This huge London shopping centre just won a major award

If you take retail therapy seriously, you may well already know about the Sceptre Awards. They’re essentially the Oscars of the shopping centre world, spotlighting retail hubs with especially brilliant community initiatives, customer service, management, marketing and innovation. This year, one of London’s own was among the winners. 

Westfield London (that’s the one in White City, not Stratford) earned the grand prize in the category for Innovation of the Year. It was recognised for the transformation of its existing radio system into a fully interactive entertainment platform.  

Sounds of Westfield was created with marketing agency OnBrand and saw the system turned into a jukebox experience in which people were invited to vote for songs they wanted to hear in the centre and identify tunes for a chance to win prizes. A large touchscreen was installed in the centre where shoppers could take part in live voting and see a leaderboard of the most popular songs and artists. People could also vote from their phones with QR codes placed across the food hall. 

The Sceptre Awards called the innovation a ‘great way of repurposing old kit’. Upon Westfield receiving the award, OnBrand managing director Daniel Graham said: ‘Sounds of Westfield demonstrates the strength of bringing creative thinking, technology and delivery together in-house. We took an existing part of the shopping experience and found a new way for customers to interact with it, while transforming the space around them.’

Following the success of the pilot, OnBrand and Westfield hope to create multiple installations with more zone-specific themes such as fashion or food. 

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