A Report on the 2016 Christmas Period A report examining the impact of the 2016 Hammersmith Christmas programme on the town centre #digichristmas hammersmithlondon.co.uk Introduction 3 Hammersmith Movie Hub 4 Virtual Reality Cabin 7 Social Media Stats 9 Business Feedback 10 Christmas Lights 11 Visitors to Hammersmith 12 Supporting Local Charities 13 Conclusion 14 2 Introduction As 2016 was the irst Christmas following a successful renewal ballot we wanted to move away from our traditional programme and try something new. Adopting a strong digital focus we aimed to showcase new technologies and boost online engagement by delivering an interactive and innovative programme of events. As a result, we trialled different projects, such as a pop-up cinema and a virtual reality cabin, with new partners to ascertain whether there was an appetite for these types of events To do this we deviated from our familiar festive programme, excluding popular initiatives such as Christmas wrapping, but created a unique festive line-up that aimed to promote the town centre as a key shopping destination, increase footfall and provide a fun atmosphere. In this report we have evaluated our programme via our own feedback and analysed this against the behaviour of the town centre during the festive trading period in December 2016. Christmas Programme of Events For 2016 we devised a line-up that would encourage people to come into Hammersmith for an experience, something memorable that would not only complement a shopping trip but give them something to talk about. In the process, we hoped that people would react to that experience using social media and help to create a buzz of online activity for our events. 3 Hammersmith Movie Hub Collaborating with the Kings Mall Shopping Centre, we converted one of its empty retail units into a pop-up cinema, called the Hammersmith Movie Hub, which would show free ilms to the public. To create a bit of buzz around this we launched an online vote allowing the public to decide which festive ilms would be shown. A list of 6 ilms were shortlisted: • Elf • Miracle on 34th Street • Home Alone • The Nightmare Before Christmas • The Muppets Christmas Carol • The Grinch 4 * Popcorn not included Home Alone received the most votes, with Miracle on 34th Street and Elf coming second and third respectively. Initially, we wanted to use Twitter for the vote as with just under 3,000 followers we felt this was a perfect platform to engage. Although we collected votes, it became evident that we could increase the number if we moved to a different platform, so we switched to online competition page Polldaddy, and saw the numbers rapidly increase. The voting lasted for seven days in which we received around 500 votes in total. The winning ilms were each shown four times at the movie hub between December 8-21. Attendees were encouraged to book online for free, ensuring they could plan their trip into Hammersmith accordingly. Every screening was a sell-out, with 30+ attendees for each event. “ Working with the BID we were able to offer a distinct festive experience that provided people with a memorable shopping offer. The Hammersmith Movie Hub was a great initiative that helped bring customers into the centre during our busiest time of year. It was a great success and we received lots of positive feedback about it.” Andrew Proctor, Kings Mall Manager. 5 To launch the Hammersmith Movie Hub we screened Did you know about the Festive Film Voting Home Alone at a special Premiere Evening on Competition? Thursday, December 8, in which the Mayor of Hammersmith & Fulham councillor Mercy Umeh oficially opened the cinema. The audience was 14% made up of invited guests and members of the I Voted public. The screenings were then held: 68% 18% Yes Home Alone 08/12 - 6pm, but I didn’t 17/12 - 11am & 3pm vote No 21/12 - 2pm Miracle on 10/12 - 11am & 3pm, 34th Street 18/12 - 3pm 20/12 - 2pm As you can see, most of our audience didn’t participate in the online vote and came to the cinema Elf 11/12 - 11am & 3pm through other means (see below graph). The ‘vote for 18/12 - 11am your favourite festive ilm’ campaign was a success 19/12 - 2pm as we registered more than 500 votes, but those people weren’t the ones coming into Hammersmith The feedback we received for the cinema was very to enjoy the event. The vote obviously resonated positive as everyone we surveyed told us that the with people, which is good, but this demonstrates screenings were either very good or excellent. Also, that we should separate and identify our online of those we spoke to, 95% had either spent or were audience from our physical one. planning to spend money in Hammersmith that day. This is also the same with the online booking system For 77% this was the irst pop-up cinema event as 55% of the people we surveyed had pre-booked they had been to which supports our decision to try their tickets, despite all screenings having been something new as we wanted to create a memorable fully subscribed online. That means that 45% of experience for shoppers. people who had registered did not turn up. This again highlights the gulf between an online and a physical presence and is a good lesson to learn going forward. Did you know about the Festive Film Voting Competition? 4% Flyer / Ad 17% 39% Word of saw it 4% Mouth happening Social Media 17% Enews 19% Website 6 Virtual Reality Cabin Partnering with Riverside Studios, the multi arts, cinema and television venue located along the Hammersmith riverside, we converted our seasonal events cabin in Lyric Square into an Alpine Lodge that contained four state of the art Virtual Reality headsets. Virtual reality is a very current technology that offers immersive, interactive experiences and is being utilised by a wide-array of organisations. By popping on a VR headset, you can be transported into a variety of locations, both real and fabricated such as animated space, the arctic or even Disneyland. 7 This gave us an opportunity to highlight an important, emerging technology by giving people the chance to experience virtual reality for themselves. The cabin was open between December 7 - 21, 11.30am - 3pm/4pm - 7pm on weekdays and 12noon - 6pm on weekends. During this time it was visited by 475 people. The feedback we received was extremely positive. Most people who came to the cabin had heard of VR but had never really used it before, and rated our experience as either excellent or very good. Everyone we surveyed wanted to try another VR based experience after our event. To be able to offer that irst step into what we believe will be a big market validates our decision to run a digital based programme. Have you experienced VR before ? 25% Yes 75% No The majority of people who took part in the VR experience had come across the cabin in Lyric Square, instead of coming into Hammersmith speciically for this event. We also ran a competition giving away 50 Google cardboard headsets that allowed people to enjoy the VR experience in their own homes. All they had to do was take a photo of themselves in Lyric Square and post it to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #digichristmas. 8 Social Media Stats Throughout the Christmas campaign we used Facebook and Twitter to promote and engage with people online. We have a very strong presence on Twitter so we predominantly use this as our main social media account. During December, we Tweeted 62 times which left 41,000 impressions, an enormous amount and more than double the number recorded in November. This was complemented by 49 direct mentions and 18 new followers taking our total number of followers up to 2896. On Facebook, we also saw our daily reach increase to almost 9,000 users, which shows that social media can give us a large online audience and should be considered an integral part of the BID’s marketing plan. The E-Privilege Card was also used more during the campaign with almost 5,500 sessions during December and 35 new users signed up. Since the summer, the app has grown in usage with the number of sessions increasing steadily month-by-month. We also commissioned the creation of a 360 degree video which captured Hammersmith during the festive season. This proved very popular on social media with more than 1,000 views across Twitter and Facebook. This video can now be used every year. To view, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=UYHHk1Vfycw&t=2s 9 one King Street retailer recorded its best month ever. Business Generally, retailers felt that the calendar was kind to them this year as Christmas and New Year fell on the weekend, which meant they picked up last-minute Feedback shoppers as well as their usual weekday trade. The businesses thought the BID’s Christmas Hammersmith businesses enjoyed campaign helped to make the town centre feel more a strong Christmas trading period, vibrant, with 88% rating our festive offer as either good or excellent. We received particularly nice with some even breaking sales feedback from retailers in Kings Mall, as they felt the pop-up cinema helped to bring people in. 92% records in the process. of businesses liked our new Christmas lights, their only complaint was that there weren’t more lights After a somewhat lacklustre 2015, retailers enjoyed throughout the town centre. a much more buoyant 2016 with 85% recording an increase in both revenue and footfall as businesses For 2016 we introduced not one but three Christmas told us it was a very consistent month.