The Flowing Hoarding – India’s First Curved LED Outdoor

GIFT City is one of India’s most premium and fastest-growing financial districts. With thousands of daily commuters and a skyline filled with real estate advertising, outdoor media here faces a major challenge: almost every hoarding looks the same. Rectangular layouts. Flat prints. Familiar lighting. In such an environment, even the biggest boards struggle to stand out.

When Kaavyaratna Group prepared to introduce Ganga, a project inspired by the flow and purity of a river, they wanted a pre launch outdoor that wouldn’t just display information it needed to feel like Ganga. The communication had to rise above the monotony of GIFT City’s OOH landscape and create a moment of visual disruption. More importantly, it needed to express the emotional essence of the river in a medium that has historically been static and rigid.

The Challenge

How do you bring “flow” into a medium that doesn’t move?

How do you convert a hoarding one of the most static formats in advertising into something that behaves like water?

And how do you make commuters in a cluttered environment stop, look twice, and remember the brand?

The Idea

The breakthrough came from reframing the hoarding not as a display surface but as a sculptural form.

If a river bends, curves, and glows the medium should too.

We designed India’s first curved, cut-out, LED-edged hoarding, engineered to visually “flow” even though it is completely static. The silhouette was crafted to mimic a fluid wave. Instead of a straight rectangle, the top profile was hand-designed and manually cut to form an organic river-like contour. To amplify the movement, a specially crafted curved LED strip was embedded along the edge a technical challenge rarely attempted in OOH fabrication due to alignment and heat constraints.

At night, the LED line glows softly, producing a gradient wash on the vinyl, creating the illusion of motion and depth. By day, the unusual cut-out silhouette stands out unmistakably against the structured architecture of GIFT City. The result is an outdoor installation that turns light and shape into storytelling.

Execution

• Multiple paper prototypes were created first to get the perfect curvature and flow before scaling it.
• A custom metal frame was engineered to support the non-linear silhouette.
• The LED track was bent manually to precisely follow the curve without visual distortion.
• Vinyl printing was adapted to match the lighting behavior across day and night visibility.
• Installed at a major commuter junction in GIFT City to maximize vehicular and pedestrian recall.

This wasn’t just a hoarding it became a physical metaphor for the project. The medium and the message fused into one.

The Impact

The hoarding immediately broke the visual continuity of the area. Commuters slowed down. People clicked pictures. Pedestrians pointed at the curved profile. Social media posts appeared organically asking, “How was this made?” In a zone where outdoor fatigue is extremely high, the structure’s design ensured instant differentiation and high retention.

For Kaavyaratna Group, it created early buzz and brand elevation even before the project launch. For the industry, it set a new benchmark for what outdoor innovation in Indian real estate can look like where form, light, engineering, and narrative work together to create a sensory moment.

Why It Matters

In an age where digital content dominates attention spans, physical media must evolve. This hoarding proved that outdoor can still surprise, disrupt, and build emotion when crafted with intention. It turned a static medium into an experience. It turned a hoarding into a story.

IMPACT

The curved LED hoarding for Kaavyaratna’s Ganga project created an immediate and measurable impact in one of India’s most cluttered outdoor environments. GIFT City, where outdoor fatigue is extremely high, rarely sees commuters react to hoardings. But this installation achieved what very few OOH formats manage: it made people stop, look twice, and talk about it.

1.⁠ ⁠A Never-Seen-Before Structure in GIFT City

This became the first curved, cut-out LED hoarding ever installed in GIFT City.
In an area where outdoor formats look identical, the unique silhouette instantly broke the visual pattern. Commuters who regularly pass through the stretch recognized the change: a board that flows instead of one that stands still.

2.⁠ ⁠High Recall Within the First 3 Seconds

OOH effectiveness depends heavily on recall during quick glances.
The distinct wave-shaped contour, combined with the nighttime LED glow, created a high-impact memory imprint. People who had seen it once could describe it accurately later a recall strength very few hoardings achieve.

3.⁠ ⁠Organic Curiosity & Social Buzz

Without being promoted, the hoarding generated:
• Organic photos and videos shared on Instagram Stories
• WhatsApp forwards among local GIFT City professionals
• Questions like “How did they bend the LEDs?” and “Who made this?”
This turned a real estate hoarding into a conversation starter, a rarity in outdoor.

4.⁠ ⁠Elevated Brand Perception for Kaavyaratna Group

The hoarding positioned Kaavyaratna as:
• A design-forward developer
• A brand willing to innovate in communication
• A player bringing creativity into a category that usually chooses safe ads

Brokers, channel partners, and early customers used words like “premium,” “different,” and “eye-catching” when referencing the hoarding.

5.⁠ ⁠Enhanced Night-Time Visibility

The LED edge delivered exceptional visibility during peak after-office hours.
Motorists slowed down near the installation due to the unusual light path created by the curved strip — significantly increasing dwell time.

6.⁠ ⁠Strengthened Pre-Launch Demand

The OOH created buzz for Ganga well before any major marketing push.
It successfully generated:
• Early enquiries from prospective buyers
• Interest among channel partners
• Curiosity within the real estate community

For a project that hadn’t yet launched, this outdoor acted as the first recall pillar.

7.⁠ ⁠A New Benchmark for OOH Craft

The installation set a precedent:
• That outdoor can be sculpted, not just printed
• That form can be as powerful as content
• That engineering and storytelling can fuse into one structure

It demonstrated how innovation in fabrication can transform an everyday medium into an experience.

8.⁠ ⁠Industry Recognition Potential

OOH owners, designers, and photographers who visited GIFT City posted about the board — validating it as a standout piece of OOH craft.

In essence:

This was not just a hoarding that delivered visibility.
It was a hoarding that delivered impact, conversation, brand elevation, and a new creative possibility for Indian outdoor advertising.