The Mall made a whole load of new Friends around The Mela, an Asian-inspired experience aimed at young adults in the catchment, and enjoyed not only the 4^th best day’s footfall of 2009, but helped propel sales at anchor store Debenhams, and a host of participating independents.

In November 2008 Grappa created and organised The Mela at The Mall to celebrate Indian culture and experiences within the Ilford catchment. It was a huge hit with Asians and non-Asians. Twelve months later, The Mall asked us to bring it back with a focus on attracting 16-25 year old fashion conscious shoppers.

To appeal to the audience we devised a new line-up for the event: a little bit of fashion, a dash of Bollywood dance, a sprinkling of authentic Indian stall holders plucked from Green Street and a large splash of colour in the shape of the best British Asian music acts.

To make the budget work hard, we eschewed traditional press and focused the promotion on two youth-oriented channels: Facebook and music television – and we took full advantage of the branding from 2008 for 2009, updated with artists’ images, to reduce creative spend.

Our social media campaign was extensive. We prospected local Asian blogs, music blogs, fashion blogs – the whole nine yards. We joined local community forums. We used our InSocial Media Press Release publishing platform to provide bloggers and community sites with rich media, including video from 2008’s Mela and artists’ performances, their latest publicity stills, all the copy and artist links to encourage previews and allow information sharing. We then created a strong Facebook presence and directed all our marketing towards it, attracting Friends via ‘cluster’ targeting schools and colleges within a two-mile radius of The Mall.

“The Mela was absolutely massive this year. It provided a great opportunity for us to celebrate the influence of Asian music, dance and culture and give our visitors a day to remember! Grappa’s use of social media was brilliant – a business first.” Andrea Marie, The Mall

The Mela at The Mall, Ilford from Grappa on Vimeo.