Communication Campaign
Centro Comercial Abierto de Benalmádena 2018
Creative concept and 360º campaign.
Rol: Copywriter.
Starting point
The Centro Comercial Abierto de Benalmádena is an initiative run by the local traders’ association to support traditional retail against large shopping centres and out-of-town retail parks.
In 2018, having just received official recognition from the Junta de Andalucía, the association wanted to raise awareness of the project and encourage local residents to shop closer to home.
The challenge
The Centro Comercial Abierto de Benalmádena needed its own brand identity to make an impact with its target audience: local residents and the regular or occasional visitors living in Benalmádena.
Working approach
Working from the brand name, which had to remain unchanged (“Centro Comercial Abierto de Benalmádena”), the creative team developed a visual identity based on warm, vibrant colours, a clean sans-serif typeface, and an icon that schematically evokes the actual map of the area where the Centre is located. The full corporate identity was then applied to signage and other brand elements: stickers, vinyl graphics, and bags.
I worked alongside the art director to develop the creative concept that would shape the entire campaign, both offline and online.
The creative team worked jointly, art and copy together, to develop the campaign concept.
This is how Compras con buen clima (“Shopping in good weather“) came to life: a tagline that captured the campaign’s driving idea. The Centro Comercial Abierto offers a shopping experience full of light and good weather, along with the equally important human warmth between customer and seller.
“Good weather” puts the emphasis on empathy and the quality of the human interaction: the kind of personal, unhurried service that sets aside consumerism in favour of a relationship built on trust.
The campaign
With the creative concept and brand identity in place, we planned a campaign tailored to the client’s requirements, across the following channels:
- Offline: press and radio; signage and merchandise for participating businesses; a customer loyalty scheme; a street marketing activation.
- Online: website, email marketing, and social media.
The content
My work, in collaboration with the art director, focused on developing all the content needed for the campaign:
- Creative concept and tagline development.
- Website copy.
- Press body copy.
- Radio ad script.
- An introductory email for Centro Comercial Abierto subscribers. I also handled the HTML coding of the designs produced by the art department.
- Supporting copy for the street marketing activation, which involved distributing plant pots to shoppers and creating a temporary outdoor seating area to enjoy the good weather.
- Loyalty card copy.
Results
The campaign successfully positioned the Centro Comercial Abierto de Benalmádena as the reference point for local retail in its area.
The street activation was particularly well received, drawing a large crowd and generating strong engagement on social media under the hashtag #comprasconbuenclima.
It also achieved wide coverage in the local and provincial media through organic features, supported by full-page paid advertising.
On the email marketing side, open rates improved slightly on the usual average, reaching over 22%.
As for the loyalty scheme, more than 30 businesses are currently signed up, offering discounts and promotions linked to the card.
Tools
- Mailchimp
- Dreamweaver
- Adobe Indesign
Lessons learnt
On this project I learnt that the success of a street marketing activation comes down to anticipating the unexpected, and that you should never underestimate the power of free.
I also learnt that the dahlia is the national flower of Mexico and thrives remarkably well in the Mediterranean climate.
