It aims to create a better student experience through the provision of best-in-class broadband services and infrastructure and integrated smart applications, along with powerful insights into what students need from their accommodation.
Whether it’s studying, socialising, streaming, gaming, browsing or downloading, students always need fast, reliable internet, great content and friendly, efficient support that’s always there for them.
Glide Student has created wi-fi and connectivity services that keep students happy, adding value to colleges’, universities’ and private landlords’ offerings and ensuring their rooms are always let.
It was a key exhibitor at the 2018 Student Accommodation Conference, in London, where it wanted to create an immersive, interactive and visually-stimulating exhibition stand to showcase the benefits of its ‘Smart Block 2020’.
It was also a sponsor of the event and wanted to use the stand to help it maximise its investment in the sponsorship.
The main challenge centred around creating a compelling story that highlights the benefits that the products can bring to a property, by creating a bit of theatre around what can be achieved using what, on the face of it, are just smart boxes and cable.
Glide made a significant investment in the stand with the aim of wowing visitors and creating a fully-immersive experience.
However, because the exhibition space was on a single level, we had the additional challenge of creating the illusion that it was, in fact, split over two storeys.
We built a life-sized showroom that visitors could explore and interact with, using a combination of props, fabrication, optical illusions and technology to show them how Glide’s solutions can be implemented within their properties. Working to a creative brief developed in collaboration with the team at Glide’s Bristol HQ, we created an Ikea-type show home for the exhibition stand.
Visitors would arrive in the building’s reception area, then walk through a wardrobe and into the living room of the property, where they could see several smart appliances in-use around the room.
They would then step into a fake lift and continue the journey through to the plant room, to see where the controls for each application were located and how they were all interconnected using fibre cable. An infinity mirror was used at both ends of a piece of cable to give the perception that it stretched beyond the roof and into another room above, to create the feeling that the exhibition stand was actually split over two levels.
The whole stand was unified using Glide’s branding and visual identity throughout, with clever lighting and LED displays integrated into the overall design to distinguish between the rooms as visitors made their way through the property, highlighting the different bits of technology in a live space to show exactly how they would be used once installed.
Tom White, Sales and Marketing Director at Glide, said: “The event was a resounding success. We have 61 leads to follow up in January and we stole the show’s online presence, with our stand appearing in one in four tweets!
The team from On were unbelievable from start to finish. As you can imagine I’ve worked with a lot of suppliers over my time and you guys were by far the best I’ve worked with. Enthusiastic, professional, diligent and brought loads of fresh ideas.”
