The Purple Apple Awards are the only awards that recognise and reward effective shopping and town centre marketing within the UK retail property sector. At the recent BCSC Purple Apple Marketing Awards, two SmartFocus shopping centre clients won Merit Awards for their groundbreaking work using beacon proximity marketing.
Ellandi, which owns the Swan Shopping Centre in Eastleigh, won a Merit Award for Strategic Marketing for their SmartRewards mobile app and their use of beacons throughout the shopping centre. The pioneering beacon enabled app, built by SmartFocus, was the first used in UK retail and has been downloaded by almost 3,000 shoppers, helping to drive loyalty and engagement among customers and resulting in increased revenue.
Andrea Williamson, Marketing Manager for the Swan Shopping Centre says: “We are looking forward to continued innovation bringing further improvements to our customers’ experience.”
The Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield won a Purple Apple Merit Award for Tactical Marketing for their beacon enabled Ladies’ Night shopper event last June. The app was built by SmartFocus and used beacons placed throughout the centre that were linked to ‘hotspots’ enabling the gamification of the groundbreaking shopper event. On the day, the app was downloaded over 500 times in 3 hours with almost 500 offers redeemed, and all 120 hotspot offers were redeemed in the first 52 minutes of the event. The beacon enabled shopper evening was so successful that another one is planned this year.
Jess Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer at SmartFocus comments: “Both shopping centres prove that effective beacon marketing helps to increase loyalty with the upshot of greater retail revenue. We are thrilled that both innovative shopping centres continue to work to engage and delight their customers.”