Talking Autumn

2020 is the most unpredictable of years and will go down in history, for many well documented reasons. But at least we can still rely on the changing of the seasons to help anchor us to some sort of creative normality.

Autumn fashion and lifestyle campaigns are in full flow with Black Friday events just around the corner, the Autumn season is jam packed and consumers always want change at this point. A change of style, a change of fortune, a change of habits. Gone are the long hot summer days queuing in t-shirts and flip flops, enjoying a socially responsible afternoon in a sun-drenched pub garden! It’s time to prepare homes and wardrobes for colder climes and wetter months ahead. And so with that, BWP and its retail clients welcomed the Autumn season with open arms.

Continuing to establish a strong and recognisable on-going fashion focused destination, The Boulevard in Northern Ireland had a truly engaging summer campaign that saw the centre continue to buck the retail trend, so we had a to create an Autumn campaign that continued to engage and encourage the people of Northern Ireland to visit the centre. Following on from our successful Summer campaign, which was exotic birds, representing the feeling of freedom, stretching your wings and an opportunity to show off and display your style as lockdown eased, I give you The colourful and stylish Boulevard squirrels. Our Squirrels represent a cleverness and optimism, with determination to conquer Autumn and be prepared for whatever it throws at us... as well as looking and feeling great at the same time. These smart and practical characters have been met with great enthusiasm, gathering positive feedback and smiles from all of those that saw them. And in these most difficult of times… that must be worth its weight in gold!

Big positives for our clients don’t just stop on this side of the English Channel. In Belgium, our client Docks Bruxsel continues to deliver a sense of normality for its customers. During our Autumn campaign we had the enviable job of helping promote Chocolate week at Docks. That’s right, a whole week dedicated to promoting the countries love for the art of chocolate making.

The approach and strategy for our Autumn campaign at Docks Bruxsel has been to be far more targeted with specific audience types in mind. From Families to the twenty-something-male-mission-shopper, Docks customers should have a much more personalised experience this Autumn. If your a young male shopper, the imagery, brands and messaging received should be far more relevant to your experience. The same goes for families, female shoppers and so on.

With the ever changing multi-channel landscape, this move to encourage our clients to embrace a more targeted, audience led approach means we can move away from the more traditional ‘one-size fits all’ thinking and really produce creative that delivers better experiences for both Docks Bruxsel and all of our clients.

Of course, these are only two examples from our portfolio. Another of our big three retail clients, Bromma Blocks, a Swedish shopping centre has continued where it left off from summer. With its bold styling and upbeat colourful execution, it hopes to carry on building upon and establishing the new brand as the one stop shopping destination, for everything you might need. It’s a big, bold and bountiful place to shop and BWP can’t wait to keep telling people about it.

Of course, I’ve not mentioned the elephant in the room yet... No, not the global pandemic that has challenged us all so much this year... But Christmas! The most valuable season in retail, the golden quarter. It’s a season rich in creative possibilities, rife with terrible (but heart-warming) cliches and a season to look back and be thankful for what we have. At BWP we are committed to helping make Christmas a successful one for our clients. Watch this space to hear all about our Christmas campaigns.