Lagardère Travel Retail has taken an omnichannel approach to capture Chinese shoppers during the Lunar New Year period at Rome Fiumicino Airport.
Collaboration is key to the wide-ranging scheme, which aims to make contact with shoppers at every point of their journey. The retailer has worked in partnership with price comparison app Jessica’s Secret to engage with travellers as they book; at the airport, wifi systems, push notifications and on-site augmented reality games are used to encourage travellers to shop.
Instore, LED screens, multi-language messaging and Chinese New Year decorations are being used to tailor the shopping experience to the Chinese traveller.
Strong sales
The scheme has enjoyed early success, with sales in the Avancorpo flagship store up 10% to Chinese passengers and a WeChat engagement game has also boosted basket size among shoppers from the target region.
The engagement campaign began as Lagardère and Jessica’s Secret offered users of the app a 10% discount when they spend €360 ($407) at the airport, or €260 in the Aelia Duty Free store. That offer ran until 15 February to capture the key Chinese New Year shopping period.
Constant engagement
At the same time, travellers logging onto the airport wifi were sent two coupons straight to their phones, which could be redeemed in-store. Once travellers arrived at the shop they were greeted with giant LED screens featuring greetings in English and Mandarin, as well as invitations to join an instore WeChat game. More than 1,800sqm of the shop was also decorated with 100 red Chinese lanterns to mark the holiday.
Last year’s successful WeChat red pockets promotion has also been rolled out again, with shoppers able to scan a QR code on arrival and then point their phone at different red pocket spots and pick a coupon to redeem. The promotion was expanded from just the flagship store, to incorporate four outlets across the Schengen and Extra-Schengen areas.
The campaign will run until 27 February.