What and When

    At the start of each academic year our focus turns to the new student population that descents on Guildford. Our circus themed late night shopping event in October 2019 was designed to provide this new audience with a unique retail experience, exclusively for them. The out-of-hours event gave students the opportunity to explore the mix of retailers whilst enjoying special offers and freebies, which in turn, gave them a reason to come back.

    The Friary Guildford
    The Friary Guildford

    Key Points

    • Multi layered onsite activity at High Schools, Colleges and Universities in Guildford to pre-promote the event.
    • Generated exclusive offers and promotions through intensive tenant liaison.
    • Partnered with a local nightclub to arrange for their resident DJ to play at the event.
    • Created exclusive lanyards for attendees.
    • Provided a circus-themed evening of entertainment. Playing on the popular theme of ‘The Greatest Showman’, the free student event featured stilt walkers, an acrobat, live music, games, glitter face painting, a surf simulator, GIF booth, prosecco and beer bar, goody bags and giveaways.
    • GIF booth photos were animated and ready to share onto students social accounts, fully branded with the campaign creative and Friary logo.
    • Students could take part in a ‘cash grabber machine’ for the chance to win up to £1000 worth of shopping vouchers.
    • HMV had live music acts performing in-store from ACM.

    Results

    • Spend was up significantly with retailers including Accessorize (+21% vs target), McDonalds (+4.33% YoY and +6.29% vs target), River Island (+50% YoY and +21% vs target), Pandora (+22% YoY and +18% vs target), Levi’s (+30% YoY), Urban Outfitters (+105% footfall) and Shakeaway (+£500 profit YoY).
    • The Friary Guildford footfall for October was ahead of the national average by +5%.
    • 100 x £5 gift cards were given away in the cash grabber.
    • Facebook event had 3k engagements
    • Sponsored post delivered 194,296 impressions to 74,464 unique users with a frequency of 2.61.
    • Student Event Page featured 6th with 3,517 hits and an average dwell time of 4 minutes 17 seconds.
    The Friary Guildford
    The Friary Guildford

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