City Centre Deira has revealed details about its 30-year anniversary campaign, which was brought to life in collaboration with the brand’s marketing team, the mall’s operation and events team, and Exscape – a gaming focused entertainment platform – which was involved from concept to execution and offered creative and digital support.
Rather than leaning into traditional advertisements, Exscape focuses on interactive experiences to ensure that users don’t just see a brand, but also engage with it through gameplay, challenges and rewards. The intention is to make attention active, not passive, and significantly increase recall, engagement and conversion.
For the 30-year anniversary of City Centre Deira, the main objectives of the campaign were to celebrate legacy while modernising engagement; increase mall footfall and dwell time; drive spending across key assets; strengthen customer loyalty and create a high-impact, talk-worthy activations.
The campaign was executed across social media campaigns; customer relationship management (CRM) push notifications and in-app messaging; on-ground activation in the mall; in-mall brand across City Centre Deira; and within the Exscape mobile app.
These channels were intentionally chosen instead of traditional above-the-line advertising, keeping the focus on digital and physical integrations. The Exscape mobile app offered direct access to engaged users. The mall owned media assets drove high visibility, while social media helped reach a cost-efficient and targeted audience. The in-mall physical activations helped convert footfall into active engagements,
In conversation with Campaign Middle East, Basel Felfel, Chief Partnerships Officer, Exscape, said, “This campaign demonstrated how gaming and the engagement through it can be turned into a marketing channel to drive real business KPIs such traffic, spend and loyalty and transform a mall ecosystems into an interactive entertainment platforms.”
The 30th anniversary City Centre Deira campaign targeted youth and young adults, families visiting the mall, existing mall customers, and casual gamers and entertainment seekers.
As such, the campaign was informed by several consumer insights, which led to the successful rollout of the campaign. Users were found more likely to engage with interactive and reward-based experiences. Futhermore, gamification was found to significantly increase retention and repeat engagement. Younger audiences preferred social, competitive and avatar-driven experiences than traditional advertising, and shoppers were seen responding strongly to instant rewards and tangible incentives such as vouchers and prizes.
Exscape also developed a fully gamified virtual version of City Centre Deira where users created avatars and played with branded characters, explored a digital mall environment, and collected hidden treasures and rewards after completing challenges across key brands, including VOX Cinemas, Magic Planet, Carrefour and Food Central.
Felfel added, “What truly set this campaign apart was the phygital integration. Users started their journey digitally on Exscape. The Top 50 players qualified for a real life treasure hunt at City Centre Deira. The campaign ended with a live event celebrating winners. This bridged digital engagement with real-world action and led to emotional brand connection.”
The success of the campaign was measured based on engagement rates, including time spent and sessions.
Game participation and completion was also measured as much as the conversion from digital touchpoints to physical footfall.
More than 400 winners redeemed the vouchers, while the increase in mall traffic and spending was also monitored. Overall social media reach and organic was also tracked as a metric of success.
CREDITS:
Client: City Centre Deira
Operations and events: City Centre Deira creative and digital support teams
Platform: Exscape
