THE CHALLENGE

Temporarily pimping a retail park and adding some more atmosphere and cheer? Yes, we can!

However, a first brainstorm session taught us it wasn’t going to be that obvious. A retail park by nature comes with a large parking, an open air promenade, high structures… This in fact meant we had to consider a much wider context: weatherproof features, durability, installation with cherry-picker, safety… So many extras, which of course also could result in the cost increasing rapidly. Not to worry; we went about it in a creative way, staying within a reasonable budget.

OUR SOLUTION

We received a first request just before the summer of 2020. Obviously, summer is associated with fresh colours, flowers, sunny weather… Plenty of options for us to explore indeed. In the end, we decided to dress the low posts along the promenade with large, colourful flowers – for an instant happy vibe!

Pretty soon, Shopping The Leaf started to receive requests to not dispose of the decoration after use but donating these flowers and give them a second life. Since The Leaf most certainly subscribes to the cradle-to-cradle principle, at the end of summer, these flowers found a new home in a school and day care in Ternat.

These summer decorations proved to be such a success, we were asked to come up with a new proposal for autumn. We continued the post concept and introduced a forestry theme. Mushrooms, trees in autumnal colours and quirky animals brought that cosy autumn feel to The Leaf. And just like the previous time, the decorations quickly were allocated a new destination.

Since our 2020 ideas really worked, in 2021 we carried this concept over. However, with this third creation, we wanted to take it a step further. During our search for a new theme and some extras, we actually agreed on using the decoration to highlight the sustainability efforts of the retail park and add some fun animation.

That is how mascot ‘Sofie The Leaf’ became the star of the promenade. She pointed out every aspect of the sustainability approach. Signs carried a short description and via a QR code, passers-by were guided effortlessly to additional information on the website. This online communication was complemented by fun and educational posts on Facebook and the retail park’s Instagram page. Since we also used the newsletter, we maximised the cross-media character of the campaign.
The animation side of it consisted of inviting schools to take a sustainability trip to The Leaf, which was linked to an additional campaign for the ‘Week of the Bee’.

Are you looking for fun and themed decoration (with or without animation or activation campaign) for your city, municipality, retail park or shopping centre? Then do not hesitate to get in touch!