Westfield / Studio East
2011 saw Europe’s largest shopping mall open next door to the Olympic site, in ‘trendy’ East London – Westfield Stratford City. The most influential but hardest to reach East Londoners are the ‘creative community’ – with their negative perception of generic, homogenised and huge retail venues. Westfield needed to engage with this audience before invading it’s turf!
We helped provide a platform allowing Westfield to tap into and showcase East London’s creative talent. It needed to be done in an ongoing and therefore credible way – be part of the fabric of the scene – not a corporate leech…
Studio East was born: a cultural initiative that rewards and recognises emerging East London talent.
High profile cultural pioneers including Tracey Emin, Roland Mouret, Mary Portas and Erin O’Connor selected a shortlist of individual talent who could win a £10,000 bursary – The Studio East Awards.
The Studio East Awards launched at the opening of Studio East Dining, a pop-up restaurant run by East London’s Bistrotheque, the first public structure on the Olympics site with stunning views over the Olympic park and London.
The Studio East Website went live allowing the audience to vote for one of the 2010 nominations and also put forward nominations for who will be ‘Hot in 2011’. Creative people like to share opinions on cultural topics, so by giving the opportunity to nominate for 2011, Studio East creates longevity and sincerity.
The inclusion of Foursquare (then in it’s infancy) allowed East Londoners to simply check in at some of the East End’s coolest venues to win tickets to Studio East Dining.
Results:
- PR in Telegraph, FT, Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Wonderland, Vogue, Conde Naste Traveller, GQ, Grazia
- Estimated daily opportunities to see across all titles: 3.5 million
- 440,000 relevant / target audience views in 1 week
- Website received over 160 nominations for 2011 awards
- Foursquare received 90 check-ins in one week (given the limited amount of users in London – approx 5000 active, an above average return)
- Very positive online sentiment in relation to Studio East and Westfield’s imaginative and benevolent approach
