vivo Lab

Immersive experience centre rediscovers the magic of photography.

Shenzen, China
4
unique experiences
500k
interactions in 30 days

The vivo Lab in Shenzen, China is an industry-first experience centre taking audiences on a personal journey of discovery and self-expression. Celebrating the art of photography, our experiences inside this concept store demonstrate the power of interactivity and immersion to delight and engage. Seamlessly fusing the physical and the digital, these multi-sensory light installations use creative technology to help visitors experience the story of photography like never before.

An industry-first experience centre

Concept Store

With over 200 million users, vivo is one of the world’s largest smartphone companies. As they shifted their brand to focus on photography, we worked with global agency Imagination to create an industry-first collection of sensory experiences to mesmerise and delight visitors to vivo’s newest concept store.

White camera outline graphic illuminated on a transparent glass sign at the vivo Lab in Shenzen.

Capitalising on the affordances of interactivity and immersion, the vivo Lab invites visitors to experience the story of photography through the ages. A participatory journey of discovery, the experience centre encourages an emotional connection with the brand through an innovative fusion of shared experience and product engagement.

Stripes and orbs of light create highly sensory experiential marketing activations at the vivo Lab.

A personal journey of light + colour

Sensory Experiences

Unusually shaped vivo Lab experience centre in Shenzen, China.

Located at the heart of Shenzen, the vivo Lab brings together a collection of diverse sensory experiences. Moving through the concept store, visitors are able to immerse themselves in the fundamental particles of visible light, experiment with the impact of light on everything we see, experience first-hand photography’s ability to capture invisible moments, and finally become a part of the vivo universe through personal avatars powered by facial recognition.

Microscopic photons come to life

Touching Photons

Touching Photons was a highly tactile light installation blending the physical and the digital to tell the story of light. To visualise these tiny particles of light, we created a field of floating light orbs, suspended in space and glowing with a gentle, pulsing rhythm. One of the larger-scale activations in the experience centre, the installation explored how we perceive light at its most fundamental level through photons.

Entering the experiential marketing installation, audiences were greeted by magnified and illuminated ‘photons’ made from moulded plastic. Changing in colour and intensity as visitors interacted, these creative technology orbs created an instantly memorable experience as audiences were encouraged to express their individuality and capture a unique perspective as they craft their own landscape of light.

Responsive, playful interactions

Playful Interaction

Each time one of the orbs from Touching Photons was touched, it lit up immediately, sending a wave of light across the surrounding sculpture. Adding to the light installation’s intrigue, we programmed different interactions to generate different outcomes. For example, touching larger orbs generated a brighter wave of colour, while activating two photons at the same time created colliding ripples of light and colour.

Collection of floating blue orbs make up Touching Photons light installation in the vivo Lab concept store.

As visitors continued through the experiential marketing activation, we invited them to continue exploring the impact of light and colour on what and how we see. Indeed, every ten interactions, an impressive takeover moment would surprise and delight visitors, creating intrigue and an appetite for further exploration through the rest of the experience centre.

An immersive dome of light

Take Me There

Lighting has a huge impact on photography. The location, type and quality of light can make the world of difference when we’re trying to capture something through a camera. Take Me There was an interactive installation designed to help audiences better understand the differing qualities of light and its impact. An immersive, geodesic dome, the installation used an intricate network of multi-spectrum LEDs to give visitors the power to control their light, experimenting with how this crucial element impacts how we see the world.

Recreating endless lighting conditions

Immersive LED Dome

With the ability to recreate almost any lighting condition, Take Me There encouraged audiences to think differently about light, illuminating their images like never before. Interacting through a touch screen, visitors could put themselves in a virtual photo studio with a single touch. Here, they could learn through hands-on experience professional lighting tools create portraiture for a range of scenarios from beauty to sports to horror movies.

Audiences could also map the dome’s lighting to 360° timelapse videos from around the world. Choosing a landscape and scrubbing through the timelapse, the dome’s LEDs would change in colour and intensity to help visitors visualise how the changes in lighting from different environments and times of day affect photography. At any point in the experience, visitors were also able to take a 360° photograph within the light installation that can be captured by scanning a QR code.

Close up of Take Me There geodesic dome during construction at vivo Lab concept store.

While the creative technology dome gave visitors inside the power to manipulate the light around them in 360 degrees, from the outside the experiential marketing activation used diamond-shaped acrylic diffusers to softly echo the tint of inward facing LEDs, creating as an intriguing glimpse into what was happening within.

LEDs illuminate immersive geodesic dome in pinks, purples and blues for vivo Lab’s Take Me There experiential marketing installation.

Revealing hidden details

Your Aura

Photography lets us freeze a moment in time, zooming in to see details that may otherwise have been missed. Our goal with the Your Aura light installation was to capture this idea of photography’s ability to reveal hidden stories. Using presence detection and particle data visualisations, we were able to create an immersive environment that reacted to each individual, creating a unique digital ‘aura’ that responded to the colours they wore and the way they moved.

Interactive particle visualisation

Presence Detection

As visitors approached the Your Aura projection wall, their presence was detected from up to 5 metres away. Once this happened, their silhouette was isolated from the background, transforming into an almost liquid halo of flowing particles. Based on the visitor’s outfit and proximity to the wall, this interactive data visualisation served to demonstrate how personal expression can create highly photogenic moments full of magic and beauty.

Group of people stand in front of Your Aura light installation to experiment with data visualisations that respond to their movement.

One of the first installations in the vivo Lab concept store, the light patterns created by Your Aura were the inverse of shadows. These vibrant, fluid shapes wrapped around visitors, giving them a sense of having created an imprint on the space. Audiences were then able to experiment with their auras to create fluid, ethereal shapes and patterns as the creative technology particle visualisations followed each movement and gesture.

Your Aura real-time particle data visualisation system creating vibrant pink aura around a person’s silhouette.

A unique, personalised avatar

Vivo Me

One of the key ways that we reinforced the link between photography and the vivo brand was through the Vivo Me unique avatar generator towards the end of the vivo Lab experience. Using facial recognition and machine learning, the experience transformed visitors into a stylised avatar based on the visitor’s own appearance and inspired by the visual style of the vivo mascots. Available as a digital takeaway at the end of the experience centre, this avatar provided a truly engaging way for people to connect with the vivo brand and their friends.

These concept sketches show just some of the 60+ personalisation options available to visitors.

Customisable facial recognition

Facial Recognition

To begin the Vivo Me activation, visitors were asked to step into a specially designed ‘scanning pod’. Here, we used facial recognition technology to detect their skin colour, hair colour and style, facial hair, glasses, etc. These characteristics were then used to create stylised avatars personalised to each visitor. Once their avatar was generated, visitors could customise their character further with the ability to edit and add up to three accessories.

Once they were done, visitors were invited to take a selfie with their vivo Lab avatar, and scan a QR code to be sent a souvenir package of their avatar via WeChat. This digital memento, facilitated through seamless connectivity between the installation and visitor’s personal devices, helped expand the creative technology experience beyond the physical into the world of social media.

The future of brand experience

Results

All in all, the vivo Lab took consumers of all ages on an immersive experiential marketing journey that was both instantly memorable and easily shareable. Fusing product engagement and sales activations, the multi-sensory creative technology experiences helped to invite audiences into a more meaningful relationship with the vivo brand. Moving forward, the vivo Lab experience centre is expected to generate 2,184,400 unique experiences for audiences each year, and in doing so marks an industry-leading step towards the future of retail.