Social engagement success
This year has not only seen the opening of Westfield Mall of the Netherlands, it’s also witnessed the growth and implementation of our media activity and campaigns. We’ve done a huge amount of work to educate consumers about Westfield and create strong brand awareness across all channels.
The launch of the mall created huge buzz in the first quarter of the year. The launch drove visitation and future intent, despite ongoing restrictions. Awareness of Westfield Mall of the Netherlands stood at 70% in the first quarter. Awareness of the Westfield brand grew by 18 points from 24% in January 2021 to 42% at the end of Q1. Meanwhile the likelihood of people visiting the mall grew from 29% in January to 54% at the end of Q1.
Social media has been a hive of activity and we’ve had some big gains in this area. We are quickly growing our Instagram and Facebook channels and have increased our total brand audience to 64,000 at the end of June. We hit 62,000 impressions and an engagement rate of 15.6% over 17 social media posts in June. Our top performing hashtags were #hapjedrankjegezellig, #eettheater and #olearys. Data for the month also showed that posts with photos generate more engagement, while images of the indoor shopping mall and atrium of the building performed strongly.
Our media agency Havas has been hard at work creating engaging and meaningful campaigns with strong impression figures and engagement rates. Havas also implemented our Come Together digital campaign which was shown on 15 digital screens within 30 minutes of the mall in early May. At our digital Ocean displays in and around the mall there was a gross reach of 10,245,578 passers-by and 1,000,000 passers-by at our Bereik Hilton screen. The campaign performed well with a strong ‘call to action’ (visit) figure of 75%.
In-house, our Westfield Club loyalty program grew from 5,000 in March to 22,000 in April/May. We are aiming to grow this program even further with our livestream concert later in the year which will engage customers directly via the Westfield app. There will also be a number of benefits and special VIP experiences available only to Club members.
