The state of shopper marketing: VivoCity

CONTEXT
For the 20th annual Great Singapore Sale (GSS), a two-month islandwide event, where retailers and brands participate in sales and prizes, VivoCity, Singapore’s largest retail and lifestyle destination, wanted to attract shoppers to the mall amid fi erce competition from more than a 100 competing malls in Singapore, including ION Orchard, Marina Bay
Mall and Harbour Front Mall.

For in-mall engagement, VivoCity wanted to use the GSS to build its profile online and on its social media channels.
It also wanted to base the campaign around a single marketing device: the QR code.

One of the biggest challenges for the event campaign was finding a way to appeal to the wide variety of mall’s visitors which included shoppers of all ages from Singapore as well as expats and tourists.

With the objectives and audience diversity in mind, the key challenges were to create a campaign that could:

• Appeal to all of the audience segments.
• Sustain engagement throughout the two month GSS period.
• Link experiences in-store and online.
• Reward people for becoming fans of the VivoCity Facebook page.
• Feature the QR code in a central and engaging way.

To fulfill these objectives, the team at Dog Digital and VivoCity devised an online contest and event that would work alongside the sales taking place in the mall.

SOLUTION
The VivoCity campaign for the GSS was devised around “The VivoCity Codeys”, a family of four QR code mascots that roamed throughout the mall dressed in special life-sized QR code suits, each in one of VivoCity’s corporate colours. Bringing the QR codes to life in an experiential way was central to sustaining interest, excitement and curiosity of the shoppers.

When spotted and scanned, The Codeys could bring instant rewards, including discount vouchers, daily prize draws, as well as entry to a grand prize draw at the end of the GSS.

The different prizes ensured the campaign would have both instant and long-term engagement with VivoCity shoppers. The instant reward vouchers ensured foot traffi c was driven to participating tenant shops. Facebook was used as the central point to build online engagement with shoppers and fans, and also to accrue new fans for VivoCity.

After scanning, users were invited to “like” the VivoCity Facebook page (thereby facilitating the expansion of the mall’s social media fan base).

Shoppers were also encouraged to share their photo of The Codeys on the VivoCity Facebook page and double their chance to win if they “shared” the grand draw on their Facebook wall (thereby enhancing the viral opportunities of the event).
This built engagement levels for the Facebook page. The Codeys were only in the mall on the weekends for the month of June – at a time when the GSS was at its busiest.

DELIVERY
The Codeys appeared on the weekends of 1-2, 8-9, 15-16, 22-23 and 29-30 of June. The mascots ran around the mall, waved at shoppers, posed for photographs and, of course, allowed shoppers to scan their QR codes. Life-sized cardboard cut-outs were placed strategically throughout the mall during the week for publicity. These provided instructions on
how to take part during the GSS and allowed shoppers to enter daily draws and win instant rewards.

A Facebook app tab was designed that hosted the online contest – for instant prizes, daily draw prizes and the grand prize for the GSS.In addition to the campaign in the mall, Facebook advertising and sponsored stories were used throughout the entire GSS event. They encouraged Facebook users (including users on Facebook who “liked” The Great Singapore Sale, Discount Shopping, Designer Sales as well as fans of competitor malls) to “like” VivoCity’s page.

The efficient execution of the online contest was ensured by providing a structured user journey for shoppers.

PERFORMANCE
The results of the VivoCity GSS campaign were overwhelmingly positive and met all objectives set out in the strategy planning. There were 8,618 people who scanned the VivoCity Codeys QR codes. As a direct result, the GSS attracted shoppers to VivoCity and foot traffic was driven into tenant shops. The online contest objective was fulfilled: Thousands of daily prize draws, while 848 people entered the grand draw.

The VivoCity Facebook page saw its fan base increase by 73%, from 6039 at the beginning of the campaign to 10,439 by the end. Of these new fans, 2,471 of the likes came from Facebook advertising.

The “dynamic like advertisement” conversion rate for the VivoCity campaign was 70% (for click to Like). This far exceeded Facebook’s average conversation rate of 30%.

Not only did VivoCity use a QR code as a central part of the event, but the campaign was designed to let the technology itself tell a story and be brought to life.