Wish & Win

Queensmere Observatory caters to a multi-ethnic clientele with electronic communications campaign

More than 1,800 shoppers headed to QueensmereObservatory in Slough, UK, last holiday season for a chance to reconnect with loved ones living abroad.
From 13th through 15th December, the shopping centre and event management specialist, Zanadu Events invited customers to use touch-screen kiosks to e-mail personalised photographs as e-cards to family and friends, free of charge.
Shoppers could dress up as their favourite Christmas characters, be it Santa’s helpers, fairies, reindeers or snowmen, and have their photos taken against a festive background of their choice using the Shoot-n-Print delivery system, a service that 1Vision provided.
Shoppers could pick a strapline in English, Polish or of one the other languages offered to add to their picture before taking away their personalised Christmas card or desktop calendar. Shoppers then accessed a bespoke Website, where they entered their individual seven-digit password and followed instructions to download their photographs—the images were uploaded to the Web using 3G mobile technology and onto a live rolling slide show on a plasma screen.
While shoppers queued, they could see live images of the photos that had just been taken interspersed with the centre’s Christmas advertising messages, while costumed characters entertained them and handed out treats.
The Wish & Win promotion was really a way for the centre to reach out to an ethnically diverse clientele—Slough is a multicultural town with over one quarter of the population of Asian decent and significant populations of African, Caribbean and Eastern European origin. “With [more than] 10,000 Poles now living in Slough, we thought it would be good to add a couple of Polish touches,” said Kevin Smith, marketing director.
Besides the Polish language straplines, QueensmereObservatory treated customers to Oplatel wafers, a Polish symbol of reconciliation and forgiveness, along with traditional English sweets, such as candy sticks and chocolate coins.
The Internet proved to be an effective medium for QueensmereObservatory to attract shoppers from its primary catchment and beyond  in the runup to Christmas.
The centre said 570 photographs were taken during the promotion, with an average of three people appearing in each shot. Thirty-four percent of these photographs were e-mailed to recipients in 10 countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, the UK and the United States.
Besides sending their wishes around the globe, more than 600 shoppers also entered to win £400 (€506) worth of shopping vouchers from Debenhams and H&M. All they had to do was spot Shayn Ward in the centre’s Christmas brochure, fill in the enclosed coupon and submit their entry by 18th December.
“Our Snappy Christmas Extravaganza was a great success and enabled us to give something back to the local community by helping shoppers send their seasonal wishes to friends and family,” Smith said.
The centre’s retailers were just as pleased with the results.
“[The promotion] created a lot of interest and buzz, and it led to be one of the busiest Saturdays in December,” recalled Primark store manager, Bret Bulmer.
That buzz was due to media support—the editorial coverage the promotion garnered in the Slough Observer was valued at £2,350 (€2,976)—as well as the programme’s viral nature, with nearly 45 percent of shoppers reporting that they found out about the promotion through word of mouth.
The Wish & Win promotion’s success was recently recognised with a BCSC Purple Apple Award. .

The Bottom Line

QueensmereObservatory incurred the following expenses to implement its Wish & Win promotion:

Event
Zanady Event Management fee: £1,170.00
Two costumed promo staff : £1,374.00
1Vision Photography: £5,639.50
Costumes/props: £556.94
Miscellaneous expenses: £276.83
Festive chocolates: £128.99

Advertising and Production
Design of advert and insert: £940.00
Posters (portion of poster): £200.00
Awareness Christmas magazine: £800.00
PR agency fee for two weeks: £600.00
Questionnaire for shoppers: £40.00

Total     £11,727.01 or €14,712.75

Source: QueensmereObservatory Purple Apple entry.