The Mall Ilford tasked us with increasing quality footfall among 18-25 year olds.

We created The Mela at The Mall, a day-long Asian-inspired festival featuring live music performances by leading British Asian artists, Bollywood dance and beauty makeovers alongside Asian fashion. This would draw in the audience, encourage 18-25s to reappraise the retail and catering offer, as well as increase dwell time.

To reach this audience, we ran ambitious Facebook and social media programme to recruit friends, share the Festival message and seed the content.

We prospected Asian blogs, music blogs, fashion blogs and local blogs – and joined local community forums. We used our InSocial Media Press Release publishing platform to provide bloggers and community sites with embedded video, images, copy and artist links to encourage previews and allow information sharing. We created a strong Facebook presence and directed all our marketing towards it – and attracted Friends via ‘cluster’ targeting schools and colleges within a two-mile radius of The Mall.

Overall, social media activity formed backbone of the campaign, decreasing traditional media and print spend.

Results:

·         Footfall up 12% - the fourth best day in 2009.

·         Participating retailers: Debenhams, Gems, Scents, Momins and Rush reported sales up by 2-5% on the day.

·         Average dwell time increased by 75%.

“The Mela was absolutely massive. 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! The use of social media was brilliant – a business first.”  Andrea Marie, The Mall

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