Aiming to increase its customer base from 200 million+ global users to something rivalling Apple’s iPhone’s 900 million (Engadget 2019) by offering a complete experience, the Vivo Lab is split across two floors. The upper floor is dedicated to exploration, echoing the soft-selling strategies pioneered by concepts such as Google’s Curiosity Rooms (a pop-up space showcasing its Google Pixel 3 phone). A traditional shop sits on the ground floor.

Devised by global experience agency Imagination, the futuristic upper floor resembles a spacecraft and translates the cutting-edge technology used in the camera’s phone into an experimental educational journey. Highlights include:

• Your Aura: A real-time interactive projection wall. Sensors detect clothing colour, proximity and movement to project a dynamically pulsating light formation that mirrors the visitor’s unique silhouette.

• Take Me Back: An interactive time-travel experience allows visitors to learn about the evolution of photography via a booth using image processing technology. Visitors pose in front of a blue screen, snap selfies and select a historic backdrop including the visual effects of that era – motion blur for pinhole cameras and smooth filters emulating the high exposure of Polaroid cameras.

• Take Me There: Showcasing its light-balancing tech, an inflated dome equipped with LEDs acts as a light simulator, atmospherically transporting visitors to different locations around the world, and emulating their natural lighting conditions. Alternatively, guests can use a digital dashboard to choose studio lighting to take portraits.

• Vivo Me: Echoing the rise of the digitised self – see Retail’s Avatar Opportunity – Vivo Me uses AI to transform selfies taken in-situ into customisable cartoon-like characters, ready to download and share on WeChat.