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Learnings from ExM, Asia MICE and LIVE Asia Summit at WOW Labs Inspires Delegates at WOW Awards Asia
by EVENTFAQS Bureau Business Events | July 9, 2018 | Feature
WOW Awards Asia Sabbas Joseph Brian Tellis Devraj Sanyal
One of the most important takeaways for over 1800 delegates that attended the WOW Awards and Conventions Asia 2018 were the unprecedented insights and learnings that they received from WOW Labs this year. WOW Labs was one of the 4 main content streams at WOW Awards Asia 2018 and featured 4 diverse summits that unveiled lessons from experiential stalwarts across different genres of the business of experiential, over 2.5 days of the convention.
The 4 summits at the WOW Labs were: Experiential Marketing Summit, Asia MICE Summit, LIVE Asia Summit and Experiential Celebrations Summit.
Experiential Marketing Summit
Asia’s own ‘Experiential Marketing Summit’ 2018 headlined the content at WOW Awards Asia this year as for the first time, 10 brand marketers across a wide spectrum of business operations took to the stage to decode the challenges of Experiential Marketing in the modern marketing ecosystem. The marketers on stage included: Samar Singh Sheikhawat, United Breweries (Moderator); Balram Balakrishnan, The Lodha Group; Avinash Oza, Mahindra Tractors; Abhinav Sharma, Pernod Ricard; Sunil Sharma, Dabur; Jiten Mahendra, Max Fashion; Apurva Chamaria, Rategain; Mansi Khanna, Nestle; Nandita Mahadevia, Nykaa and Soumava Naskar, Hummel.

The brand custodians on the panel spoke vociferously on the subject ‘Hacks on Measuring Engagement in Experiential Marketing’ and discussed the brand practices in the place to determine the engagement at the varied levels of brand launch, activation and at the last mile.
Asia MICE Summit
The WOW Labs at WOW Awards Asia 2018 saw the debut of an Asia MICE Summit that succeeded the discussions of the Experiential Marketing Summit on June 29th, 2018. The first ever Asia MICE Summit was conceptualized with the intention of bringing to the fore, the challenges faced by corporates in creating effective MICE campaigns for their internal as well as external stakeholders.

The innovative format of the discussion enabled the speakers on the panel to dissect the topic of ‘Driving Effectiveness at every stage of a Stakeholder Engagement / Channel Marketing Programme’ at the levels of Building the Program, Planning and During execution stage. The speakers on the panel included: Reema Sanghavi, Maximus MICE and Media Solutions; Birju Gareeba, Platinum Worldwide Grroup; Navneeth Mohan, Laqshya Live Experiences; Amit Kaul, Canara HSBC Oriental Life of Commerce; Gary Grover, HDFC Life; Rishi Sharma, Aditya Birla; Sandeep Nagpal, Cvent; Bhushan Chandorkar, Mahindra Automotive; Vilas GV, Herbalife; P. Anand, Tata Steel; and Sheena Kapoor, Edelweiss Financial Services.
LIVE Asia Summit
The third summit at the WOW Labs was the LIVE Asia Summit which focussed on the most crucial aspect of LIVE Events and Entertainment today, i.e.- Making Money. The panel discussion took place on the final day of WOW Awards Asia and saw speakers like Kunal Khambhati, BookMyShow; Sabbas Joseph, Wizcraft International, Brian Tellis, Fountainhead MKTG; Devraj Sanyal, Universal Music; Jatin Varma, Comic Con India; Samit Garg, E-Factor; Deepak Choudhary, Event Capital; Manuj Agarwal, Percept LIVE; Bijju Varghese, ThoT Media; Sameet Sharma, LIVE Viacom 18; Cyrus Gorimar, Opium Events; and Anurag Rao, Canvas Talent talking about ‘Riding the Elephant in the Room: Making Money’ at various levels of ticketing, content and innovation at LIVE events.

The discussions on the subject touched upon various aspects of LIVE entertainment like the use of data by online ticketing platforms, the many marketing strategies at play, getting support from sponsors and even turning green without them. The session was followed by a Q & A round with the audience which further revealed the recipe of creating a successful event IP in the Indian experiential ecosystem today.
The 4 summits at the WOW Labs were: Experiential Marketing Summit, Asia MICE Summit, LIVE Asia Summit and Experiential Celebrations Summit.