Client Success: Retail Garden Blooms When Sprinkled on Cable TV and Online

Rhode Island

Background

The Garden City Center is a unique mix of sophisticated shops, eateries, and boutiques in a charming village design, inviting open-air shopping in all seasons.

Challenge

Garden City Center has been a shopping destination of choice for five generations of Rhode Island residents.  A few of the shopping center’s big-box retailers closed their doors during the economic downturn, leaving open retail space.  The center used this opportunity to remodel and attract new, prestigious retailers.  The shopping center was challenged with re-branding itself and advertising the new retailers. 

Solution

With the expansion of the center’s retail stores and rebranding, the Garden City Center was faced with educating consumers on the array of new offerings and attracting new consumers to the venue. Cox Media put together a web, TV, and sweepstakes strategy to meet the client’s goals.

The campaign began with online advertising, complemented by on-air commercials, promoting the new big-box retailers at the shopping center.  To support the branding campaign, an enter-to-win sweepstakes was designed with a dedicated landing page.  Consumers could enter for a chance to win a gift card to the shopping center, with the option to link to their homepage and learn more about the new retail stores. 

Results

The media mix advertising solution and sweepstakes proved to be the perfect strategy to meet the client’s business needs:

• Garden City Center’s  :30 commercial ran on a customized cable TV schedule, driving additional traffic to the venue and into the new retailers’ doors.
• The online ads performed consistently in delivering impressions aiding in the rebranding of the center, awareness of the new retailers, and sweepstake entries. 

The exposure on cable networks and online allowed Garden City Center to generate new traffic and increase sales for their retailers. This was accomplished by creating awareness for their consumers of the new offerings.  In fact, the shopping center’s sales increased by 8% during the month the majority of their TV schedule ran. The center contributed this to the success of their campaign with Cox Media.