In today’s highly competitive business world, where all brands vie for customers’ attention and affinity, experiential marketing is quickly becoming the business must elixir. By creating immersive experiences, this fast-growing marketing avenue has been effective in propelling brands to directly forge a deeper emotional connection with their current and potential customers. Needless to say, the increasing popularity of the domain is further amplified by the advent of digital breakthroughs and social media. However, effective activation of out-of-the-box experiential marketing strategies requires the expertise of a distinctive set of people who possess a proven track record of delivering quality, success, agility, and, best of all, ingenuity.
Standing head and shoulders above the rest embodying the aforementioned components is CAB Experiences, one of the most prominent names in the domain. Leveraging creativity and bravery - two key components that make up the name and core identity of the company - CAB has been a reliable brand for its diverse and marquee partners, including Google, Royal Enfield, Nike, Bloomberg, Meta, Jaguar LandRover, Mastercard, Toyota, OLA and L'Oreal.
Led by five versatile professionals and partners – Sushmita Sarmah, Rajesh KV, Utpal Mangaonkar, Pradeep V, and Vikram Premnath, CAB kick-started its humble beginnings in 2012with a sole focus on experiential marketing. “Experiential space is driven by emotion, connection, and memory, but tracking those emotions was not easy prior to the pandemic. We could not connect the dots between online and offline, while digital, PR, and additional services were outsourced to larger media services,” says Rajesh.
However, he feels that, although the pandemic halted the growth of the industry momentarily, it gradually enabled the company to provide a comprehensive solution and scale the experiences. “Today, in this high-volume sector, we bring more value as a brand solutions company rather than as an experiential marketing agency,” adds Rajesh.
But, among the influx of a myriad of marketing platforms, how can one choose the right combination of solutions for a brand? “Digital is a great way to consume.
But beyond a point, digital marketing feels plugged-in and fake. Nobody wants to believe in its authenticity. Marketing should not be about selling something but about making sense of the sale made,” Rajesh adds. According to Rajesh, apart from the collaboration, it isalso the agility that helps CAB carve a niche in today’s collaborative landscape and bring the right marketing mix. In fact, under the directorship of Rajesh, the company is currently working on a collaboration model and building a community of entrepreneurs, thereby filling life into its aim of becoming its own network soon.
The True Differentiator
At CAB, no two campaigns are alike. But the only thing that every project has in common is the indelible, personalized, shareable, and transformative experiences that people take away from the events. “For example, in the case of the movie Jailer, it did not have the traditional hype. But, with the one audio launch event that we put together for the movie, people resonated with the music and sang together. Every mood, content, and expression recorded in the event was able to create the necessary momentum and an opportunity to galvanize the fans towards the movie,” shares Rajesh.
Today, in this high-volume sector, we bring more value as a brand solutions company, rather than as an experiential marketing agency
Keeping brands’ interests at the fulcrum of their endeavors, the experts at CAB deploy a thorough conceptualizing and design process. They also ensure perfect execution with a major emphasis on not just the large but also the small elements of an event, which, in fact, often cause the biggest impact. Citing another example, one of the partners, Sushmita, explains, “We had incorporated a flower shop in a leading brand’s conference, which was set up on the weekend for its partners. But, the flowers were dedicated to thanking the family of the attendees for propelling them to prioritize the event over the family time on a weekend.
Even though it just looked like a small gift shop, the thoughtfulness and gratitude behind the gesture was not only appreciated but changed the perception of the brand and how it values its people and their family. Further, they became a regular part of conferences like this”.
The Roadmap to Excellence
Rajesh firmly believes that, contrary to the assumptions, Indians are on par with anyone globally in terms of their ability to understand, think on their feet, and deliver value. "Additionally, our creativity, nimbleness, turnaround time, and quality also add a competitive edge to our country", shares Rajesh. But lamentably, when it comes to experiential marketing, the assumptions are the same. As Rajesh indicates, since the clients perceive organizations like CAB as just service lenders, integral aspects like their true value, ideas, resources, and efforts in managing the data are not valued or paid for.
Fathoming the same, Rajesh and his venture, CAB, are in the process of reclaiming what they truly stand for. “We understand brand, communication, execution, quality, and integrity. So, we seek to tell the brands to have faith in us and to collaborate more with us. We reassure you that your brand is in good hands,” concludes Rajesh.
Rajesh, Utpal, Sushmita, Pradeep, & Vikram, Partners
Backed by over two decades of experience in experiential marketing, Rajesh KV has been responsible for leading and directing businesses and people towards the common objective of CAB: creating things that inspire, empower, and engage.
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