Iconic brands in beverages, chocolates, automobiles and fashion started the trend of encapsulating their history and their success story through museums and displays, curated to show a long journey of sweat, toil and accolades. Some of these corporate museums especially in the US and in Europe — are testimony to history and also demonstrate how products adapted to new technology, changing environments and stayed relevant across decades. They offer a vivid and visual experience akin to an anthropological insight — albeit that of brands which have stood strong and resilient in a remarkable world which has changed completely in the last 100 years!
The DS Group was started as a humble business venture in 1929 by Lala Dharampal in the bylanes of Chandni Chowk, then the commercial hub of “Dilli”. Over the next 87 years, the DS group, which began its mercantile saga by combining a deep understanding of flavours and fragrances with products which held a unique appeal, grew into a diversified international conglomerate moving to mouth fresheners while also creating and launching renowned brands in food and beverages, spices, dairy, hotels, infrastructure and more.
When the organisation shifted to the corporate headquarters in Noida, much needed space and technology was available to recreate the journey. It was a corporate saga, which was waiting to be told and a combination of artistic interpretations was the best way to visually enthral the visitors, while also preserving the 87 year old history. This unveiled perhaps the first comprehensive corporate museum in India with a dynamic story to tell.
“The Journey” — which a visitor embarks on in the museum — is a sensory delight and uses complex audio-visual technology and other forms of artistic expression and creativity to bring alive the past eight decades. An experiential museum, “The Journey” is an artistic representation of the DS Group’s very essence and identity. The museum is divided in five sections, each unique in their treatments, experiences evoked and the technologies used and covers the largest art and design palette possible, making it not just a visual delight but a complete immersive sensory experience.
The translucent doors take you first to the forest of fragrances; alive with birdsong, flowering blossoms and the scent fills the air, transporting the visitor into a calm, stress-free and verdant forest.
It brings alive fragrances and the forest is created through layered fabric panels that are printed and embroidered with artistic representations of trees, leaves and flowers and intricate inlay work on the floor, like rustling leaves. The fragrances that fill the air are motion triggered through machines, and ethereal music blended in the ambience.
The most poignant section is perhaps when you step back into a lifelike rendition of Chandni Chowk in 1929 when the first shop was set up. In front of your eyes, Dilli as a city of historical significance, the centre of polity and merchant trading comes alive. Dynamic sets with props recreated using archival materials, life size realistic cut outs, highly realistic mannequins, tromploeis, VFX, films and holographic projection, lighting conditions make the experience completely immersive. It’s a walk through the early days of struggle and success, tribulations and trials, achievements and accolades. Background voiceovers further help transport the visitor to a bygone era and one is suspended in a historical time being brought alive in front of our eyes.
In another part you marvel at the recreation of the true-to-life office, a reminder of an era which coincided with the rise of entrepreneurship in India. The reins of the business had been taken over by the next generation with Shri Satyapal at the helm. His office has been recreated with all original artefacts. The refrigerator with its rounded corners, the air conditioner with its large rectangular facet, the beakers and the bottles, a writing desk, leather studded chair; all give the impression of a new business hard at work to keep masses of its customers enchanted. As you walk past the lab with its weighing and testing system machinery, it is a moment of contemplation. The 1970s and 80s in India are best known as the pre-reform era.
The cyclorama arena with its 360 degrees projections takes the immersive experience to a different level as the visitors stand in the middle of a circular room embedded within a visual carousal which is a cerebral marvel in itself. Video images are projected in 3-D, appearing and disappearing in a chronological order, explaining growth and innovation through technical finesse as the viewer is enthralled with this video journey from the past to the present.
The concluding section is where “The Journey” culminates with a walk through all the iconic brands that are helmed under the DS Group’s umbrella. Have you ever paused as you reach out to your Catch table salt dispenser Do you know that it has now been around for nearly 30 years and that it created a revolution of sorts when it was first launched in 1987 This story too is well imparted as we walk through the brands on display, many of them superbrands in their own right.
A lit sculpture represents a splash of milk for the Dairy brand Ksheer; an installation with a moving optical illusion that captures the sprinkling of Catch Pepper or that of the slow grinding of spices introduced by the DS Group. All this is highly interactive for the visitor, allowing them to imbibe the history and the present standing of the organisation through a multi-sensory experience.
It is this intermeshing of various aural, visual and technological displays that condenses and weaves the DS story into a single narrative: from humble beginnings to a megastar existence as a diversified conglomerate with wide ranging interests across India and overseas.
The final walk through the brand-illustrated corridor is the ultimate culmination and demonstrates how the DS Corporate Museum symbolises achievement, pride and success in business but it is also a reminder to new generations about building enduring brands that have a psychological connect with the people they serve.
