Background

With over 200 million users, vivo is one of the largest smartphone companies on the market. With an eye to strengthen and differentiate the brand, we were invited to help craft vivo’s industry-first concept store – vivo Lab in Shenzhen – with a focus to elevate their class-leading technological capabilities in an immersive way. The speed of innovation, necessity for convenience, and consumer expectations have made the online-to-offline (O2O) ecosystem synonymous with China. Utilizing these expectations paired with local retail consumer behaviors created the opportunity to drive advocacy via highly engaging and sensory experiences which seamlessly transition into a reflective platform – completing the O2O progression. Given an open canvas for creativity on the second floor of the vivo Lab, a 687 sqm space was transformed into an immersive journey of 9 touchpoints using bespoke technology to deliver unforgettable personalized experiences.

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

The Shenzhen vivo Lab’s concept focused on making vivo a loved technology brand by utilizing one of their three USPs – state of the art smartphone camera technology. While targeting a younger audience who share an appetite for cutting edge technology and strive to further discoveries within their own lifestyles. These foundational creative and audience tailored objectives informed our approach and execution into the core concept – elevating individual expression and creativity while celebrating the art of photography. Discovering an elegant way to merge various aspects of photographic science, innovation, and the subsequent artistic outcomes in an engaging and social way would birth the creative concept for the vivo Lab’s second floor. Introducing multiple moments of surprise and delight to create an emotional connection with visitors, while utilizing photography as the vehicle into the creative concept – the journey of self-expression and transformation.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

Evoking curiosity, encouraging play, and enabling shareability across the nine experiential touchpoints – each positioned under one of the four engagement principles: Welcome Me, Inspire Me, Empower Me, and Connect with Me – was paramount in fulfilling each visitor’s journey of self-expression and transformation. Using various brand elements – ranging from the elegant geometry within the logo to the widely popular v. friends mascots – each touchpoint strengthens the brand recognition whilst incorporating the use of cutting edge technology which is synonymous with vivo. These brand ideals and elements informed everything from interface design, physical housing and materials, the creation of multiple instances of bespoke hardware and software integration throughout the O2O experience. These ‘online’ representations of the brand and ethos translated perfectly to the ‘offline’ experience where visitors distributed many of their shareable moments and accessed the WeChat platform to collect the multiple souvenirs generated at the vivo Lab.

List the results (20% of vote)

By elevating the online and offline experiences, we created tremendous value for vivo. With the integration of the WeChat platform, the moment any of the QR codes are scanned within the space a value exchange is initiated. The visitors retrieve their personalized souvenirs and stay in communication with the brand, while vivo is enabled to continue the conversation and maximize customer acquisition. Via our analytics we learned: 500,000 average engagements across experience touchpoints per month; 40% souvenir retrieval from the WeChat platform; >10% of souvenirs where directly shared onto visitors WeChat Moments; 80% retention rate across the entire experiential journey. Despite the inclusion of the retail space, the vivo Labs was listed with a perfect 5 star rating on Dianping (Chinese equivalent to TripAdvisor), with reviews such as, “…surprised how a branded creative space could be so much fun…” and “…the scientific activations are very cool, engaging, and selfie-friendly.”