Brand Activation success at 2019 Festival Supplier Awards
At January’s Festival Supplier Awards, GL events UK was part of the winning team to scoop the Award for Best Brand Activation for its work during the 2018 Festival Season. As a key strand of the Co-op Food’s ‘Closer to You’ national brand communication strategy, the community retailer worked with Live Nation and GL events UK to roll out bespoke festival supermarkets at Download, Latitude, Reading and Leeds festivals, helping to engage with a new younger demographic.
The Live Nation Festival Partnership was a perfect opportunity to communicate the Co-op’s environmental credentials and commitment to recycling through a new deposit return system, as well as practically addressing the amount of waste plastic generated by festivals.
The temporary supermarket experience included:
- 6,000 square foot, festival specific, personalised pop-up store which traded daily in the campsite 7am – 3am.
- Circa 240 products stocked at each festival with a large range of vegan, vegetarian and free-from products.
- Bespoke store look and feel for each festival – ensuring the Co-op brand was aligned with the festival
- In-store DJs relevant to that festival’s taste, transforming the ambience and adding a new dimension to our customer shopping experience.
By providing an everyday service to festival goers, which was relevant and tailored, Co-op quickly became an essential part of each Festival community.
- Over 200,000 visitors to the stores
- Communications campaign reached a combined audience of over 33 million
- 82% of those surveyed through independent research had an ‘Excellent’ or ‘Very Good’ experience in the store with 96% rating it as good or better
- 76% felt more positive about the Co-op brand after visiting the Co-op festival pop-up
GL events UK was delighted to be a key part of this partnership – providing the infrastructure for the temporary stores and highlighting the versatility and customisation of temporary structures beyond their more usual application.
The Festival Supplier Award judging panel commented that the project was a fantastic example of how a brand, organiser and supplier can come together to improve the event goer’s experience and gain recognition for a brand with a new demographic. They were also impressed with the sustainable initiatives that were at the heart of the project.
