ABOUT

Clarks Village is a dog-friendly shopping outlet but wasn’t significantly marketed as such. We were briefed to raise its dog-friendly credentials. As new trend research predicted more people wanting to holiday with their dogs and more dog-friendly places to visit, we recognised a prime opportunity to capitalise on this and engage with a growing audience to attract visitors.

We devised a strategic plan to raise awareness of Clarks Village as a dog-friendly destination and drive footfall by hosting a dog-focussed takeover with supportive PR campaign.

Strategy:
• Create reasons to attract dog owners to Clarks Village and showcase its offering by hosting a dog-friendly event.
• Demonstrate Clarks Village’s love of dogs by celebrating pooches at the event with various free doggy activities.
• Host a pet paw-trait photography competition to secure guest engagement and create strong visual content for media and social.
• Create a dog ambassador role to bring campaign to life using storytelling and guest endorsement.
• Develop wider PR campaign to achieve cut through on media and social channels, landing dog-friendly messaging, reinforced over long term.
• Full schedule of press releases, announcements and features to maximise coverage in local and regional press and engage with dog owner websites.

Although Clarks Village was dog-friendly, there was room to improve comms to really get tails wagging.

Umpf conceived a PR campaign to celebrate our furry friends, with the aim of making Clarks Village ‘top dog’ among UK shopping centres.

Pawsome Pooch was a dog takeover weekend event, free for guests with a line-up of puptastic activities, including:

- Professional pet photo shoots with branded crates, haybales and props; set in outlet’s gardens for a stunning backdrop.
- Pampered Pooch; groom by award-winning groomer
- Dog Trick displays and ‘have-a-go’ sessions
- Agility courses
- Dog charity partnership
- Illustrated pet sketches

To enhance the event and increase media appeal and scope for social engagement, we turned the photo shoots into a competition to find the ‘top dog’ of Clarks Village. The winner, chosen by public vote, would be crowned the outlet’s next CEO; Canine Executive Officer that is.

Guests were offered free professional pet photo shoots, gifting them with a treasured image of their dog. Each dog was automatically entered into the competition.

To guarantee entries, photo shoots were pre-bookable and were swiftly snapped up. To avoid disappointment, we added a second photographer for walk-up shoots which was so popular, it attracted queues all weekend.

To boost dwell time at Clarks Village, we devised a full schedule of dog activities, naming the event ‘Pawsome Pooch’. Third-party suppliers ran the guest activities, including pampering, agility and trick displays and have-a-go sessions.

The integrated PR campaign was meticulously planned to secure maximum levels of coverage, including:
- Schedule of press releases including event announcement, launching photo shoots, reminders, media calls, post-event update, shortlist announced, winner crowned, feature on winner.
- Engaging media to pitch and detail specific requirements e.g. images/comments/interviews required.
- Package of quality images, event details and quotes for media post event

After the event, our judging panel chose a shortlist of 10 dogs and the public was invited to vote for their winner on Clarks Village’s socials. Attracting high levels of engagement, the winner was Dudley, a Hungarian Vizsla rescue dog with only three legs.

Dudley was crowned winner at Clarks Village with a VIP tour where he was congratulated by staff and inspected dog facilities. Dudley is now a regular guest; attending events, meeting the team and giving friendly pawshakes to guests including hosting press trips.

Dudley and Karen have become ambassadors for Clarks Village, extolling its dog-friendly features with frequent social content on Dudley’s Instagram, supportive quotes in press materials, becoming a front-page newspaper star and promoting Clarks Village to fellow dog owners.

After engaging with traditional and dog media sites, we entered the DogFriendly Awards. Clarks Village went on to secure 158 ‘five-paw’ reviews and won the UK’s Most Dog-Friendly Shopping Centre Award. This was a huge endorsement to cement Clarks Village as the 'top dog' for outlet shopping in the UK.