Car marketing at the Delhi Auto Expo has always stuck to a well-scripted formula – new launches are turbo-charged with some oomph and theatrics in the shape of skimpily clad cheerleaders, smoke and haze machines.

This year, there was more of hi-tech wizardry – and some football and jazzy music – to entertain and engage with carsumers, 7 lakh of whom are expected to troop in over the next few days at India’s biggest car show.

Even as Day One at the show got off to a breezy start with the covers coming off Maruti Suzuki’s compact crossover Vitara Brezza and Fiat finally bringing in the gigantic SUV Jeep Grand Cherokee, there was a lot of exciting action on the sidelines of the pavilions. From Oculus Rift and virtual reality headsets to a camera-studded arena that would send GIFs to your social media feeds, it was experiential marketing at a whole new level.

Many carmakers were unveiling not just cars, but also their marketing campaigns for the year, and the hi-tech experience was used to sell their new taglines.

For Maruti, 2017 is all about ‘Transformotion’ – gearing up for the future by transforming through motion. Its experiential arena showcased the thought as with one jump or skip you could trigger off a video capture that, within seconds, lands on your Facebook wall!

At Hyundai, the focus was on showcasing ‘Blue Drive’, its pollution-free mobility philosophy. But the engagement activity was centred on its mind-racing track. Here, you could race against an opponent using your sheer force of concentration. Powered by Neurosky Mindwave headsets, the game was developed by Pune-based tech start-up ShopperTainment.

Football was at the centre of the GM Motors pavilion. Cars sported Manchester United colours and on the sidelines was a football arena, complete with a goal net, where people were being urged to show off their heading skills. A video of them kicking or heading a football was captured and instantly uploaded on to the Chevrolet website. Chevrolet’s Passability campaign, taglined ‘Where There is Play, There are Possibilities’, aims to deliver 2 million footballs to 60 million kids around the world. Already 1.6 million have been donated.

Meanwhile, Mercedes chose to pull in music maestros AR Rahman and Shubha Mudgal to perform. If last year was about ‘Live The Best’, this year, the German luxury carmaker decided to go simple with ‘Winning’, and jazzy music by Ranjit Barot.

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