It’s no surprise to anyone that retail patterns and behaviours are changing, resulting in winners and losers in the battle for the retail £ as it swings between the “online” and traditional “bricks and mortar” retailers. The battle is fierce, but the traditional retailers still command over 80% of the spend. However, patterns are also appearing in the environments that consumers prefer to spend.

The latest footfall figures in July from the British Retail Consortium (14 August 2017) are pointing towards who the winners are in the “bricks and mortar” retail battle and it is clearly looking like Westfield.

• High Street: -2.1%
• Shopping Centres: -1.3%
• Westfield London: +2%
• Westfield Stratford City: +5.2%

Coming out of a strong June for all retail, it would appear that a combination of events have led to consumers reviewing where they spend their hard earned money. Leisure based trips seems to be the driving factor, as the shocking weather in July drove the public into retail environments that deliver more than a pure shopping experience.

Retail footfall and spend continues to go to the destinations that offer a top class leisure based experience and both Westfield London and Stratford excelled in this area. Experiences based on food, drink, entertainment, premium retail mix and for Westfield Stratford City, a major sporting arena, all continue to delivery a multi-purpose destination, with subsequent spend in each.

From an Out of Home advertising perspective, this leads to a safe home for brand advertisers that are wanting to communicate with consumers who are still actively spending and have a larger than average shopping basket. Westfield London, with its Bond Street offer of luxury retailers, has also seen a huge surge in Chinese and Japanese customers taking advantage of the weaker sterling.

So for brands wanting to ensure they land their message with a large volume, high spending audience in the run up to Christmas, Westfield is the not only the safest place to ensure you reach the right audience but it is also the best place for some of the most impactful DOOH in London.

As the old press advertising adage went, “you’ll never get fired for booking the FT”, I would suggest that in today’s increasingly competitive world of out of home “you’ll never get fired for booking Westfield” is, in today’s media market place, an even more relevant adage.

CACI TOP TEN RETAIL SPENDS (£ Millions)

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View Ocean’s locations at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City, or get in touch to arrange to see our latest Westfield presentation.