Branding Sunburn Fest not to alienate fans: organisers 18 December, 2010
Branding of f the world's ninth biggest dance fest ''the Sunburn Festival'' will not dilute the brand nor drive away fans but help the event grow organically, according to its organisers. The fourth Sunburn Fest, to be held at Candolim Beach in Goa from December 27-31, is expected to attract thousands of revelers to its Electronic Dance Music (EDM) festival. It will have some of the world's best DJs. Last year's festival by percept, which owns the brand, attracted more than 35,000 people. Lifestyle brands are already associating themselves with the event, and organizers want to go further and create a standalone brand for the event. ''India has had many initiatives that have created a cult and established great existence with the same. In their attempt to expand and diversify, cults turned into brands and extended themselves into the retail space, but unfortunately had to withdraw too soon as well. Sunburn today in the process of achieving global recalls and has strategised its merchandising plan differently. ''The idea behind it is to allow every patron to own a piece of Sunburn and carry the Sunburn affinity for longer, wider and stronger,'' Percept Sports & Entertainment, Group CEO, Devraj Sanyal told UNI. Percept plan to expand the Sunburn brand in three verticals- Retail, Property and Art. In retail, it will launch a range of apparel, accessories, and electronic accessories as independent verticals that will expand the brand from an event to a consummate lifestyle brand. In the property front, it plans to open three Sunburn Cafes in Pune (2010), Mumbai (2011) and Delhi (2011). All these will be offered at different price points to attract different levels of fans without compromising too much on quality. A new Sunburn Music Franchise is also being considered in the Art front. ''The pricing is versatile and caters to every Sunburn customer or fan. Beyond the loyalists, it would appeal to the general crowd especially considering the design, fit and feel of the products,'' stated Sanyal. Sunburn will also leverage on its growing brand name at the international level and hold festivals around Asia and West Asia albeit in smaller formats. Promoters are not too worried about the brand 'selling' out or being perceived as too ''commercial'' among its core followers. In the genre that it belongs to- a growing underground dance fest- the brand runs a real risk of alienating its fans if it is seen as becoming too common. ''Even though Sunburn is a brand today and expanding, the music genre it has widely catered to has largely been in the Electronic music space. The entire target group of this space is India is small at the moment, while the festival and its peripheral activities have been very instrumental in creating awareness and shooting the number of Electronic Dance Music listeners on the whole. A major chunk of this mass is captured by Sunburn every year and growing. We will not lose appeal but the organically growing space will definitely be made less underground as you may state,'' he said.
Branding of f the world's ninth biggest dance fest ''the Sunburn Festival'' will not dilute the brand nor drive away fans but help the event grow organically, according to its organisers. The fourth Sunburn Fest, to be held at Candolim Beach in Goa from December 27-31, is expected to attract thousands of revelers to its Electronic Dance Music (EDM) festival. It will have some of the world's best DJs. Last year's festival by percept, which owns the brand, attracted more than 35,000 people. Lifestyle brands are already associating themselves with the event, and organizers want to go further and create a standalone brand for the event. ''India has had many initiatives that have created a cult and established great existence with the same. In their attempt to expand and diversify, cults turned into brands and extended themselves into the retail space, but unfortunately had to withdraw too soon as well. Sunburn today in the process of achieving global recalls and has strategised its merchandising plan differently.