Real estate investment trust Shaftesbury has launched a Chinese New Year marketing campaign with a special Red Packet mobile app containing surprise discounts, exclusive London Chinatown offers and prizes.
The campaign kicked off at the end of January to celebrate to highlight the vibrancy and diversity of Chinatown London, one of the West End’s most iconic destinations, and the start of the Chinese New Year – 2017 is the Year of the Rooster.
The campaign showcases the area’s exciting variety of cuisine, which blends modernism with a genuine experience of East Asian culture and traditions. Including digital marketing, a promotional Chinese New Year film and the bespoke app, the launch of the campaign coincides with a 170% increase Year-on-Year in traffic to the new Chinatown London bilingual website.
To showcase the cultural and culinary delights of Chinatown London, as well as the bold and authentic Chinese New Year 2017 celebrations, Shaftesbury commissioned a short promotional film to be hosted on the website and via social media channels. Shot in an interlinking and fluid-movement style, the one-minute film features seven different cuisines available in Chinatown London that celebrate Chinese New Year in their regional cultures: Sichuan, Japanese, Indonesian, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Chinese Fusion and Malaysian.
Further adding to Chinatown London’s online marketing initiatives is the new app, available to download on Weibo and WeChat. Traditionally, red packets, or hongboa, are exchanged in Chinese culture between family, friends and colleagues, and typically contain a monetary gift. The new app allows users to open a virtual ‘red packet’ to reveal exclusive Chinatown London offers, ranging from big ticket prizes to discounts at restaurants.
The launch builds on the momentum generated by the new bilingual website for Chinatown London (www.chinatown.co.uk).
Shaftesbury commissioned Chinese digital marketing agency Qumin to create the website. Displaying content in both Chinese and English, the website enables more people to discover the best of London’s Chinatown. The popularity of the website reflects the growth of internet users in China, which reached 668 million people in June 2015, 90% of whom access the internet via a smartphone or tablet.
Commenting on the initiatives and success of the website, Karen Baines, Head of Group Marketing and Communications at Shaftesbury, says: “The Chinese New Year campaign aims to expand our audiences’ perceptions, cementing Chinatown London’s status as one of the most exciting destinations for food, entertainment and unique East Asian experiences in London. We are curating the very best of East Asia in the heart of London’s West End, mixing the modern and the traditional.”
Baines adds: “Our new website has been created to make discovering Chinatown London as easy as possible for visitors, be they from the UK or overseas, including the growing numbers of Chinese consumers online. The website has been particularly successful in helping visitors to enjoy the diversity and vibrancy of Chinatown London at the click of a button. In conjunction with the new app and film, the campaign will boost awareness of the lively and exciting Chinatown community and all it has to offer.”
The launch coincides with the success of Chinatown London’s Chinese New Year celebrations for the Year of the Rooster, which saw in excess of 500,000 visitors on Sunday, January 29th. The largest of its kind in Europe, the celebration showcased a varied cultural line-up including performances from China, as well as the best of British Chinese performers.
Shaftesbury is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) which owns a unique real estate portfolio extending to 14 acres in the heart of London’s West End. Shaftesbury focuses on retail, restaurants and leisure and its portfolio comprises 589 shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs, extending to 1 million sq. ft., 406,000 sq. ft. of offices and 539 apartments. Its holdings are concentrated in Carnaby Street, Seven Dials, Covent Garden, Chinatown, Soho and Charlotte Street.
