ECE are set to launch the first fully automatic digital visitor magnet developed for its centres with the interactive Play It! game show.
The game show tour commenced at Aquis Plaza in Aachen and will subsequently visit more than 50 ECE centres. With the campaign, ECE aims to bring variety, entertainment, and new ideas into their centres to meet the customers' needs for a contemporary shopping experience with innovative services and modern entertainment.
Together with the Play It! concept, ECE have been developing, testing, and implementing a number of further innovations that facilitate customer orientation and service quality in the centres. At five interactive Play It! stations, visitors can play games hosted by a virtual game host named Felix, with the aim to score as many points as possible. These include a geography quiz where players are transported into a virtual studio, a memory game where players are required to sort items on a shopping list, the Ice Sheet concentration game, and a digital memory game controlled with gestures.
Play It! is completely digital and automatized. Players can register online on social media beforehand to be addressed with their names by the virtual game show host when playing in the centre. In some game modules, they will even appear visually on screen. Players can also register with their cell phones by scanning a QR-code or directly in the centre, and they can also play as a guest. Up to 800 players per day during the initial phase show that the campaign has been well-received. Being an interactive game, Play It! picks up on current trends: these include the so-called gamification – the increased use of entertaining gaming elements as well as digitalisation and personalisation.
New campaigns such as Play It! emphasize ECE's objective to establish shopping centres as a “Third Place” – a destination with a good quality of stay that invites people to linger, meet friends, or spend their leisure time. ECE is planning on offering further innovative events in its centres in the future and has assembled a team of experienced centre managers that will develop and roll out future-oriented entertainment for centres in cooperation with creative agencies.
“Service, entertainment, and atmosphere are features you won't find on the internet,” said Joanna Fisher, managing director centre management at ECE. “This competitive edge enables us to launch campaigns like Play It! which appeal to our visitors' emotions, inspire them to play, and offer a new experience. Our experience shows that these campaigns are popular among customers and keep the product shopping centre attractive.”
Combining elements of the digital world with brick-and-mortar retail plays an important role with regard to many further ECE innovations. These are developed at ECE's Future Labs, Alstertal-Einkaufszentrum in Hamburg, Limbecker Platz in Essen and Marmara Park in Istanbul, and tested for implementation at other centres. Among these innovations is the Love-to-Shop app, with personalized shopping offers for customers, and the Click&Collect feature, which lets customers see the products offered by individual retailers, select them, and reserve them for in-store pick-up. The result of blending entertainment with digital services are such features as the Mall Wall, a large digital screen which can be used as a news portal, advertising space or as a gaming screen to combine information, interaction, and entertainment; or the Selfie Photobox, where visitors can three take unique pictures in front of special backgrounds and share their personal shopping-centre experience on social media.
