The business challenge
Create a lasting annual experience and support retailers during the Christmas period
The Camberwell Centre Association represents more than 700 retail and professional service providers in the Camberwell Junction shopping precinct, located in Melbourne’s affluent eastern suburbs.
Christmas is one of the most important retail periods in Australia, and it was crucial for the association that they created something lasting that would support their traders, provide opportunities for a diverse range of businesses, and combine an event with continual marketing activities in the lead up to Christmas.
The insight
More than ever, we crave shared experiences and a sense of community around Christmas
In a world of big-box retailers, shopping centre giants and e-commerce, open-air retail precincts like Camberwell Junction thrive on fostering a sense of community and personal connection.
Christmas is not only a peak retail season but also a very emotionally loaded holiday period. It represents a time when families seek shared experiences and often this is tied into completing their Christmas gift buying, and shopping for Christmas parties, events and socialising with friends and families.
Rather than just promoting trader’s offers and sales, the association wanted to provide an engaging, festive atmosphere that encourages increased foot traffic, emotional connection to the area, and ultimately spending in stores. It was also crucial to distinguish the precinct from competitors, such as shopping centres and online retailers.
Large shopping centres have huge crowds and horrible parking. Online shopping can prove difficult in knowing what you’re buying, with the added pressure of scams and Australia Post being extremely busy, meaning gifts can often arrive late.
The idea
Bringing the community feeling back to Christmas
Working closely with the Camberwell Centre Association, Assemblo continues to organise and run the annual Camberwell Christmas Family Day since it’s launch in 2011. This includes planning and implementation of the event’s entertainment, promotions and social media.
The goal has been to cultivate a festive mood across the shopping precinct, and foster a sense of community and inclusion among shoppers and traders to create a truly unique experience.
The event day features a range of entertainment and activities, including:
- Free rides in an antique fire truck
- Photos with Santa
- Roving street performers such as jugglers, acrobats, musicians, face painters and balloon modellers
- Festive helpers who inform people about activities taking place on the day
- The popular annual competition Where’s Rudolph?
- Performances and activities by local community groups
- Free photo wall with a professional photographer and props.
Throughout the day, Assemblo produces live social media coverage of the event’s activities across multiple platforms including Facebook and Instagram as a way to promote the occasion. It also opens up a live communication channel for customers to interact with Camberwell Junction’s social media platforms on the day.
We also needed to build the email database and get online users into the street. The annual Where’s Rudolph? competition remains a highlight of the shopping precinct’s seasonal promotions. Entrants have to find posters of Rudolph and Santa’s other reindeer displayed on posters in shop windows around Camberwell Junction to go into the draw to win a $500 shopping voucher.
Across the top of these other activities, we also launch and run Christmas promotions from November, including ads focusing on how Camberwell Junction avoids challenges with less traffic or crowds compared to large centres, and avoids the risks of online shopping.
The impact
The Christmas Family Day continues to grow each year, attracting thousands of people to the Camberwell Junction precinct. Traders report experiencing significantly higher customer numbers on the event day, as well as increased sales over the entire weekend.
Some campaign highlights include:
- High engagement with the Camberwell Family Day
- An average of 27,000 visits to the website in November and December
- Generated almost 700,000 impressions in geo-targeted advertising, with an average cost per click of $0.80
- Growing the email subscriber database to more than 8000 emails
- Hundreds of entries in the Where’s Rudolph? treasure hunt competition every year
- High social media engagement from the public, with customers sharing their photo wall images, photos, videos and comments across social media
- The fire truck rides, Where’s Rudolph? competition, and postcards with custom artwork for each reindeer have become an annual Christmas tradition for local residents and shoppers in Camberwell Junction.