Case study
DBS's Art of Wealth product launch, staged as an art gallery at the Taj Mahal Palace
ICE India replaced DBS's ballroom presentation with an art gallery evening for 200 high-net-worth prospects, introducing the wealth management platform through an art auction and live painting.
By ICE India · Updated
- Client
- DBS Bank
- Event
- Product launch for high-net-worth prospects
- When
- Eight weeks of planning, one evening event
- Where
- The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai
- 200high-net-worth prospects invited
- 8weeks from brief to event night
- 6emerging Indian artists exhibited
The brief
DBS needed to launch its new wealth management platform to Mumbai's high-net-worth community. That audience attends many financial product launches a year and has learned to expect a seated presentation, a slide deck and a canapé. DBS wanted to be remembered as the culturally literate choice and to leave the evening with leads it could follow up.
Planning time was eight weeks, and the guests were 200 people who would judge DBS by how the evening was run.
What ICE India delivered
Concept and invitations
An art gallery theme for the whole evening, called Art of Wealth, with invitations written and designed like a gallery opening notice.
Gallery build
The Grand Ballroom reworked with modular exhibition walls, museum-style lighting and small conversation zones in place of theatre seating.
Artists and music
Six emerging Indian artists exhibited, with live jazz in the room.
Guest experience
Curator-styled hosts, personalised gallery maps and an LED entrance tunnel in place of a registration desk.
Platform introduction
A live art auction and tablets around the room, so the platform was shown through the gallery rather than slides.
Production
A six-person on-site team, with temperature control for the artworks and a check on how the room was responding.
Why a gallery
DBS's prospects already collect, invest and judge quality, and art is an investment class many of them understand. The Art of Wealth concept used that: the gallery evening let guests meet the platform through ideas they already held. Provenance research stood in for DBS's vetting of investments, bidding strategy for portfolio diversification, and market timing for foresight.
The room was dressed in DBS red with black and white, so it read as a gallery that was also clearly DBS's evening.
Building the room
The ballroom was reworked as a contemporary gallery. Modular walls carried the works, spotlights lit each piece, and low conversation areas replaced rows of chairs so that guests would circulate and talk. Six emerging Indian artists exhibited, chosen because their work could also be regarded as an investment.
Guests entered through an LED tunnel showing data as artwork. In place of check-in desks, hosts dressed as curators greeted each guest with a gallery map that pointed to artists matching the interests the bank already knew about them.
Introducing the platform
There were no slides. The auctioneer worked the platform's capabilities into the bidding commentary while guests tried its due-diligence tools on tablets placed around the gallery. Credentials carried a tag that recorded which works guests spent longest with, with full disclosure to guests, and that information went into DBS's follow-up.
A well-known Mumbai artist painted live while a DBS wealth adviser described the process in terms of balancing bold strokes and fine detail across a portfolio. Guests left with art prints that placed their own photographs in the style of famous investment-themed artworks, delivered to their homes the following week with information on the platform.
When the jazz ensemble cancelled
Three weeks before the event, the jazz ensemble ICE India had booked withdrew because of an international tour. Rather than substitute quietly, ICE India worked with the Mumbai Jazz Foundation to turn the music into an emerging artist showcase. That fitted the evening's theme of discovering new talent, and the room kept its live jazz.
What made it work
- Research into the guests
- Artist selection, adviser briefings and the personalised maps came from profiling every invitee beforehand.
- Metaphor, not feature lists
- Guests experienced the platform through art-market ideas they already understood.
- Layers of the senses
- Sight, music, touch and the auction gave several routes into the same message.
- Quiet production
- Temperature, lighting, music and timing were managed so that guests saw the gallery and not the crew.
ICE India plans product launches, and the LED wall size calculator sizes a screen for a ballroom stage.
Questions this event answers
How do you launch a financial product to a sceptical high-net-worth audience?
By removing the sales setting. Here the platform appeared inside an auction and a gallery, through ideas the guests already used, and advisers narrated rather than pitched.
What happens when a booked performer drops out weeks before an event?
ICE India turned the loss into part of the concept. With the jazz ensemble gone, the Mumbai Jazz Foundation supplied emerging artists, and the music became a showcase that supported the theme.
Can a launch capture which content guests engaged with?
Yes, with consent. Here guests were told that their credentials recorded which works they viewed, and DBS used that to tailor follow-up.
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Services used: Corporate Experiences & Events ·