-OSK presenter is a great medium to provide in-depth and engaging sessions. Also by making the solutions available on web, it helps in building great ROI. Using RFID in your events is another great opportunity. Alliance Tech’s ‘Intelligent’ series of products allow brands to comprehend attendance, manage surveys, understand demonstration visits, create leads etc. Adding more to it Alliance Tech is also exploring pre and post event behavior of consumers along with media monitoring to give a 360 degree view of audience behavior to its clients. Once brought into existence for application RFID can be a great technology to enable brands to collect real-time data that can be used to customize experiences and generate long term analytics that will lead to consistent brand performances. Last but not the least is MIT’s six sense augmented reality that combines visual and 3D environments with virtual information creating a fusion of the real world and its relevant data. Several companies have invested in creating augmented reality applications for smart phones but the most compelling example is from a wearable computer from MIT. It lets you interpret attendee, brand, speaker and product information instantly through a personal projection onto any surface. Other versions can include audio cues through headphones or displays into eye glasses. Quite an interesting and cool technology as such can add immense value to an event once ready. This shift in the way a brand hosts its events these days as compared to earlier times is largely designated to the usage of technology. Technology has beautifully amplified today’s events and simply made them larger than life.
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Gone are the days when traditional advertising techniques were used. Facebook and twitter have eaten a fair share of Billboards and print advertisements space, but in today’s scenario, QR codes are the next big thing. QR or Quick Response Codes are a type of two-dimensional barcode that can be read using smartphone and QR compatible devices, which will take the user to a website link that is embedded in the QR code. In this technology driven world, several brands are adapting constructive marketing stratagems to achieve their sales targets. The growing trend of QR usage as a part of marketing strategies has enabled brands to offer a unique experiential experience to their customers. The first being WECHAT’s 1,000 kg QR code cake, carried by Vibgyor brand services that read ” Scan Me Eat Me” at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon on this year’s Valentine’s day. Activities like paper dance, balloon dance, tongue twister and other love themed games were played to engage the audiences. Three lucky couples also got a chance to cut the QR code cake. Radio jockey Swati and Piyush of Red FM were roped in for better consumer interaction. On this well thought-out, engaging and creative campaign Ankur Kalra, CEO and Founder of Vibgyor brand services; Delhi said “We had created a gigantic QR code cake weighing more than 1,000 kg. The challenge was to arrange the thousands of cake pieces in the exact same pattern as the code so they could be scanned to download the application. If even a single slice was not placed in its designated place, the entire campaign would have collapsed.” He further added “Brands are yet to tap the full potential of QR codes as a medium. The medium seems to be limited by the hardware that supports it. Smartphones don’t come with a pre-installed QR code reader and the effort expected of a consumer- to download a special application and use it to scan a grid is not proportionate to the results.” On that thought another innovative and experiential campaign focusing on adding value to customer experience was The Buddy Stamp. Turquoise Cottage, Delhi in Alliance with Webchutney; Delhi, India initiated the campaign to enhance the clientele experience and boost sales. On entry people were stamped with a QR code instead of the traditional hand stamp. When scanned, it revealed discount deals on drinks, a list of taxi numbers for night hours and finally tips on how to recover from a heavy night. BMW and Liquid Campaign India made BMW3 Series prototypes with newsprint of QR codes on its bodywork across India. This experiential OOH campaign made use of QR codes to directly connect people to the central campaign platform: www.ultimat3.in. On the website the teaser video of historical moments of the 5 generations of the brands was available. Glimpses of the car, on-ground, camouflaged with QR codes was also available, building anticipation. Focused on building connection with the potential customer, several companies have joined the bar code trend. Shoppers Stop used a QR Code to push discounts to consumers. The bar when scanned, takes you to a mobile website with all their latest items carrying discounts. You could either buy the product or share it on social media platform. ‘Guess whose Flavour’ initiated by PepsiCo inc. for its product Lay’s, during the Indian Premier League, where you scan the QR code on the back of the Lays pack and fill up an entry form and then match and guess the cricketers with the flavours; who co-created them. 10 lucky winners won a trip to the ICC World Twenty20 Sri Lanka 2012 and a luxurious hotel stay.
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Wills India Fashion Week in collaboration with Fashion Design Council of India came to a close successfully in the capital on Sunday. Wills Lifestyle, the premium fashion & lifestyle brand from ITC continues to be at the forefront of digital innovations at the recently concluded Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week SS’15.This edition not only showcased some inspirational runway glamour but also displayed the inevitable marriage of fashion with technology through multichannel innovations. In its 24th edition, 124 designers exhibited their creations on the runway and through stalls. While Péro by Aneeth Arora kicked off the fashion week with a signature romantic collection, Love on Foliage and ace designer Rohit Bal took hold of the grand finale with Qutub Minar as his backdrop, on the last day of the fashion event. Wills Fashion week this year brought to light a mix of fashion, glamour and splendor through the designer wear of the country’s ace designers. The real time activations have not only taken the fashion community by storm but also created waves with the showcasing of the drone, 360 degree selfie booth and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) installation. Celebrities Neha Dhupia, Sania Mirza & Gaurav Kapur were seen enthusiastically posing for selfies and updating their status’ by cheering for their favourite designers at the #WillsFashionTag booth. These three real time activations created massive buzz amongst the guests at the event. Taglabs, the agency behind the installation of these crowd engaging activities received over 1000 guests to experience the activation per day. Explaining the above mentioned activations in detail and taking technology and innovation to the next level WIFW debuts the #willsfashiondrone – Wills Lifestyle Drones that were fitted with GoPro cameras and took panoramic view of the event. All 5 days of the Fashion Week, witnessed the Drone flying over the venue, capturing the best moments of the Fashion Week on a live feed. Not only this, the Drone became a medium to engage the audience by picking out people who were (best dressed, best smile, or who look like having a great time) and dropped a gift voucher for them. Another great social- technical installation was the RFID. Through RFIDs, people at the venue were able to share stories of their WIFW experience with their friends on social networking sites. They clicked selfies, told their friends about what they’re up to and what their mood is. They were also enabled to browse through the designer’s collections and share their favorite picks with their FB/Twitter friends. In a noble initiative for every Wills Fashion Tag that gets activated at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, Rupees 5 was contributed to the weaver’s society of India. Last but not the least was the 360 degree selfie booth. One of its kind activations at a fashion event to take place this booth captured moments from every angle. The selfie booth had a mechanical arm fitted with a Go Pro camera which rotated and captured a 360 degree video. Users could then share the video on their FB/Twitter handles. Apart from the activations another startup in the digital domain was the FDCI WIFW App powered by Sent.ly. This App enabled the viewers to connect and communicate with the designers by simply downloading it on their smart phones. This made it simpler and easier for the guests to chat and get their queries anwered by their favourite designers. Commenting on the success of the event, Mr. Sunil Sethi, President FDCI said “The trade event generated lucrative business opportunities for both greenhorns and illustrious designers. The event managed to strengthen the business of fashion in this country. This year too WIFW received a large turnout of designers and buyers from all over the world. WIFW continues to be a trend setter for forecasting fashion for the next season.” Wills Lifestyle being the Title sponsor along with Fiama Di Wills, the associate sponsor and Myntra.com, the platinum partner had also set up their lounges at the event. Other sponsors to name were Shree Raj Mahal Jewellers, Zoom, Radio One, Elle, Carlsberg etc. The activation kiosks were immensely crowded mostly during the break between the shows. In this age where digital has married experiential, such installations gather immense footfall. Everybody wants to share their encounters with others and these real time activations raised the ante and left the guests with an unforgettable experience. With such technological activations and massive footfall witnessing the ace designer collections at the Wills India Fashion Week, this year the event became a huge hit and set its standards even higher.
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