Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation ?

Embracing the target audience’s growing need for unique moments of self-expression and individualism, we carefully crafted and designed an unrivaled experiential journey inside vivo’s concept retail experience center in Shenzhen. Balancing conventional retail on the first floor and brand immersion on the second floor with nine highly interactive touch points which foster self-expression and transformation. These interactive activations and installations create an emotional connection with visitors – exclusively available at the vivo Lab. This naturally magnifies brand engagement and the consequential elevation in perception of both product and brand.

Background

vivo is one of the world’s largest smartphone companies with over 200 million users. In today's highly competitive and saturated smartphones industry, companies want to connect with consumers must realize that technology alone is no longer a sufficient factor to differentiate. The key is to listen to customer needs and fulfill what resonates with the audience. Thus, we were approached to help differentiate the brand, strengthening its position as a beloved technology company. Our goal was to drive advocacy through the transformative power of highly sensory experiences. Tapping into consumers’ constant search for unique and fun moments to share on social media, we utilised one of vivo’s USPs to help shift brand perception: photography. In an advanced technological era, why does photography continue to enjoy a special place in our hearts? The vivo Lab invites audiences to discover something unique, explore a different perspective and make a statement using self-expression.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Our concept celebrates the art of photography through a transformative journey utilising a four-pillar approach – exploration, education, creativity, and connection. With these photographic objectives in mind, we devised an experience design framework with four fundamental zonal principles: Welcome Me, Inspire Me, Empower Me, and finishing the journey with Connect with Me. 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 utilising photography as the vehicle into the creative concept – the journey of self-expression and transformation.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

A special focus was placed on younger consumers who are obsessed with furthering their lifestyle and self-expression by creating experiences that elevate vivo’s USP of photography. Dissecting the spirit and art of photography into aspects of light, color, and technology across the journey of self-expression and transformation we embraced our audience’s search for unique and memorable moments which are highly shareable. Every touchpoint along the journey elevates the art of photography, directly relates to vivo, or a combination of both, while ensuring each offers a photo opportunity or a desirable digital souvenir. This strategy aided in the conversion rate to our souvenir retrieval mini app on WeChat, guaranteeing a trackable online to offline pipeline. The vivo Lab on the second floor of their conceptual retail space has created the ideal space for every level of consumer needs.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

After working with a partner agency in the discovery and strategy phase, we created an Experience Blueprint – a strategic and creative roadmap for the entire project – to ensure the project’s success moving forward. Once the Experience Blueprint was delivered and approved we started designing the layout and housing for the activations on the 2nd floor of the vivo Lab. The digital design for the entirety of the activations began once the physical designs were handed off to the general contractor for implementation. After mapping the holistic experiential journey we then defined each activation from a UX and UI perspective while beginning to create and prototype multiple bespoke software solutions. All in all, the 687 sqm experience center took nearly 1.5 years from the discovery phase to the ribbon cutting and required over 15 full-time staff aided by about 40 consultants.

List the results (30% 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.”