When a shopping centre opens, in general it doesn’t go unnoticed. Trinity Leeds surpassed expectations when it launched this March welcoming 132,000 people. The shopping mall, said to be the size of 13 football pitches, is the largest project of its type in Western Europe boosting 120 shops, 12 restaurants, bars and cafes and the largest Everyman cinema in Britain.
At The Screen’s most recent Breakfast Briefing, Sean Curtis, head of marketing at LandSecurities, the company that owns the £378million shopping centre, Neil Morris from Grand Visual and JCDecaux’s Mark Bucknell got together to share their knowledge and experience of the new digital mall. Trinity Leeds features gigantic interactive videowalls, Google product search, LED advertising screens, its own mobile app, which can be tailored by the user, and totally free wifi through out.
“We own many big shopping centres in the UK, but with Trinity Leeds we pay special attention on following a customer led strategy,” explains Curtis. “Things have changed in the world of retail and we also need to change to attract and retain the public.”
Making the site a digital destination in its own right was one of the key objectives; the other was to give customers and retailers the best communication platform they could wish for. The ubiquitous use of wifi allows people to search compare and buy online, even if they are in the shopping mall.
“Nine out of ten purchases are done online today and a big proportion of the searches and buys are done on mobile devices,” notes Curtis. “When we were planning this project we asked ourselves, should we dance with the internet devil in a shopping mall environment? The answer was yes, definitely.”
Using Google’s product search paired with GPS capacities means that people can search online but it will only show retailers within Trinity Leeds. Customers’ preferences are logged in LandSecurities’s new CRM system, allowing it to offer a segmented and personalised service. “A multichannel customer is worth more than a single customer,” Curtis remarks.
The ease of use and customer-centric approach is also reflected in the £1million screen network investment. The screens, located in key areas across the mall, have information about events, special offers, news, the cinema, city guides and the centre itself. But most importantly for retailers, 70 percent of the air time on these beautiful digital canvases is dedicated to local stores’ advertising and promotions.
Morris described this project as unique for Grand Visual. The company’s day-to-day job is to deliver outstanding campaigns, but in a limited timeframe. In the case of Trinity, it had to consider how to orchestrate digital content across the mall all day, every day, for a whole year.
“It’s like running a channel,” says Morris. “Our brief was to deliver an immersive ‘daily wonder’ experience using Trinity’s screen state. To create these special moments for visitors, we designed a series of interactive content applications. It’s more like an art installation than anything else, but so far it’s been very successful in engaging visitors and providing a surprise factor.”
Using Panasonic D-Imager, a sleek camera-sensor located above the videowalls that collects spatial information about its environment, passers-by can interact with the screen without having to touch it.
“Nobody has done multiple-[dimension] image processing before now,” says Morris. Grand Visual worked with Fraps for the real-time video capture; this is a work in progress, with new interactive games and other experiential projects in the pipeline.
The digital experience at Trinity Leeds also includes a network of JCDecaux’s newly-launched M-Vision digital six-sheets. “The screens give Trinity Leeds and its retailers tactical opportunities,” explains Bucknell. “The advertising in it is location-specific and brands have the power to update their advertising or copy with relevant opportunities and promotions.”
According to Bucknell, malls are retail’s fastest growing environment. The average time people spend in them has risen to 178 minutes, with a 161 average spend and a 12 percent over-spend. “Digital just enhances the customers experience and gives retailers to tools to reach their audience with the right message at the right time,” he adds.
Since opening, Trinity Leeds has welcomed half a million people per week. Its modern look and feel, as well as its practical functionality using wifi, mobile and digital signage, gives Leeds citizens a sense of pride and creates a new destination for the city’s visitors.