Tom HallSimeon Aldred, group creative director, Vibration Group
One of Vibration Group’s founding brands is Xcite, an events agency specialising in the design and delivery of retail events.
Retail is a challenging marketplace now more than ever, and we couldn’t have predicted the way the market would shift so fundamentally so quickly. This shift is no secret – the high street is shrinking, large retailers are closing stores and growing online, and shopping has moved on. Our challenge is to stay relevant and deliver innovative campaigns for bricks and mortar destinations.
The key is owning and accepting the changes, and making sure we’re leading the charge with new ways to engage shopping centre audiences, who as consumers are exposed to a world of choices and experiences more sophisticated than ever before.
The twice yearly ‘build it, they will come’ fashion shows that we delivered when we set up Xcite 15 years ago have had to become part of a much more tactical annual events strategy. We have to move swiftly, identify micro-trends and design and deliver events that can be activated in-centre, online, and on social media. Creating offline activations that form part of a fully formed campaign that exists online too, is the only way to swim rather than sink in a digital ocean.