Global shopping centre brand Westfield commissioned Story to help launch Europe's largest urban retail mall, Westfield Stratford City. The answer was a socially optimised campaign connecting the story of Westfield with the story of East London - both stories of reinvention. Created in under 30 days, the integrated campaign included original and crowdsourced content, a documentary film series and commissioned photo essays, blogger outreach and Facebook competition. In just its first week, more than a million visitors passed through Westfield Stratford City's doors, smashing all previous records.
Campaign website
Although Westfield is one of the largest shopping centre brands in the world, each centre is tailored to the neighbourhood and culture it's part of. To this end, the launch campaign connected the story of Westfield with the story of East London - both stories of reinvention - grounding Westfield Stratford City in the future of the area by embracing its past. Running for a heady three months prior to launch, original content and conversation increased in frequency leading up to the centre's opening, fuelling the growing buzz.
Crowdsourced stories
A crowdsourced social map plotted East End highlights and hidden gems in realtime. With new discoveries and content about the local area posted daily by Story's in-house editorial team, the wider online community also ‘pinned' their favourite places and personal stories to the map and shared them via Facebook. The result was a social utility to rival even the most underground of London travel guides.
Moving image
A series of 10 documentaries profiled authentic figures from London's East End, such as WAH Nails founder Sharmadean Reid and Raw Heidi of the Roller Girls. Other films created for the campaign included a street life series, featuring everyday East Londoners sharing their defining memories of the area, adding context to the wider Westfield story.
Social media campaign
As part of a fully integrated social campaign, the ‘Create Your Take' Facebook competition invited people to upload photos of their take on eight East London classics, from food to hairstyles, to win a top prize of £10,000. Influential bloggers judged entries in their specialist fields, offering money-can't-buy prizes and creating a buzz. Over the three-month campaign, Facebook fans grew from 100 to more than 36,000, with Twitter followers growing by over 4,000.
NB Story was responsible for integrated digital marketing and our work was produced in a multi-agency environment alongside Westfield's ATL, PR and viral partners. Please note that the video produced by Story Worldwide shows elements, such as Outdoor and TV advertising, that weren't produced by us but by third party agencies.
(Click image to enlarge)