CASE STUDY

Assessing Pan-European Campaigns McArthurGlen’s new marketing team faced a dilemma which is

common to those with marketing responsibilities in multiple

territories – to what extent should their brand communication

strategy be standardised?

Insight. Strategy. Implementation.

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Lucidity London | Case Study | McArthurGlen Page 2 of 6

IS PAN-EUROPEAN ADVERTISING WORKING?

Executive Summary

McArthurGlen’s new group marketing team faced a problem which is common to marketers operating across

multiple geographies; to what degree should the organisation balance the benefits of a standardised marketing

communication programme with the needs of country markets in aligning themselves with consumer

preferences and distinguishing themselves from local competitors.

About McArthurGlen

McArthurGlen introduced factory outlet retailing to

Europe in 1995 and has since has become the leading

developer and manager of designer outlet villages in

Europe.

In 2008, the company operated 18 European sites, and

partnered with hundreds of luxury brands offering

discounts of 30-70% off manufacturers recommended

retail prices in attractive, out-of-town environments.

Twelve of McArthurGlen’s designer outlet villages are

owned by international asset management company

Henderson Global Investors (HGI), the sponsor of this

project.

Situation

McArthurGlen had been marketing all of its European

sites under the tagline 'Guilt-Free Shopping' since 2005.

Changes in group marketing leadership and agency

relationships meant this strategy was due for re-

appraisal. But, before the incoming team began to

develop a new approach, HGI’s asset managers

requested an independent assessment of the

performance of the campaign in Europe to understand

whether it was delivering the desired benefits to the

business and to highlight examples of sharp and incisive

delivery which could be socialised among marketing

teams in multiple countries.

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Task

Lucidity London were commissioned by retail marketing

specialist BWP Group to help them evaluate the impact

of McArthurGlen’s 'Guilt-Free Shopping' campaign on

the performance of three designer outlet villages in

Troyes (near Paris), Rome and Berlin.

Action

Before we began to develop a framework for assessing

the effectiveness of the campaign, we set up a feasibility

study to determine whether key datasets were going to

be available or if anything crucial was going to be

missing.

Data briefs were sent to McArthurGlen’s country

marketers to gather business performance data over the

modelling period, and market-related data held

internally which might explain changes in performance

(e.g. advertising campaigns, events, promotions,

economic variables, seasonal trends and more).

McArthurGlen’s internal systems captured weekly

footfall, sales and ATV data, so we chose to base our

model on weekly footfall volumes over the 3 year period

the campaign had been on show.

Business performance, adspend and marketing planning

data arrived for each village, along with copies of

creative treatments and evaluation reports of individual

events and activities.

To understand the influence of external factors on

footfall e.g. trends in disposable income, clothing

expenditure, consumer confidence, competitor

expenditure and weather conditions, we briefed local

research and media monitoring organisations to source

data in a weekly time-series format.

When datasets began to arrive, they were translated,

checked for inconsistencies and variation, and then

introduced in to our initial model to determine whether

we had robust data on the main factors driving footfall

to each village.

Three Market Mix Models were created (one for each

village) and an examination of relationships between

individual variables and footfall began. In particular, we

focused attention on media expenditure, competitor

activity and macro-economic factors to determine

whether these were influencing footfall at each village,

and to what degree they were influential.

A campaign report was produced for each village, with a

clear view of all marketing expenditures and activities

undertaken and an assessment of the impact of the

Guilt-Free Shopping campaign on footfall. Furthermore,

we highlighted several key factors that were influencing

that performance alongside examples of high quality

delivery of the campaign.

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The Campaign

The ‘Guilt Free Shopping’ campaign was created in the UK

by the creative agency Publicis Dialog to appeal to

affluent consumers across Europe. The creative

executions featured images of women in passionate

embraces with products purchased at McArthurGlen’s

designer outlet villages, and attempted to capture the

abundance, style and quality of designer clothing and

accessories available at each outlet village.

Source: McArthurGlen, Oct 2008

Example of a high level overview of an individual campaign activity

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Results

The ‘Guilt-Free Shopping’ campaign coincided with a

period of growing footfall and sales at each village and our

study was able to provide evidence of how part of that

growth was driven by the communication campaign.

However isolating the effects of advertising is typically

difficult and time-consuming, and to do so effectively

companies must design a measurement framework

before their campaign starts.

In executing this campaign though, McArthurGlen’s

local marketing teams didn’t put sufficient measures

in place to assess the group’s investment in reaching

advertising goals - like increasing consumer

awareness, consideration, preference or loyalty. They

were so focused on driving footfall they committed

too much expenditure to media purchasing, and too

little on advertising performance assessment.

There was also strong evidence to suggest that the

‘Guilt-Free Shopping’ campaign was only partially

implemented in some European markets. Anecdotally

this was due to the use of the word ‘guilt’ which is tied

up in complicated socio-cultural/religious nuances.

For this reason, marketing teams in France and Italy

judged the ‘Guilt-Free’ copy line to be unusable as a

messaging strategy, which meant the campaign was

little more than a set of high fashion images and

layouts for adverts.

For McArthurGlen’s incoming marketing team, the

programme highlighted the importance of

establishing a methodology, budget and a line of

responsibility for assessing the effectiveness of

advertising in individual country markets.

For Henderson’s asset managers though, the question

was whether McArthurGlen should continue with a

standardised communication programme in Europe to

keep control of the brand image close to corporate HQ

and deliver economies of scale in marketing. Or should

marketing be decentralised so individual business units

can focus on meeting local consumer preferences while

driving differentiation among local competitors?

To this question, we recommended retaining the current

strategy. The evidence from our study showed that each

village was working to a tailored marketing plan and were

suitably adapting head office generated campaigns to

their own needs. Differentiator’s such as the village

environment and anchor brands available were receiving

some prominence in campaign collateral, and the

company’s core message 'big brands at reduced prices'

was applied very consistently.

As well as answering this question, our evaluation also

uncovered multiple examples of sharp and incisive

campaign delivery, particularly in the areas of customer

events, consumer research, digital communication and

customer loyalty.

Actionable insights and communication efficiencies like

these were written up as best practices and socialised

between marketers in a dedicated exchange forum which

featured excellence in marketing performance.

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