Simba Uproar
For more than a year post the launch of Simba Craft Beer in 2017, they supported numerous music events across the country as a beverage partner or title sponsor as part of marketing efforts to gain impressions and reach. The music scene (genres of Electronic Music and Hip-hop) in India has grown immensely in the past 3 years, with electronic music artists from across the globe visiting India to perform.
In 2019, Simba’s love for music found its home in ‘Simba Uproar’, a music property. Simba Uproar would encompass all things music-related, from gigs, sundowners, music festivals to radio shows. From sponsoring events to hosting artists and bands from across the world, this was a huge step for Simba to connect with a budding community of music lovers.
Simba Uproar was my opportunity to create a property from the ground-up. I was responsible for the concept, branding, strategy, and event management of Simba Uproar. Find below an overview of my work:
Industry
Music, Festivals
Scope
Intellectual Property Concept, Visual Identity, Brand Strategy, Space Design
Team
Indranil Udupi, Abhisek Sarda, Tanya Kar
Naming
The name decided had to satisfy some filters:
It should evoke a musical/festival/gig vibe
It should be related to the brand
It should be memorable
We finalised the name Simba Uproar due to the feelings of celebration that it invoked.
Visual Identity
To synergise the characteristic name with the visual, we had to create a memorable logo. We felt the need to create an iconic shape, that had a high recall value. The identity was created keeping the ‘beer carton’ central to the design. Another key element was the tape on the box, which we extended as a physical branding element at events.
We also seamlessly translated the logo aesthetic to the visual language of Simba Uproar. This mainly transcribed to various collateral, merchandise, and social media templates.
Merchandise & Collaterals
The physical manifestation of the brand would only come through the merchandise and collateral we produced. It was important to translate designs into premium-quality collateral that could be used to set-up and design event locations. The entire process involved multiple designs and sampling iterations from various vendors, only finalising production when the quality was right. You can see below the translation of digital design to physical collateral:
Space Design & Production
With Simba Uproar, we wanted every event to be an experience to remember. Each event has it’s own aesthetic, depending on the genre of the artist performing, but aligned with the Simba Uproar colour palette - Red. We had to design spaces keeping in mind its limitations and working around the structure to put forward the Uproar aesthetic in the best way possible.
As a design studio, we were not adept with lighting design and aesthetics. I realised that for any event in a closed arena, lighting is extremely important and adds to the character and vibe of the space. I conducted thorough research on lighting equipment that are used for music events and what could create the unique experience we wanted from Simba Uproar. I finalised a surreal cube design for the stage, that would have red-LED tubes as structural elements of the cube.
One of the most comprehensive events was held in Raipur, the hometown of Simba Craft Beer, the set-up there was very well received by the attendees. This achievement is something that I am really proud of, something that made me realise my potential to grasp skills when in dire need. You can see below the transformation of the space from mock-ups to physical reality:
Concept & Marketing
I saw Simba Uproar as an opportunity to bring a budding music community closer to the brand. Through Uproar, I wanted to cater to a broad range of human-experiences beyond just beer. As the inceptor, I was in charge of setting structure to Simba Uproar by deciding the genres of music we would promote, the kind of artists we would feature, the frequency of events across cities, and the marketing and creative strategy.
The core competency of Simba Uproar was bringing down the best artists from across the globe and locally, to create unique experiences for the crowd. One of Simba’s biggest collaborations was with Cercle Music, a first of its kind event in India at Jai Vilas Palace.
Social media is an integral part of Simba Uproar as our target audience clearly resides there. I am in charge of building a hype before every event to ensure maximum awareness and thereby footfall at the gig, through a series of social media posts unique to the artist’s aesthetics. Live social media coverage from the event is also something that I handle to generate interest amongst our followers. You will find below some of Simba Uproar’s promotional posts:
Learnings
Looking back and analysing the entire process of creating the property Simba Uproar made me understand the importance of EXECUTION. Ideas mean nothing if they are not executed well. Mock-ups and creating digital artwork for merchandise and brand collateral is the easy part, but high quality production, liaising with vendors, interacting with artist managers for bookings and managing client-side requests was the real CHALLENGE.
My future plans with Simba Uproar is to transform it into a limited attendance boutique event that only a select few can attend. The reason being, the initial idea behind Simba Uproar was to create a mass-market brand property that would lead to big impressions through great music, but realisation happened when I wanted to reiterate the brand’s craft aspect. Craft beer is for a niche crowd, craft beer is an acquired taste, craft beer is for a limited few.