Award-winning experiential marketing agency N2O has activated Hill’s at Crufts, Dogfest and county shows across the UK as part of a campaign to reach cat and dog owners with the nutritionally-tailored food.

N2O, who were tasked by the scientific pet food brand to find a way to reach both cat and dog owners at the same destination, created an experience with virtual reality and hands-on elements to immerse pet owners in the brands.

Pet owners could see the world through their cat’s eyes with VR goggles, find the right food for their pet via a product selector and take part in a quiz to understand their pet’s ideal weight. Pets tried the food and children had their faces painted to maintain sufficient dwell time in the area.

Clare James, Commercial Director at N2O, said: “We enjoyed the task set by Hill’s and really drilled deep into the data which informed our creative decisions, utilising insights to ensure we found the right places to find dog and cat owners across the UK.”

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HTC is celebrating the launch of the VIVE Cosmos, its latest premium PC-based Virtual Reality (VR) system, and has teamed up with BBC Studios to offer Doctor Who fans the chance to embark on an adventure with the Doctor by stepping into the legendary TARDIS.

On Friday 27^th and Saturday 28^th September, visitors to the Protein Studios experience in Hackney will be fully immersed in the sci-fi world of Doctor Who through the riveting new VR experience ‘Doctor Who: The Edge of Time’.

Attendees will be amongst the first to try ‘Doctor Who: The Edge of Time’, produced by Maze Theory for BBC Studios, and have the chance to take up the role of the Doctor’s assistant. After stepping into the TARDIS, players will interact with the Doctor themselves and will try to pilot the spacecraft – which is temperamental at the best of times – before embarking on an epic adventure to solve the mystery behind the ‘Reality Virus’.

During the event, visitors will use HTC’s newly released VR headset, the VIVE Cosmos, which is built to be the highest performance and most versatile headset on the market.

Fans can sign up for a free 15-minute slot at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/htcvive or simply turn up on the day to secure a walk-in slot (subject to availability). Please note, players must be aged 12+.

• Dates: Friday 27^th and Saturday between 10.30am – 7pm and 28^th September 2019 10am – 4pm
• How much: Free to attend
• How: Members of the public can sign up for a slot on Ticket Source via https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/htcvive
• Where: Protein Studios, 31 New Inn Yard, Hackney, London EC2A 3EY
• Nearest tube: 10 min walk from Old Street underground station or 5 min walk from Shoreditch High Street Overground station
• Please note: Players must be aged 12+

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Virgin Holidays has once more revolutionised its retail experience by opening the first-ever travel agent to feature an operational spa. The brand new store in Milton Keynes offers customers a totally immersive holiday booking experience.

Spas are already a staple in many Virgin Atlantic Clubhouses around the world, but this is the first time the concept has been available in a v-room store.  Now, customers will be able to enjoy a relaxing manicure or hand massage, as they peruse an extensive collection of holiday options – courtesy of experts trained by the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse.

The Milton Keynes v-room is designed in the style of a luxurious airport lounge to provide a relaxing environment for customers.  As well as the spa, unique features include a virtual reality rollercoaster, a complimentary bar serving bubbles, a children’s play area and a selection of Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class and Premium Economy seats to enable customers to “try before they fly.”

Lee Haslett, VP of Sales and Product at Virgin Holidays, commented: “We’ve been revolutionising the way our customers book their holidays for several years and our latest v-room in Milton Keynes is the next step on that journey.  We know that our customers are looking for something extra than just a standard holiday and our v-rooms are the first step on that journey – whether that’s the instore bar, children’s play area or rollercoaster simulation.  I’m excited that we’re able to bring our v-room concept to Milton Keynes and I can’t wait to see what our customers think of our first ever in-house spa.”

Mark Morton, Milton Keynes Store Manager, added:  “Whether it’s a beach holiday in Antigua, a cultural excursion in Havana, a throw of the dice in Las Vegas or the family holiday of a lifetime in Orlando – we’ve got a tonne of brilliant long-holiday deals for Milton Keynes residents.  The entire store concept is relaxed and informal; we want people to feel as if they’re chatting to a friend over a glass of Prosecco.  If you want to explore holiday options in a welcoming environment you can’t go past this world-first concept.”

In total Virgin Holidays now have thirteen v-room high street stores across the UK, as well as a number of recently opened concession stores in retail giant Next.

Key features of the new Milton Keynes v-room:

• A spa area, allowing customers to enjoy a manicure as they peruse holiday options
• A complimentary bar serving soft drinks, Prosecco and snacks
• A children’s’ play area with interactive screens
• A selection of Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class and Premium Economy plane seats to enable customers to try before they fly
• A unique virtual reality rollercoaster experience – taking customers to Las Vegas and back, via space
• Five kiosks with relaxed seating for families to consult with Virgin Holidays’ expert travel consultants

The store is the biggest Virgin Holidays has launched to date – spanning an impressive 1,700 square foot – and was designed by YourStudio and project managed by Resolution Interiors.

The innovative v-room design has recently won a “Gold” award at the 2018 London Design Awards for openings in Cardiff and Norwich, and the Milton Keynes store is the third opening under the new v-room design principles.

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Air Canada is running a pop-up restaurant serving gourmet versions of Canada’s national dish, Poutine, inspired by a selection of the airline’s destinations, for the second year running.

The ‘Poutinerie by Air Canada’, currently open in London’s Old Spitalfields Market, is offering variants of the dish – which usually consists of chips, curd cheese and gravy – including Hawaiian Loco Moco, Cancun’s Mayan Enchilada and Melbourne’s Prawn Star Chips.

The pop-up features an indoor and a covered outdoor area where visitors can enjoy their dishes with a selection of beer and wine, with destination-inspired music and imagery. There will also be a Virtual Reality (VR) installation allowing people to experience being on board an Air Canada flight. Visitors will also have the chance to win flights to one of the over 200 global destinations the carrier flies to.

The pop-up, created and managed for Air Canada by agency JWT London, runs until Sunday 14^th October. Proceeds from the activity will again support Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity.

Last year’s La Poutinerie activation, in Shoreditch, sold 2,133 meals and reached 47 million people via earned and owned media content, according to JWT.

The activation is part of an integrated campaign showcasing some of Air Canada’s ‘hidden gem’ destinations via Out Of Home, print, radio, video, social and programmatic channels around London.

Air Canada is Canada’s largest domestic and international airline, serving more than 220 airports on six continents and carrying more than 48 million passengers in 2017.

J. Walter Thompson London is a communications agency which offers a range of services including advertising, digital, social media, content, insight, shopper, experiential, employee engagement and partnership marketing. It is part of WPP Group.

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Experiential marketing agency TRO has unveiled a new standalone business unit, CASSETTE, to deliver innovative creative technology solutions for live experiential marketing campaigns.

CASSETTE replaces TROi, the agency’s previous creative tech division. CASSETTE will operate as its own entity, servicing both TRO clients and the wider industry.

Headed up by Ben Taylor (pictured), who was previously Retail Experience Director in charge of TRO’s retail offering, CASSETTE is focussed on taking creative technologies into a physical world environment, and will provide an end-to-end service from strategy, UX and design, to development, build and installation.

Solutions encompass Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, mobile apps, interactive windows, eye tracking technology and more.

Previous digital work by TRO has included interactive windows for Vogue, an interactive wardrobe for Lucozade Zero, VR suitcases for Samsonite and an interactive football challenge for Nissan.

Ben Taylor says: “There are a number of players in the creative tech field, so the very essence of what CASSETTE stands for is to strip it all back. We are staunchly committed to incorporating tech seamlessly into the tangible world; our sole aim is to remove barriers to entry, not add to them.”

Taylor adds: “Relevance is our number one priority – we will apply strategy and exploit our expertise in human behaviour to ensure real meaning and truly elevate the consumer experience. Creative tech is a powerful storytelling method and we are incredibly excited about the wealth of opportunity it brings when it comes to educating and inspiring consumers.”

TRO is a brand experience agency which creates immersive experiences which can incorporate live events, partnerships, retail and creative technology. TRO is an Omnicom Group company.

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Dogs Trust is running an immersive Virtual Reality experience to engage the public and demonstrate the impact donors can have for the thousands of dogs each year that the charity cares for.

Created for Dogs Trust by GOOD Agency and launched at The Ideal Home Show in London in November, people were given the chance to experience Dogs Trust rehoming centres as they had never seen them before.

The film places the audience in the middle of the rehoming centre, allowing them to experience the care, attention and love each of the dogs receive in the state-of-the-art facilities, It offers a rare behind the scenes glimpse into the care and facilities that Dogs Trust give to the UK’s favourite four-legged friends.

Following on from the launch, Dogs Trust will roll this VR experience out to face-to-face fundraising campaigns deploying the V R experience in locations across the UK.

Reuben Turner, creative director of GOOD Agency, says: “Virtual Reality is the perfect tool to rouse the curiosity of passers-by and make them want to investigate. It’s completely new for Dogs Trust, but shows the important work they do in a fun and uplifting way – and we hope it helps the face-to-face fundraisers attract lots of new sponsors.”

Kayleigh Barker, Head of Donor Acquisition at Dogs Trust, observes: “Sponsor a Dog is a hugely important scheme for Dogs Trust and we needed to engage busy people going about their days. This VR experience will show people the incredible work that really happens in our centres, something we couldn’t offer in real life.”

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Fanta is running an experiential Virtual Reality campaign called ‘Fanta: The 13th Floor’ to scare audiences just in time for Halloween, with consumers entering a physical lift that transforms into an immersive Halloween experience.

Fanta’s campaign – which was devised and produced by MediaCom’s content division MediaCom Beyond Advertising – uses the latest technology to deliver a 360° virtual reality experience.

Each ‘ride’ lasts for four minutes, where the user arrives at different floors of a building on the way to a Halloween party. Each floor then presents a different scenario: on one floor something comes forth from the shadows in an otherwise unassuming corridor, on another a shadowy figure transports from the realm of flickering TV screens to the confines of the lift.

4D elements add to the excitement, with a lifelike rumble emitting from the lift floor as the elevator stops at the various levels whilst a whoosh of air greets the user as the virtual doors open. It is the first time the drinks company has used an experiential activation of this magnitude to drive engagement.

Thorpe Park and Westfield shopping centre in Stratford will host three lifts each, aimed at 16-19 year olds to generate buzz and excitement for the orange soft drink Fanta during the Halloween period. The innovative campaign will run at Thorpe Park until November 1st and Westfield shopping centre until October 28th.

To drive further scale to the activation, the 360° video can also be viewed on www.fanta.co.uk13thfloor.

Mediacom will be promoting this through online video and paid social channels.

Rosalind Brown, Marketing Manager, Coca-Cola Great Britain, says: “Halloween is the one time of year when we can all unleash our inner dark-side and embrace everything which is fun about the freakish and frightening. Our limited-edition Fanta cans and bottles, along with our exclusive Snapchat partnership, definitely help add a bit of drama and intrigue to the fright-night season. However for those brave enough, we have brought the fun of Halloween to life with our Virtual Reality experience which is now live at Thorpe Park and Westfield Stratford. For those who dare to enter it’s a shocking, fun filled ride to the 13th Floor!”

Mike Gibbons, Art Director at MediaCom Beyond Advertising, adds: “We love being able to draw from the different skillsets from within MBA, here utilising both the Original Content and Experiential teams, to create engaging campaigns. I recommend you track down some VR goggles, a pair of headphones and appreciate this immersive experience in all its glory.”

The media agency worked with video production company Kode Media and boutique VR Production agency TrojanVR, a joint venture that saw the two companies develop, shoot and deliver the 360° elements of the experiential campaign in an extremely short time frame.

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GLORIOUS! Soups has launched what it is calling the world’s first ‘wellness shed’, complete with a unique virtual reality (VR) mindfulness experience that involves stirring a VR pot of soup as slowly as possible. The VR is accompanied by binaural music which is scientifically proven to improve mindfulness.

The world’s first ‘wellness shed’ is one of the very first pop-ups to be held at the brand new Creative Debuts venue on Curtain Road in Shoreditch. The idea behind the wellness shed is to demonstrate the benefits of taking a few moments to be mindful, whatever you’re doing and wherever you are.

The shed was designed and built by Tiger Sheds.

Dr Barbara Mariposa, author of The Mindfulness Playbook, says: “Cooking and eating are just some of the many opportunities we have to slow down and savour the moment. Taking time to really experience the texture, colour, flavour and smell of food as you cook it then eat it really helps you have a multi-sensory experience, which is wonderful for your wellbeing. Mindfulness is about experiencing, not thinking about experiencing!”

The world’s first wellness shed pop-up took place mid-October to mark the launch of GLORIOUS! Soups new & improved range of Super Soups. The flavours are:

• Super Greens Primavera peas, beans & spinach
• Super Grains coconut, lime & chilli
• Tuscan chicken, tomato & grains
• Mexican sweet potato & beans
• Indian cauliflower, chickpea & turmeric
• Reviving carrot, butternut squash & ginger

Claire Roper, Brand and Category Innovation Manager at GLORIOUS!, observes: “We really hope people enjoy our wellness shed virtual reality mindfulness experience in London as we believe it reflects exactly how we’d love people to enjoy our soups.”

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German low-cost airline Eurowings, the State Tourist Board Baden-Württemberg, Europa-Park, and Stuttgart Airport have once again partnered to promote their destinations and brands in the UK via a Virtual Reality experiential activation at Westfield Stratford City.

Created by London based communications agency, collab-ed, the UK Summer campaign built on last year’s award-winning #nextstop campaign to once again encourage Londoners to discover the beautiful SouthWest of Germany via convenient Eurowings flights between London and Stuttgart Airport.

In 2016, Ed Euromaus, the mascot of Europa-Park, was welcomed by Londoners as they helped him find the #nextstop for his bus in a campaign also created by collab-ed. This year, Ed returned to take Londoners on a virtual reality journey to his home, Europa-Park, in Baden-Württemberg.

The 2017 campaign centred around a VR experiential activation in Westfield Stratford City where visitors could check-in to #FlyWithEd on board his special Eurowings plane to the Sunny Side of Germany; touching down in Stuttgart Airport to discover the Black Forest, before taking a rollercoaster ride through Europa-Park, Germany’s largest theme park.

Campaign seeding via social media continued the narrative from last years’ campaign whilst this year the reactions of visitors were videoed and shared across the campaign channels via the hashtag #FlyWithEd in order to drive social amplification.

Additional Out Of Home activity consisting of digital OOH throughout Westfield Stratford City and print OOH throughout Stratford International Station further promoted the VR experiential activation.

Visitors also had the opportunity to extend the experience via campaign gifting, with VR cardboards and a free digital download of the Coastiality app (App Store & Google Play) enabling the experience, and partner brands, to reach directly into the homes of an even wider audience.

“The response has been fantastic,” says Manuela Spröwitz, International Marketing Manager at Eurowings. “The 360° video is a great tool to inspire visitors to travel with Eurowings to Europa-Park and the region. We are really happy to increase the awareness of our flight offers with this innovative and exciting flying experience – on ground!”

“It’s been great to be able to build on last year’s success and really take this story to the next level”, says Nichola Kirkman, Creative Director of collab-ed. “This year’s campaign has been tremendously well received by Londoners and is yet another indicator to us that audiences are increasingly receptive to innovative marketing and being reached in more meaningful and powerful ways.”

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