Hedgehog Hall of Fame: De Winter - Fashion Flash

Company: De Winter Campaign: Fashion Flash Category: Integrated Communications Campaign of the Year - North - shortlisted Objective • To increase footfall in the shopping centre • To showcase party season fashion in the shopping centre • To promote the centre ahead of Christmas shopping season • To improve retailer engagement Strategy & Target Audience   Previously the shopping centre brought a catwalk into the mall for two days at the beginning of November where models walked to showcase party wear. de Winter was challenged to come up with a new event that met the same objectives and kept to the same budget. The target audience of the shopping centre is varied as the retailers are a mix of both high street retailers (catering to males and females aged 16 – 45) and high-end boutiques (targeting males and females aged 35 – 65). De Winter allocated the budget to a three-day fashion weekend – Grosvenor Shopping Centre’s Fashion Flash.  The event would include a day of live makeovers showing how to create party style and two days of flash mobs promoting party wear available in the shopping centre. Action de Winter pitched the campaign to all retailers in the shopping centre and identified what part of the weekend would benefit each most.  It was vital to recruit a range of retailers to promote the centres high street chains and luxury boutiques; River Island, Dorothy Perkins, Jigsaw and LK Bennett were among the retailers that took part. Debenhams’ beauty counters and Regis took the lead on Friday’s live makeover day and the de Winter team secured radio coverage with Heart FM to kick off the weekend as its presenter visited the centre for a makeover and chatted to customers. The weekend flash mobs kicked off on Saturday with an appearance from Coronation Street star Samia Ghadie to create a buzz around the centre and to appeal to the broad target audience of the centre’s shoppers. Samia was lead around the centre, taking pictures with shoppers and doing interviews with local press, whilst leading the crowds to each location of the five flash mobs. de Winter created a magazine named ‘Fashion Flash’ which promotional staff handed out during the three-day weekend event which included social media competitions, editorial on party wear, trend and beauty flash features and a double page spread of all the outfits that were being worn by the flash mob dancers to lead to an uplift on sales. Results • To increase footfall in the shopping centre Footfall was up 18 per cent throughout the weekend. • To showcase party season fashion in the shopping centre The Fashion Flash magazine was the first of its kind at the shopping centre and was so well received the centre manager requested a re-print of an additional 20,000 copies which were distributed through a local paper. • To promote the centre ahead of Christmas shopping season The event received pre and post coverage through print, online and broadcast promoting the centre at a key trading period; the launch of late night shopping. Coverage in all four local newspapers plus a radio interview with Heart FM.  Social media interaction grew by 80% as a result of Twitter competitions and Facebook questions for Samia. • To improve retailer engagement Dorothy Perkins said: “We loved the event. It really brought shoppers into the store". Animal said: “The event went really well, it drew huge crowds to our store which was fantastic as we’re new to the centre and so many people didn’t know where we were yet.” Jigsaw said: “We really enjoyed taking part in the event, it attracted loads of shoppers to our store. We were really pleased to be able to take part.” URLs www.thegrosvenorcentre.co.uk The PRmoment Golden Hedgehog Awards 2014 are now open for entries. Here are this years updated categories.