Outstanding Christmas Performance for the City Centre
Heart of the City businesses enjoyed an outstanding Christmas trading period in 2012, with spending up significantly versus last year, versus other retail centres and versus the total Auckland market. The consumer-facing ‘BIG little City’ retail Christmas campaign ran over a 5 week period of 24 November – 29 December, and included an integrated PR, Events and Marketing plan, as well as new initiatives including the commissioned Queen Street lighting installation. Key campaign elements were the NZ Herald Viva bumper Christmas issue on 12 December, a comprehensive print & digital advertising campaign and sponsored event activity in partnership with The Edge in Aotea Square.
The results speak for themselves: spending for Heart of the City was up +17.3% versus an average 5 week (Nov-Dec) period across the last 5 years and up +16.2% versus the same 5 week period last year (an increased total spend of $2.77M)! This against the context of our competitors being up +6.4% versus last year, and the total Auckland market being up +9.1%. The Heart of the City's market share grew by +1.8% during this period.
Christmas Eve and Boxing Day were particularly successful days, with Christmas Eve up +12.7% versus last year (versus competitors -2.1% and total market +1.4%), and Boxing Day was up +31.3% versus last year (versus competitors +8.4% and total market +12.2%). Overall, spending increase and market share figures were consistently higher in the Heart of the City compared to the rest of Auckland.
As well as the positive spending results, we saw some great media coverage, which generated $240,000 worth of PR value through 34 media items. There was also considerable growth in web visits to www.biglittlecity.co.nz: we were up +200% on last year for the 5 week campaign period (111.5k visits versus 37k last year)! These non-financial results are important as they reflect the continued growth of the visibility for the city centre, which in turn contributes to growth in spending.
