With 2020 being a year to forget Liffey Valley Shopping Centre wanted to give us a Christmas to remember. 

But with social distancing, reduced retail and other Covid restrictions in place this posed challenges for what should be the busiest trading time of the year for one of Ireland’s largest shopping centres. 

The annual switching on of the shopping centre’s Christmas lights had to be cancelled. Even Santa’s magical grotto where families could visit Mr Claus could not open.

Like many brands Liffey Valley switched their focus to their online platforms and tailored their offering and activities to bring some Christmas spirit to their customers.

The centre quickly adapted and took the star of the season – Santa Claus – online. We produced an online content series where Santa reads some of his favourite Christmas stories. These would be released each week in the run up to Christmas and hosted on the Liffey Valley website.

With Santa’s Grotto also closed for physical visits the centre still wanted to allow families the opportunity for some face time with him. So a system that allowed families to book a virtual visit was put in place.

We were briefed with promoting the two Santa services and generated an online video campaign to raise awareness and drive traffic to the site. Of course, driving physical footfall to the centre for the busy shopping period was still important so this had to be factored into our messaging also.

The campaign was supported on social and with print and ran from mid November right top until Christmas Eve.