Property Marketing: Digital or non-digital? (Land Securities)

Posted on: July 1, 2014

At the Estates Gazette (EG) inaugural Property Marketing Summit conference on Thursday 26th June 2014 there was a panel session comprising Sean Curtis (Head of B2B at Land Securities), Tim Watson (Head of Strategy at DixonBaxi) and David Fuller (Toolbox Marketing) who considered the role of digital and non-digital marketing methods.

Some highlights from the presentations and discussion:

Retail (Trinity Leeds) – Land Securities

• Consumers are mobile (60% of Trinity’s web traffic is mobile), use social media and are “Always Online”.
• There is a sharp increase in “click and collect” with major investments from Argos in providing a seamless experience
• Despite fears of “showrooming” most journeys still result in an in-store transaction
• Data is the new oil – there’s a need for digitally enabled shopping malls
• Free wifi is a necessity – there’s a 6% growth in use every month
• Consumers advise their preferences – 20,000 signed up for fashion and 18,000 for film
• The centre app has been downloaded 15,000 times and there are 2,000 regular users pcm
• Geolocated offers drive incremental sales for retailers
• On launch, the Facebook page received 115,000 likes – and had twice the level of engagement of other malls despite being the fifth largest
• On opening, the centre was number eight trending worldwide on Twitter
• 30% of the marketing spend was on content, digital and social
• There was an overall campaign with the tag line “Everyday Wonder” that fed all channels
• The brochure was designed at the outset and was not available online – most were presented in bespoke version
• There was a media relations campaign targeted to achieve one front page of the business page of a national and we organised an event with designer Matthew Williamson to achieve the relevant photograph. But the media space needed more back room for those managing social media rather than actual visiting journalists
• We used a pink container to provide a pop up restaurant for two weeks – we had a Vine of the mixologist. It sold out in 90 minutes and we had 1.2m digital impressions in two weeks
• We have used QR codes on traditional hoardings which were seen by 1,500 people and the residential scheme was oversubscribed four times. We have run trials on Blippar. There are developments not were a poster in a child’s room can trigger now AR content.

Brand Agency – DixonBaxi

• A need for value transfer via mobile
• Mobile browsing is declining – there’s an increase in in-app activity
• “There’s only two types of marketing: good and bad”
• “Relevant marketing becomes content”
• “People know how marketing is constructed”
• “Your audience doesn’t think about ink vs. pixels”
• “The debate isn’t about digital, it’s about mobility” (99% of Kenyan Internet traffic is from mobile phones)
• “You need to work to a purpose, not a profit” – brands need a point of view
• Note how many people still use paper and pencil for taking notes
• Personalisation in print is key – in B2B it is a small, known audience and it can be achieved
• When people watch TV there is a “third screen” where they interact on social media

Retail marketing agency – Toolbox

• 67% of retailers said that they would like to be first to adopt technology
• 61% of shoppers believe they are better informed than in-store staff
• Giving store staff more access to detailed product information can increase conversion rates by 9%
• The cost of communicating with all retailers at a major centre is spiralling and the major retailers often don’t engage