CASE STUDY: How fashionable fossils boosted Sanlitun shopper traffic 40 per cent

Background

During October's National Day golden week, officials from China's Ministry of Culture and Liaoning Paleontology Fossil Museum mandated McCann Worldgroup Shanghai to hold a dinosaur fossil exhibition in Beijing’s fashion hot spot Sanlitun Village.

The challenge was to merge the dinosaurs with the long-established cool image of Sanlitun. Fashion-conscious tenants of the Swire Properties mall were initially sceptical at the thought of turning Sanlitun Village into a museum during the golden week.

Execution

The creative idea was 'Don't let the dinosaurs drag us back, bring them forward to 2011', executed with the goal to turn the dinosaurs into fashion icons to attract crowds to the district in a stylish way.

The ‘Let’s Play XXL’ campaign used augmented reality (AR) technology to bring dinosaurs to life via a mobile app. Consumers were instructed to download the app, aim their mobile devices at the billboards in Sanlitun, interact with the animated 3D dinosaurs, 'clothe' them in their 'dinosaur skin' according to their choice, and share the 'dino-divas' with friends on social networks.

Once done, shoppers also redeemed limited-edition XXL bags designed with dinosaur eggs, dinosaur skeletons or giant dinosaurs.

Results

The campaign gained wide-ranging word-of-mouth support and helped shopper engagement and participation rates surge by 670 per cent. Furthermore, a 40 per cent increase in shopper traffic from  the same period in 2010 was seen. Free online media and news mentions worth 5 million yuan (US$800,000) were also generated.

'Let’s Play XXL' was recognized for both marketing effectiveness and creativity at the China Effies (gold in the real estate category) and the China International Advertising Festival Great Wall Awards (gold in the outdoor category).