At the end of August some of the adventurous team from Shoppertainment will climb Helvellyn, the third highest point in England – alongside a few of our clients.
Although we’re doing it to show we can take on any challenge, we’re even more committed to hire on behalf of the Hope House Children’s Charity who provide care and support to life-limited children, young people and their families.
For every penny raised Shoppertainment will match the amount.
As usual we will feature some photos and videos on social media during and after the event so you can all have a laugh!
Thank you to everyone in advance for anything you may be able to donate! You can do this here.
Every year the team at Shopp HQ like to raise money for causes close to our hearts, whether this is through the annual Manchester 10k or a simple bake off. However this year we decided we needed to really push ourselves so 10 members of the team alongside a few of our clients donned water proofs and woolly hats to climb Snowdon on Wednesday 28th September 2016.On what was probably the wettest day any of the team had seen in a while, we set off along the Pyg track and after rock climbing through pools and dealing with water damaged phones and sandwiches, we finally made it to the summit.
This time we decided to fundraise for the Alzheimer’s Society and Ty Gobaith (Hope House) Children’s Charity. The money we have raised will go towards research for Alzheimer’s and Dementia and to help the people suffering and their families. Ty Gobaith (Hope House) is a children’s hospice that provides care and support to life limited children and young people and the money we have raised will help this charity to help the children, young people and their families.
We have already raised a total of £3800 which Shoppertainment will match and the donations are still coming in. We would like take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and generous donations that really will make a difference. We will keep you updated with the final sum.
We’re now thinking of what we can do next year…suggestions (and volunteers) welcome!
This month we have been chatting to Shopping Centre Magazine about community engagement campaigns and the importance of nurturing relationships with communities surrounding shopping centres. Read the full feature here:
A big inflatable peach popped up in Belle Vale Shopping Centre, Liverpool, on the 15th April to host a series of children’s events that aimed to not only educate the younger generations of the importance of doing all they can to help the environment, but was also part of the centre’s wider aim to encourage a sense of ownership for the environment. The event was featured in Tactics Magazine and included a pledge wall where shoppers could write down their sustainable contributions such as switching lights off and using recyclable shopping bags!
We are pleased to announce that our ‘An African Adventure’ event at the Ilford Exchange received a Highly Commended award in the Experiential category at the Revo Opal Awards breakfast on April 5th. We worked alongside World Vision’s ‘Journey of Hope’ campaign and created a half day African workshop to give children the chance to learn about Africa and the living environments of African families.
Some of the team were also lucky enough to get a photo with host and I’m A Celeb star Joel Dommett!
This year the Shopping Centre Management Conference (SCMC) returned to Brighton on the 22nd and 23rd March for two days of networking and some good old fun! Team Shopp had a great two days and let their hair down. Visit our social media pages to see the photos. Bring on the next event!
We’re discussing how to tackle marketing planning in February’s issue of Insider North West. We believe driving a consistent message is key. Read the full feature here.
We are happy to announce that we are sponsors of the Communications Suite at this year’s Prolific North Live alongside CIPR. The Suite will feature talks and workshops aimed at helping PR and communications professionals in their day to day activities. Click here for more information.
As of Monday 28th November 2016, Shoppertainment will be based at 55 Spring Gardens, Manchester, M2 2BY.
Waverley Mall has been shortlisted for a prestigious Gold Award by the British Council of Shopping Centres.
The Edinburgh mall has seen a £4million pound refurbishment that has secured the centre as a prime retail and F&B destination. Shoppertainment worked with the centre on its rebrand and launch event as well as its continued marketing and commercialisation strategy.
The centre was visited by the BCSC jury in October and we are all anxiously waiting until the winners are announced in December.
You might have heard but we held a party to remember after the BCSC 2016 with special guests Trevor Nelson and BGT’s Boogie Storm. Read our full party write up in the MEN here!
Shoppertainment’s digital marketing team worked with Marketgate Shopping Centre in Lancaster on a successful tactical social media campaign in conjunction with the launch of the new tenant anchor, Primark. Read the full story here.
Shoppertainment have started working with The Broadway Shopping Centre in Bradford. Read the full article here!
Shoppertainment’s Marketing Director, Stephanie Potter, was featured in Tactics Magazine. Print or Online? The Ad Debate…Read the full article here
The events team at Shoppertainment brought Alice in Wonderland to life at Stratford Centre, London, last weekend. With the Mad Hatter’s table, Alice and her friends, children were entertained for hours and the centre saw a 30% increase in footfall YOY! Visit our gallery to see some photos or follow us on Twitter @shoppertainmgmt for all event updates.
The biggest 10k in Europe saw 35,000 competitors take part in the 10km run on Sunday 22nd May and among them were Shoppertainment who scooped the crown for the fastest small business category for females as part of the 2016 BUSINESS CHALLENGE. Well done Becky, Katie and Emma
Full story here.
For photos of the event check out our Gallery page and also @shoppertainmgmt
We want to say a big congrats to our girl Jess! Jess is now the only female member of the BCSC Northern Region Golf Society and showed off her competitive skills at the first event last week coming in 4th place.
Shoppertainment are sponsoring the BCSC North v BCSC Midlands challenge on the 7th April. Keep your eyes peeled to see how Jess gets on.
A new trend marketers need to be aware and take hold of is advertainment, which combines advertising with entertainment. Traditionally advertising is seen as a one way street, feeding consumers with as much information and selling points about products as possible, hoping to result in sales.
Brands such as Pepsi have picked up on the fact that the best way to target Generation Z, the generation following millennials, is through entertainment. This generation has grown up with the internet and looks for entertaining brands that they can easily engage with balancing out the engagement channels.
At Shoppertainment, we have been using Social Media as a tool to reach out to Generation Z and build a relationship with them, in order to create a two way street. On Facebook we post grids or apposing images and ask fans to vote for their favourite; we want to create content that is viewed and engaged with instead of scrolled past. Recently we ran a ‘Caption This’ competition where the funniest caption won. We want fans to laugh with us, therefore creating a positive association with our brand.
Research by Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, states that viewers are 20 times more likely to share articles, adverts or information with their friends and family if they evoke the right emotions. Consumers understand they are being marketed to on internet sites, but if their online brand experiences are memorable ones, they are likely to have a positive response.
Having a sense of humour with your advertising means you become an approachable brand, one that people will stop to listen to and one that stands out in a stream of one way rhetoric. Generation Z like many millennials, make time for content that entertains them and if they make time for your brand, you have your following.
Blogs, podcasts and the use of social media platforms are all widely used by the leading brands. Snapchat enables brands to use formatting such as personalised lenses, geo-filters and in-app games, which can be shared easily. The app has mainly young users who typically spend between 25 to 30 minutes a day using it. Pepsi has recently printed a Snapcode on its limited-edition cinnamon flavoured Pepsi Fire cans and bottles. Snapcodes are 2D barcodes that the Snapchat mobile app can read using a smartphone camera. Users open Snapchat and take a photo of the barcode to connect which means they can unlock exclusive branded geofilters, sponsored lenses with floated 3D objects, as well as a game.
This means of advertising allows brands to serve customers in a way that they want, with something they’re already using and it doesn’t feel like branded advertising. Marketers have so many channels that they can interact with consumers through and the more interactive brands can be, the more loyalty they will receive from audiences.
Stephanie Potter, Marketing Director at Shoppertainment adds: “As marketers, we are always looking for new ways to engage with our audiences. There are thousands of other brands doing the same thing, saying the same thing, and to a point, selling the same thing too so it’s all about making your brand or event as engaging and therefore memorable as possible.”
Follow our Twitter account @Shoppertainmgmt to keep up to date with Shoppertainment.
A recent article published by Knight Frank discussed how ‘enjoying ourselves is no longer a luxury, it’s a priority’ and that spending money on F&B, accounts for high proportions of consumer wallets.
With an estimated £238 billion spent in leisure in 2016 (Source: Knight Frank) it is clear that this sector is a great channel that will attract footfall and dwell time to shopping centres. Dining out, going for a drink or spending weekends doing activities such as bowling, going to the cinema, visiting a museum or attending live events is what most of us take our free time up with.
Shopping centres used to rely heavily on the retail offer to draw in footfall however now we are seeing food halls and leisure space be the magnet that keeps shoppers in the centre for longer. For some people, visiting a shopping centre purely to eat/ socialise and not shop isn’t unheard of.
Whilst cinemas have long been a great attraction and an asset for a shopping centre to have, activities such as trampolining, crazy golf and even champagne bars are now the next level of activities shoppers are taking part in.
As with everything, a centre must match its offer with its demographics, so it can fully make use of its visitors. Hosting events in food courts and getting F&B retailers involved with offers or sampling is an easy way for centres to increase dwell time, spend and most of all awareness of what is on offer.
Shopping centres have the ability and the existing loyal customer base to become destinations that visitors can associate with F&B and a night-time economy- even after the shops are closed, centres can retain visitors and atmosphere.
Follow our Twitter account @Shoppertainmgmt to keep up to date with Shoppertainment.
On Wednesday 5th April, the Shoppertainment team attended the 2017 Revo Opal Awards at the British Museum in London.
The Opal’s are the only awards programme to encompass and reflect the breadth and scope of commercialisation activity in the UK and over the past 12 months we have certainly been part of some great commercialisation incentives.
The breakfast ceremony was hosted by comedian and I’m a Celebrity runner- up, Joel Dommett who managed to bring the audience to life despite the early start and some of his punch lines certainly were a talking point amongst guests.
At Shoppertainment we attend events throughout the year, so many we lose count, but one thing that makes an event enjoyable is the venue. The British Museum immediately wowed the team and despite being half asleep from a 5am alarm, they couldn’t help but want to explore the Great Court before venturing down to the lecture theatre where the presentation took place.
Revo’s President, Giulia Bunting, discussed Revo’s renewed focus on all the people and businesses in the retail property and placemaking communities in her opening speech, tying in well with the venue.
Two of the awards were lucky enough to be shortlisted – An African Adventure at Exchange Ilford and Pieroth’s Wine Festival across multiple locations. We are pleased to say our African Adventure campaign received a Highly Commended award in the ‘Under 500,000 sq ft’ experiential category.
We worked alongside World Vision and their ‘Journey of Hope’ experience at the Exchange Shopping Centre, Ilford. The judges said the event was a great concept and liked the ambition to involve the local community. The real experience meant awareness of the issues faced by people living in countries like Sierra Leone, could be shown through direct interaction with customers.
The morning ended with the team getting pictures with the lovely Joel – a highlight of their morning!
Follow our Twitter account @Shoppertainmgmt to keep up to date with our team.
We are sponsoring the Comms Suite at this year’s Prolific North Live that is taking place at Event City on the 15th and 16th February.
Make sure to check out their blog page where we will be writing some guest blogs and providing insight in the run up to this great expo!
Follow our Twitter account @Shoppertainmgmt to see live updates.
A word or phrase, often an item of jargon, that is fashionable at a particular time or in a particular context.
Some of 2016’s top buzz words included amplify, touch base and ecosystem but what’s in store for 2017!?
• Midult– new demographic identified by marketers as women aged 35-55 with the tastes of 20-year-olds.
• Data lake– we all know what a database is, well this is on a larger scale.
• OOO– Out of the office ‘I’m triple-0 until 4th June.’ (We like this one!)
• Virtual Reality– already proving popular amongst activations, particularly in the retail sector.
• Disruptive technology– referring to any enhanced or completely new technology that replaces and disrupts an existing technology.
• Story telling– using stories to convey important things in businesses because a good story resonates better than a power point!
• (Another favourite) Netflix & Split– Discussion between a couple splitting up on who gets to keep their share account and its history and queue.
• Datafication– The act of collecting data and using it to predict or shape behaviour.
Follow our Twitter account @Shoppertainmgmt to see live updates.
It’s important to explore new ways of reaching audiences and one way of doing this is through being innovative with how products are personalised to their feelings and preferences; putting the viewer in the driving seat.
For example, pizza company Dominos introduced an advertising campaign in 2016 which took the language people use online to describe their emotions about brands. Rather than words, they found people expressed their feelings through GIFs, memes, emoji’s and CAPSLOCK.
The simple idea was to highlight the “mouth-boggling” effect of Domino’s and then give people the tools they needed to express their feelings for their pizzas. They used “face swapping” tools to allow people to alter their image to show the “boggling” effects of the food, which became a popular trend with people chatting online.
The Domino’s method of personalisation helped them to stand out from competitors and other brands and be interactive with existing and potential customers. This is what we strive to do, by treating our audience as a group of individuals, not a group of statistics.
As for an audience getting really involved in a campaign, Shoppertainment has just launched a social media competition at Fareham Shopping Centre where followers have to vote for which Disney style character they want to meet at the Centre this September; Beauty and the Beast, Spiderman, Moana or the Frozen princesses. Followers have been asked to vote via Facebook using emoji’s.
When it comes to traders in centres, Shoppertainment has noticed a trend in personalised products such as cupcakes and gifts booking throughout the year, not just around Christmas. Big brand names such as Heinz and Coke use personalising techniques to encourage engagement with target audiences by offering something that is a niche ‘gift’ option. The ‘Share a Coke’ activation was a novelty campaign that left audiences who didn’t even necessarily drink Coke, sifting through coke cans for a bottle with their name on. Involving your consumer and giving them a sense of ownership means brands can re-connect with old customers and connect with new ones.
Some of the team along with some of our clients, conquered Hellvelyn (the third highest point in England) on the 30th August and raised over £1200 for Hope House Children’s Hospice.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us and donated! We’re already thinking about how we can challenge ourselves next year…
#Revo2017
Shoppertainment are attending Revo 2017 in Liverpool on the 20th-21st September. This year’s conference is being held at the Exhibition Centre next to the famous Albert Dock. If you are attending, make sure you head over to stand 42 to see what’s bubbling…
In the latest issue of PR Week, Editor Danny Rodgers, talks about how influencers are ushering in the third age of the internet; the first age being web publishing and emails and the second age being social media and blogging developments.
The second age opened us up to a world that allowed us all to become creators of content with users being able to write or share news with one click. Youtubers, bloggers, vloggers and podcasters are words we are all familiar with now with them being used as brand ambassadors due to their huge fan bases and the ability to boost purchases in one simple video. But do brands, and more specifically retail brands, really need to be paying for these influencers?
Celebrity endorsements have seen a huge rise over recent years. Platforms such as Instagram allow celebrities to post their love of a product (#ad) instantly, resulting in thousands of their followers heading to the website or shop. One recent example from the summer is the cast of ITV’s Love Island. Contestants left the villa and gained an instant ‘celeb’ status resulting in brands such as Boohoo and Motel Rocks offering contestants products for sponsored posts on Instagram almost on a daily basis promoting everything from watches, makeup and more.
Brands that choose to use influencers in campaigns need to bear in mind when choosing who they want to promote their products, the more passionate someone is, the less fake their content will be meaning it will be more successful.
One way brands can really attract audiences, is to use real consumers and customers as brand advocates as they will be fully relatable and regarded as more authentic. Influencers need to have a genuine connection with audiences in order to gain trust.
In some cases, it works the other way with influencers becoming famous from their social media pages. People such as Kayla Itsines, who went from a small-town PT to global superstar in less than two years and who now has a following of 7.4m (14/9/17) is positively influencing audiences through social media channels. She was recently featured in Women’s Health sharing her health and fitness tips.
Whatever brands choose to do to reach their audiences, they shouldn’t be afraid to try new things and see what works. Influencer marketing, to do it successfully, takes time and needs to be well thought out in order to really engage. Relationships between brands and influencers need to be relevant and brands should target smaller niche audiences, rather than thinking too big and targeting the masses.
The Shoppertainment PR team are specialists at communicating client’s voices to targeted audiences, whether this is through social media posts, blogs or traditional press releases. We work closely with bloggers with interests in all different areas including property, retail, family events and student life to ensure that we keep lines of communication and engagement open with as many people as possible.
