The Carlton Christmas Cinema event was designed to connect businesses with people for the holiday season. This was an outdoor event held over four consecutive weeks in the iconic Argyle Square park on Lygon St. Our goal was to support Carlton INC in bringing the community together at Christmas time, whilst also increasing the foot traffic amongst the already-bustling Lygon St. This boosted spending potential while creating a fun, light-hearted event along with further exposure to the traders in the area.

We were to design a merchandise piece that would effectively market the event online, engage the attendees in a fun way and be suitable for the nature of the event, whilst also encouraging attendees to interact with the associations profile through social media.

CORE OBJECTIVES:

• Had great online marketing potential 

• Was a fun and engaging giveaway

• Suited the nature of the event and was useful on the night

• Boosted Carlton INC’s online social media presence whilst attracting a larger physical community following

• Was measurable by social media engagement.

In the early planning stages it became evident that freshly made popcorn from a cart or food truck would not be available due to health and safety licensing. Therefore we put our heads together and introduced the idea of free Australian made 50g Bags of Popcorn for the attendees.

The Popcorn was going to be used as a social media tool which enhanced the client’s Instagram presence. The campaign would involve taking a humorous or entertaining selfie with your free bag of popcorn, hashtaging #CarltonInc in the post and following Carlton INC on Instagram. Every week the photos would be judged by the Carlton INC team and one lucky winner would receive $1000 worth of vouchers to use amidst Carlton’s shopping and entertainment district!

Using the label of the popcorn bag, our team developed three simple steps, a method that firstly encouraged attendees to participate in the online competition, secondly use the developed hashtag for greater online reach and lastly but most importantly, capture new followers to the Carlton INC Instagram account. The popcorn would not only bring value to the event and be useful on the night, but would also give the community the chance to engage in a fun online competition, building upon the Carlton INC online following.

Maintaining the Christmas holiday spirit, the distribution of the popcorn was undertaken by City of Melbourne employees dressed up as Christmas elves. 

The Popcorn campaign proved to be a massive success! The popcorn was fresh and delicious and there were multiple entries online with some really awesome, creative and funny photos from the Carlton community posing with the popcorn. 

During the 4-week period in which the campaign was run, we saw an increase in the customers social media following. Further to this, there were multiple entries into the online competition proving that the audience effectively targeted, excited and eager to participate in the online activation.

This was a family friendly campaign with many kids getting involved, having fun and resulting in an overall enjoyable experience on the night. The crowd also came back for a second helping of delicious buttery popcorn! Attendees took things a step further and developed their own hashtags #freepopcorn and #funnypic.