The Challenge
Shopping centres up and down the country support One Great Day, an annual charity fundraising day, raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. Like many schemes, the challenge was to engage retailers and get them and the many stakeholders in the centre onboard, and create an event that would not only bring in footfall and drive spend, but would provide entertainment, fun and most importantly raise money for GOSH. Our challenge at OnBrand was how would we achieve this and make sure we raised more money than we would spend putting the event on.
With a proven soft spot for charity, aided by the fact a member of our team has received help from GOSH for the past 15-years, we decided that given the available budget and the great work GOSH do for so many young people we would throw a party that made Baytree proud.
Right off the bat we offered two dedicated staff members – an Account Manager and an Events Manager – to visit the centre on a weekly basis. With these visits, we could take a hands-on approach to engaging with retailers in the centre, as well as others throughout the High Street, leading to an impressive number of donated gifts for our central raffle.
Posters and postcards with striking designs went up on walls and in shop windows to advertise the event, and an online marketing campaign ensured daily activity via the centre’s website and social media channels, where a mixture of content and event articles ranged from touching to funny, inspiring to truly interesting.
To spread the word of the event (playfully titled The Only Way Is GOSH) we contacted bloggers, press and radio stations in the surrounding area of Brentwood, Essex, informing them of our event line-up. Radio mentions followed, as did a number of print and online articles bringing awareness to our campaign.
And it wouldn’t be an OnBrand event without a number of catchy radio messages playing in the centre, informing shoppers of upcoming events, as well as highlighting what shoppers could do on the day itself.
The icing on the cake was the inclusion of a handful of pop-up shops, including a fashion retailer, a jeweller, a milkshake stand, local publishers, a pop-up gym, and a local cake firm that sold some dazzling treats. And of course, there was live music provided by up-and-coming artist Rozen Child, who performed four mini-gigs.
Key Wins
- Great event that enhanced shopper experience for customers
- Feel good factor for all stakeholders – retailers, centre and shoppers alike
- Tenant relationships and engagement improved
- Footfall spike achieved
- Good local media coverage
- Donation raised for GOSH far outweighed costs
What They Say
“The Baytree Centre Management consists of a small team with a family feel. We quickly identified that OnBrand shared the same passion for Charity, and with their expertise we believed they could help us deliver a truly great event.
OnBrand accepted the challenge and quickly got to task, in line with our views and ethos, OnBrand increased their workload and extended the vision to the High Street retailers as well as the local community. What was delivered was truly remarkable and is still the talk of the town.”
Dan Foley, Centre Manager
