Creating the Henkakuverse - How we made Ricoh stand out at drupa ‘24

Client: Ricoh

The print industry is facing its greatest challenge and opportunity: digitisation. To address this, Ricoh combines revolutionary products and services with long-term collaborative support to deliver HENKAKU – transformational innovation – for its clients. Returning to global print show, drupa, with a smaller footprint than in 2016, Ricoh asked us to provide an integrated strategy for outsized impact. The Objectives: Deliver 5,000+ unique visitors; a 1hr+ dwell time; 1,170 sales leads. Insight: For clients facing digitisation challenges, Ricoh’s production printers and solutions are so good, it’s as if they deliver magic to the real world. Strategy: Rather than just deliver the expected print, machinery, and demonstrations to stand out and engage clients, let’s immerse the audience in Ricoh’s magical realism through the collision of physical and digital worlds. Creative: Shaped around the ‘spirit animals’ of Ricoh’s printers (the Jaguars, Dragon, Owl and Harpy Eagle) we created a magical world, the HENKAKUVERSE. Socials drove traffic and teased an experience within The House of HENKAKU, our enigmatic Japanese theatre and architectural centre point. Stand visitors were greeted by walls of floating dragon scales and an eight-metre-high entrance portal. Our live show immersed visitors in Ricoh’s magic and offering. Every touchpoint embodied the HENKAKUVERSE, from the massive printers wrapped in the animal imagery and surrounded by foliage to the zen-like sample garden and stunning paper sculpture. Results: • 7,465 visitors (+49% of target) • Average dwell time 1hr 17m • 3,100 leads (+131% of target) • 210% of show sales target