Bringing The Shopper Journey To Life For Activation Agency

Dedicated day-long event establishes credibility and creates thought leadership platform

Introduction
The retail landscape is constantly evolving, with retailers keen to embrace and exploit digital developments. Aware of this trend, activation agency OgilvyAction wanted to underline its position as a leader in understanding shopper purchasing behaviours and how the evolution of digital (e.g. augmented reality, tablets and apps) is changing the way people shop.

OgilvyAction’s existing digital ‘lab’ was used by the company to showcase technologies and how they affect the agency’s clients.

The Challenge

To position OgilvyAction as the go-to agency for strategic thinking and insight around shopper marketing, particularly around the shopper journey and shopping missions – both from a media and client perspective.

The Solution

To capitalise on the lab, and sync with a new business campaign, Velvet suggested holding a day-long event that pulled together OgilvyAction’s retail expertise and brought the impact of digital to life. The agency’s response was phenomenal, and the OgilvyAction Retail Lab Day was born.

OgilvyAction drafted in parent company WPP to help organise speakers, content and staging to drive the activation agency’s digital credentials within the shopper arena.

The target audience consisted of existing clients and new business prospects, as well as the marketing and retail trade press. Velvet was briefed to maximise exposure of the event in the press and secure a selection of key journalists to attend and write about the event.

The Approach

Having initiated the idea, Velvet’s role was to maximise the initiative by: developing thought leadership materials; handling all Twitter activity; accompanying media tours of the Lab and post-event follow up to generate and secure comment opportunities for key OgilvyAction spokespeople.

The Results

Velvet secured the attendance of a selection of key marketing and retail trade journalists, including Marketing Week, Marketing, Retail Week, The Drum and WGSN. Coverage of the event was secured in Marketing Week, The Drum and Mobile Marketing with subsequent feature and comment opportunities in The Grocer, Retail Week and Retail Focus.

“Retail Lab Day was the first major event organised by OgilvyAction London, so securing strong journalist attendance was critical. We wanted to get our message across to as wide an audience as possible in order to enhance our influence within the industry.

Thanks to Velvet we were able to reach our media targets, with a great turn-out from journalists on the day. The subsequent press coverage was very positive and strengthened our relationship with the media, leading to further discussions and articles.

Velvet also helped evaluate our performance after the event and we found their advice extremely valuable.

Working with Velvet on Retail Lab Day was a great experience and they were key to its success.”

Chloe Giessner | Head of Communications – London