Reigniting footfall in travel retail

This peak-season activity brought in almost 2,000 new followers for the brand. We followed up with mechanisms designed to get shared and to drive sales at the same time.

The Challenge

World Duty Free‘s marketing to Chinese audiences had been put on hold for three years due to the pandemic. The UK’s leading travel retailer was then hit with the further blow of the Government stopping tax free shopping for international visitors visiting the UK.

The business focused on positioning themselves as a value retailer of upmarket branded products, as airports opened again, following the pandemic restrictions.

However, in the intervening years, not only had travel trends changed, but new marketing channels had grown up in an increasingly digital Chinese marketing landscape.

Added together we needed to help World Duty Free to re-engage Chinese travellers with the brand, and drive measurable footfall within its stores.

Our Strategy

Starting with some intensive customer and competitor research, we developed a comprehensive strategy for the relaunch including the following:

1. Channel Strategy: The deep insights into the target audience, were used to craft a channel strategy that included new platforms such as Little Red Book, but leveraged existing audiences on older channels to share and drive engagement across platforms.
2. Creative strategy: Focusing on culturally relevant campaigns like the Chinese New Year, we tailored the marketing messages to resonate with the target audiences. These campaigns were designed to drive footfall by connecting culturally and emotionally with potential customers.
3. Data strategy: We placed a strong emphasis on listening to customer feedback and adjusting strategies as we built data-driven stories about the emerging customer. This approach helped in refining the tactics and ensuring that they remained effective over time

What We Delivered

During the campaign for World Duty Free, we contributed to driving retail footfall and enhancing customer engagement. Here are the highlights:

1. Social Media Campaigns: Successfully executed targeted social media campaigns, particularly focusing on the Chinese New Year, which leveraged platforms popular among the Chinese demographic like WeChat and Little Red Book (LRB). These campaigns were designed to resonate culturally and attract footfall to World Duty Free stores.
2. Content Creation: We created engaging content that included cultural nuances appealing to the target audience. This content was shared across multiple platforms to gain reach, engagement and build new audiences.
3. Sales Enablement and Culture Training: We ran training programs for staff to enhance their cultural competence and sales skills, ensuring a better service experience for Chinese travellers.
4. Customer Insights and Feedback: We used customer insights before,, and during the campaigns to improve campaign strategies and implementations. This also involved adapting strategies based on real-time feedback to ensure the campaigns remained effective and relevant.
5. Promotions and Offers: Rolled out various promotional offers and exclusivities which were timed and communicated to drive purchases from the target demographic of inbound Chinese travellers, based in the UK.

These efforts all added together to rebuild the brand’s presence post-pandemic challenges.