While marketing experts continue to scratch their heads in their attempt to gauge the impact of an experience, one solid revelation is that an experience trumps any other form of brand communication. The world is going digital and mobile apps seem to be the new business trend, but meaningful human interfacing continues to reign supreme. As a consequence, corporate India is progressively developing deeper pockets to offer its audience more intimate brand experiences and private social events are witnessing opulence like never before.
EEMAX Global Conclave and Awards, an annual thought leadership summit, was held 17-18 October 2016 at Hotel Sahara Star in Mumbai to engage India’s flourishing community of event professionals. The eighth edition of the prestigious convention saw representation from leading stakeholders of the event industry from India and abroad. Organised by the Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA), the conclave culminated with EEMAX Global — an awards ceremony where India’s top event and experiential agencies vied for 88 awards across 30 categories.
E Factor Entertainment won top honours at the event by walking away with 10 awards. The premier agency notched up wins in eight categories to finish with seven golds, two silvers & one bronze to ensure a top podium finish.
E Factor is a formidable name when it comes to creating and executing private social events and has won several honours and accolades over almost 10 years of being the leader in this domain. This year’s multiple honours have further stamped its authority on being one of the best in the business, along with ratifying its most recent venture into IPs & Tourism Events.
An overjoyed Samit Garg, Co-founder and CEO, E Factor Entertainment said, “This is an extremely proud moment for the E Factor family and is going to be a great motivator in times to come. I think it’s sheer hard work, perseverance and diligence that have helped us in getting this honour. This is very special for two reasons, one, for the number of awards that we were recognised for and second, being awarded for our new forays into IPs and tourism events. I would like to thank EEMA and the jury for bestowing us with this honour.”
The awards that were won by E Factor Entertainment included Gold for “Best Wedding” (The Goenka Wedding), “Best Social Event other than Wedding” (The Inspiration of Gatsby), “Best Destination Wedding” (The Atlantean Legends), “Best Décor Design for a Wedding or Social Event” (The Inspiration of Gatsby), “Best Public Event, Ticketed + Non Ticketed” (Pushkar Mela), “Best Signature Event” (Udaipur Lake Festival), “Best Event for the Government” (Taj Balloon Festival).
It got Silver for “Best Intellectual Property – Event or Activation” for Pushkar Mela and “Best Public Event – Ticketed + Non Ticketed” for Taj Balloon Festival, which also won the Bronze for Best Signature Event.
Tailing behind at number two was Laqshya Live Experiences that won seven metals.
Laqshya Live Experiences was launched in 2014 and has been the quickest change management story in the experiential industry in India where a 30-member team moved out of Network18 and integrated into Laqshya Media Group to create Laqshya Live Experiences. With the formation of this new vertical, Laqshya group added a new dimension to their portfolio of services enabling them to create award winning consumer engagement designs and experiences. A significant part of their work includes integration of experiential marketing services with the existing strengths of the Laqshya Media Group that include outdoor, assets, solutions, advertising & digital thereby making the offering a lot more valuable to clients. It works with more than 40 clients including Google, ICICI Prudential, Sony, Samsung, Autodesk, Capgemini, Maruti, Facebook, Rockwell, Sodexo, HSBC, Nikon, CITI group, The Times of India, Lodha Group, etc.
Of the two Golds they bagged at EEMAX, one was for the “Best Integrated Communication Programme for an IP” for their first IPR- Big Boys Toys and the other was for the “Best MICE Event” for ICICI Prudential. They won Silver for “Best Internal Event or Activation” for the Guinness Award they created for Capgemini with over 4,000 employees, the “Best Digital Marketing Campaign for an On-Ground Event or Activation” for their Take a LUV break campaign for Maruti Ertiga and the “Best School/Youth Activation” for the first ever Girls Soccer League organised in Maharashtra by Mumbai Mirror. They also won Bronze for “Best Signature Campaign” and “Best Social Media Amplification”, both for their Project-G campaign for Capgemini.
Navneeth Mohan, CEO & business head, Laqshya Live Experiences stated, “With our win at EEMAX Global 2016, Laqshya Live Experiences now stands as the highest awarded experiential agency of 2016 in India with a count of 26 metals in all. We are also the only experiential agency in the country to have bagged the Abby Award at Goafest 2016.”
Aura Integrated Solutions emerged a close third by bagging a total of six medals. South India’s premier agency Aura has been in existence for close to 15 years and has had humble beginnings. Aura’s inception in 2002, coincided with the groundswell of MNCs trying to establish themselves in the Indian markets. The company began with a string of launches for various MNCs and continues to maintain that as its core strength.
Soon it was organising employee engagement days, family days, space design, protocol events and such like. Since then, their portfolio of clients has grown to include many of the Fortune 100 companies. The agency claims to have perfected the art of brand and service launches and calls it their mainstay.
Following its victory at EEMAX, an ecstatic Siddharth Ganeriwala, CEO, Aura Integrated Solutions, sais, “It does make me very happy that our work has been recognised by the industry’s main body, but what makes me happier is that we have won not just one or two categories but across a spectrum of verticals as diverse as CSR, employee engagement day, dealer events, MICE and event sports. That’s a pretty satisfactory representation of our skill set. And full credit should go to my team and the world-class processes that have been put in place to make such a possibility a reality.”
Aura’s wins at EEMAX were in the categories of Best Execution of a Sports Event, Best Public Event, Best MICE Event, Best Internal Event, Best CSR Event and Best Dealer Activation.
All three winners, E Factor, Laqshya Live Experiences and Aura Integrated Solutions are explicably jubilant with this validation at India’s foremost awards platform for the events community. While private social events specialist E Factor is charting new territories and eyeing events that contribute to surge tourism of cities, Laqshya Live Experiences plans to bolster its standing as the creative young go-to agency for any brand that wants to dabble with the new and unique, and Aura Integrated Solutions is strategising its foray into sports, lifestyle, MICE and government events. While all this is on the cards, for now they wish to bask a little longer in the glory of being deemed India’s leaders in event management.
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