Abbreviating a customer journey for time starved travellers.

Experience architecture & design for Taj Gurgaon. An adventure recounted.

It was circa 2012, when this adventure began. The entry of the Taj in March 2013 was a bit later than sooner into Gurgaon. Tough market, formidable brands like the Leela, the Marriott, the Westin and the Trident made matters more challenging.

The primary law of positioning says you stake a clear position by being there first, which we kind of did when we helped create the organic Taj Bekal Resort and Spa (then, the Vivanta by Taj - Bekal) that amplified interest in North Kerala with the largest spa in India and some fascinating experiences we created. We rallied around the positioning we articulated, "God’s own country, God’s own secrets". More on that on a later chapter. With the Taj Coorg, another one of our past adventures, we adopted the 3rd law of positioning by changing the category itself. Thereby building the rainforest proposition in the middle of a Coorg’s, till then coffee, plantation country. Read an excerpt @ Switching on a rainforest - Coorg 2.0

Gurgaon was a bit different. Here we had to claim a position in perspective. You were stepping into a market which had 500 pound gorillas, established brands with great lineage. Westin, Trident - Oberoi and the Leela.

Building a positioning relative to incumbents

Here was an opportunity to test the 2nd classic law of positioning, and how a brand new address could be breathed life into while taking a position relative to the incumbents.

With the new Vivanta Gurgaon address, before we initiated any marketing or branding exercise, the question of primacy was simple. What are we doing here? How do we add value to the audience? What is my clear differentiator. While the address had a strong sense of design, the Warner Wong stamp, triple height lobby, glass and metal, the Thai Pavilion brand, much more was needed. The experience and content journey and the brand poles had to be worked upon and here core members of NYUCT Design Labs helped build a brand new adventure.

Reimagining experiences, design & storytelling. Abbreviating them for a time starved traveller.

As always, we as experience architects and designers strive for answers from the market. A busy urban district, millennial Gurgaon is time starved, always on and always seeking what’s next with city residents who travel well and live life well. Relative proximity to the airport and being in a CBD with MNC parks meant that the average length of stay would be short. Corporate jet-setters time travelling would be plenty and often time spent would be crisp. And they would swoop in from different time zones and source markets. 

The experience design and storytelling hence had to be crisp, short and bold. Like a true metropolitan cocktail. We had to think of the efficiencies of time and effective short storytelling to build the key standout experiences This had to be invented and reinvented across dining, wellness & spa, discovery, leisure, art, recreation. For some experiences we had the inspiration right in front. The metro line of Gurgaon. Over several months of intensive pre-work, project recces and market visits, the experience board and content journey was set.

We wove the entire experience design around building a true metropolitan capital.

Carpe Diem with the Lomography Experience

Millennial cool hotels and destinations like Delhi and Gurgaon often attract instagram friendly audiences who would love to chronicle their stay and experiences and share them. While yes, most travellers would be caught with a high end smartphone that does the job, before the era of quirky filters had settled into habit, we created and built the Lomography experience, with expert guidance from fellow NYUCTian Manoj J, the resident representative of Lomo, then.

This was then engineered with content, partnerships and a service experience whereby a customer could borrow a Lomo camera from the front desk, shoot what he liked and deposit back at the hotel. For the same to be boarded on a microsite. Gurgaon and Delhi as the traveller’s diary with the quirks of the Lomo Camera. A first time experience for any hotel. Thankfully it replaced a small unit off the lobby which with its L shape and small size posed a challenge. And we loved reinventing such areas which can be transformed with content and storytelling.

Yellow Line, the birth of the metro menu series

Short stays don't mean the food story was to be sold short. It would have been a pity if travellers into Gurgaon and Delhi didn't get a taste of its street food, just because their stay was short. But the challenge before us as experience designers, was that our location and market primarily would serve business travellers who wouldn't have the luxury of time to go traipsing across the capital city’s food streets. So, we conceived the next best alternative.

We imagined the Yellow Line Metro Menu, that gets the best of street food from Huda Chowk (the hotel's nearest stop) to Chandni Chowk in small plated, course-wise meals right on your table. The idea was to serve up the brand's twist with the food. This concept was bounced off with the master chef, and post a series of trials and engineering, the brand’s series of metro line menus was conceived. With impeccable finish. This was much before independent restaurants brought these avant-garde, quirky renditions of street food to the table. We took this small plate street food menu series to our subsequent, experience-design adventures at Taj Surajkund and Taj Dwarka (the violet line and blue line respectively). It became the brand's leitmotif. City in petite bites.

Making discoveries a habit. The Tallis Partnership.

Most of the city experts we spoke to kind of blinked when we hustled them to help us with the city’s best discoveries. The refrain was the concrete capital had “discovered” stories. Thanks to a serendipitous conversation, one of our core NYUCTians had with a colleague a few years earlier we had an answer. We initiated the discovery trails partnership with Tallis.

 The wonderful duo of Gagan and Varun, who we fondly called the Indiana Jones twins of Delhi, worked with us to curate some of the most fascinating insider experiences of Gurgaon and Delhi often narrated by the masterful Robinson. The Kabootar Baazi of old Delhi, the KC Aryan Folk Museum, Shadipur-Kathputli Puppet colony, the circular rail, the farm house experience of Gurgaon, Ghitorni museum, green trails and many more such wonderful experiences were curated. Around performance theatre, arts, crafts, food and music. While we knew most audiences would be time starved residents, we had to have something for travellers who had a bit of time to explore the city. Some of these experiences were put on film with the talented Nijo and his team from Purani Dilli Talkies.

 Imagining the Jet Lag alleviation Treatment

Gurgaon was also the first address in which the Jiva jet-lag alleviation program was envisioned and conceived to smoothen out stress and fatigue in time travelling, long haul journey customers.

This was a first of its kind innovation within the spa division. The product team at the spa division helped with a fantastic execution of the concept. Incidentally we also coaxed similar innovations with the pre-wedding rituals and the bridal suite for Surajkund.

 The Mad hatter Tea Party@ Glasshouse

During some of the project recces we were constantly on the lookout for a place of easy recreation in the hotel. Something which could be an afternoon or early evening soiree place. And we found this at the glasshouse (you guessed it - it was a glass box room) perched with its foyer and court. The glass house inspired us to reimagine the afternoon tea party for the high heeled residents of Gurgaon.

What if one could arrange for a quixotic mad hatter tea party curated by a designer on demand. We worked with good friend and ace designer, Little Shilpa to put together this experience. This was brought alive and launched with a stunning, first of its kind, live, synchronized fashion show across 4 floors of the hotel, choreographed by duo Apu-Tanya. Needless to say, the shutterbugs frenzied. Wouldn't think those 4 floors have captivated attention as much since then.

The Metropolitan 6, stirred up

We curated 6 metropolitan cocktails with expert mixologist and flare barman Atilla (we called him Atilla, who hummed), each created to a brief – each an ode to the bustling district of Gurgaon.

How far can a cocktail travel? Well, it did if we go by the revitalizing Bee’s Knees created with the rare Manuka honey, possessing anti ageing and anti biotic properties. Each mix was based on a healthy core be it jaggery, stevia or maple.

Each more swish than the others.

The Little Book of 21, with Mighty Mini

What value would experiences be of, if they are not narrated, distributed and consumed. We had to imagine our own storybook, small, petite but bursting with stories round the corner. With friend, author and cultural observer, the mighty Mini, we set about putting together the proprietary Little book on 21 on the maximum city Gurgaon. The little book series was what had been conceived by us for the brand to unveil a city through an unusual lens that would inspire audiences with alley stories and intriguing tales on food, adventure and celebrations.

The experiences consumed, regurgitated by Mini and then set on paper. The experiences were curated by us along with the Tallis Trails men and filtered down to the essential 21 that tell a brand new tale about Gurgaon and Delhi. Kabootarbaazi, Folk Museum, our partnership that we forged with the Kingdom of Dreams, Mono rail, metro menus and what nots. This would be the short and sweet experience guide for travellers weary with long narratives and too tired to ferret experiences. This was like a little insta-box of experiences right curated for someone who is a seeker of the local and authentic. Today the pursuit of the local and authentic drives business models like Air BnB. More power to experiences we say!!

Below the stage and behind the scenes at India’s Broadway

We dreamt up a unique partnership with the Kingdom of Dreams. Sector 29 in Gurgaon, is the address of the Kingdom of Dreams, India's first live entertainment, theatre and leisure destination, near the Leisure Valley Park. In keeping with the brand’s promise of discoveries and the “unusual” in the usual, notwithstanding some amount of initial hesitation from quarters, we conceived a partnership with Kingdom of Dreams that would allow residents of the hotel not only to see what’s on stage (and there’s plenty good) but have exclusive access to a back of the stage walk around.

A unique journey that shares the magic behind the stage. The props, the green rooms, the artist huddle, the engineering consoles, the stage mechanics and what not. This was the first of its kind partnership forged with the Kingdom of Dreams with an exclusivity clause. The twist wasn’t just about what was on stage, but what lay behind it. We captured these behind the scenes magic with ace photographers and an experience with a twist from the ordinary was born. We felt that our audiences and residents must see the hardwork and meticulous preps that lie behind a spectacle. Life truly was on stage and off it!

A journey, "in unison" with Simar Lamba

Another highlight expression of this metropolitan marvel was our foray with an experience installation.We scoured for the right artist who could be commissioned, for an installation art piece that would define the journey of this hotel as the 100th Taj hotel in India.

And we found through the six degrees of separation route, an artist as sensitive as he is creative. An extremely talented experimental artist Simar Lamba, based out of Delhi defies an easy classification.

Our thanks to the wonderful merry men and women in the hotel who were part of the journey.

The hotel hit the T+L IT list in 2014.