Taobao created T.A.O concept (Technology, Arts, Originality) to re-define the brand as a platform that fosters creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship that inspired its existing merchants to promote their unique product design and creation to continuously attract more young Chinese shoppers.

Each element of Technology, Arts, Originality brings a unique experience for consumers and when these 3 T.A.O elements came together, it unleashed an unprecedented concept launched by Taobao for consumers to experience the first-ever China’s biggest festival that celebrates creativity and innovation.

To get people to be excited, we created a 360 panaromic interactive mobile site that has information on time, location and festival content.

The mobile site was crafted with interactive illustration method that brought a virtual festival experience to our users.

Graphic illustrations method was chosen to be the main creative style element for this as it truly combined the 3 T.A.O elements together.

It expresses ARTS and was brought to life in a virtual experience through TECHNOLOGY. It was a first-ever ORIGINAL creation for Taobao to pioneer in China for crafting such mobile experience for its consumers.

Produced in an HTML 5 environment, it broke away from many of the conventional ways how a mobile site is designed with long-format page interface.

The 360 Panoramic Mobile Interactive Event Website was produced in these following steps:

1. Background scenes of the virtual festival and characters in various elements expressing themes of Technology, Arts and Originality were digitally illustrated.

2. Each illustration of respective themes that were segmented by grids was stitched together in 180 x 360 ratio to form a full 360 panoramic landscape.

3. Rich colours were applied onto each digital illustration, adding vibrancy to the entire mobile site, for an immersive panaromic experience.

4. Hotspots with content and animation including sound were embedded onto the layer. Depths of views for zoom-in/ out function were created and incorporated within the site.

Overall mobile site experience is rich yet agile in content and sound loading, allowing consumers to fully immersed in engaging and navigating the festival content in a full rich 360 panaromic view.

Festival content embedded within site were also made easy to share onto WeChat and other social media platforms.

It also linked directly onto Alibaba Taobao.com for consumers to purchase festival tickets online.