Andrew Sparrow, Director of Placemaking at Activate – Workman Placemaking, spoke to Tracy West at Retail Destination, for this feature about how his team of experts is making a difference in the retail space, and rapidly increasing effective enlivenment and destination marketing services within offices too.
Read examples of Activate’s work at chic retail destination St Christopher’s Place, London, as well as enlivenment at Grade II-listed, modernist office building, Smithson Plaza.
It’s all about expertise, says Andrew:
“Over the past four years, we’ve been able to build an expert team. We’ve got marketing people, we’ve got a lot of PR skills, we’ve got event management. We’ve got strategy and planning. It’s quite a broad church of experience, and on any project – whether it be a shopping centre or an office – we could take it from strategy, all the way through to delivery, and everything in between.”
Read the full feature below, or visit Retail Destination here.
Retail Destination interviews Andrew Sparrow, Director of Activate, Workman’s Placemaking team
For more information on Activate’s services, get in touch here:
Contact – Workman Activate (activateplaces.co.uk)
Activate’s onsite activities are focused on key objectives, whether supporting increased customer spend and driving footfall at retail and leisure assets, or increasing use of a space and engaging with occupiers at an office or business park.
Our approach to onsite activation helps build a sense of community among visitors, occupiers and stakeholders: bringing people together and making buildings central to the local community.
For our Activate Placemaking & Destination marketing team, the strategic importance of onsite activities cannot be overstated.
Over the past few months, the team has delivered a series of events at multiple destinations, here’s a round-up of just a few…
Moretown gets moreish
As part of the Activate team’s placemaking programme at Moretown London, a scheme managed by Workman’s Welcome Offices team, a monthly market, Wellness Wednesday, Summer Socials, Family Fun Day, and Live Music every Thursday in August, and visiting Food Trucks have all made for a very moreish foodie summer. At the Summer Social events, occupiers at the St Katharine Docks site were invited into the courtyard to enjoy giant games, live band, pizza truck, a pop-up bar and a caricaturist to encourage people to socialise.
Smithson Plaza aces Wimbledon
Smithson Plaza occupiers and visitors relished the chance to watch tennis and enjoy Wimbledon-themed refreshments at the central London pop-up, project managed by Activate. “Summer Is Served” featured deckchairs, a large screen, a choice of food and its own Wimbledon signature cocktail. Open daily throughout the tournament (3-16 July), it created a unique atmosphere, surrounded by tennis-inspired installations at the property, which is managed by Workman’s Welcome Offices team.
Towerfields catches Barbie-mania
At Towerfields Leisure Park in Huntingdon, the Activate team capitalised on the buzz generated by the Barbie Movie, taking a creative step by bringing Barbie and Ken to life.
Actors dressed as the two characters strolled through the retail spaces, sparking memorable interactions and taking selfies with both retailers and visitors alike.
Putney Exchange goes green
London’s Putney Exchange offered a space during the school holidays for families to visit to take part in a range of events, featuring various on-site activity publicised through digital campaigns to engage with followers. Activate hosted a green-fingers workshop on site, where children were invited to create flowerpots and received a factsheet about growing plants at home. This provided a space where families could shop and browse, while providing school holiday entertainment. There was also an interactive juggling event, keeping shoppers engaged.
The Activate team has promoted retailers’ events, hosted within stores to encourage visitors to take part. The team also launched a back-to-school competition, giving followers the chance to win and providing another push for retailers. The Activate team is working with popular local magazines and local community groups such as the BID to organise further community-wide activations.
The Springs Shopping Centre joins the circus
Meanwhile, at The Springs in Buxton, a circus workshop drew families into the centre.
This activity was very successful, with reports of some groups staying at the centre for well over an hour longer than their usual dwell time, while enjoying the entertainment.
The Foundry & Marshalls Mill hold a fiesta
The Spanish fiesta-themed social at the Marshall Mills and Round Foundry Estate in Holbeck Urban Village attracted 100 people from the occupier workforce at the Leeds office scheme. Occupiers’ employees were invited to sign up for the event, organised by the Activate destination marketing team.
One of the scheme’s restaurants, Bomba, provided tapas and drinks, which were accompanied by themed entertainment and music to add enlivenment. Many attendees stayed for the full three-hour event, saying they loved the community spirit it gave to the scheme, and that the event brightened up an otherwise dreary lunchtime.
Manchester Fort goes wild for a weekend
There was onsite activity every weekend in August at Manchester Fort, with workshops, a petting zoo, bug hotel and wildlife trail. Activate’s workshops focused on woodland crafts and pinecone making, inviting families into the wooden chalet to interact with the bug hotel. The petting zoo allowed visitors to stop and meet a selection of small animals, interacting and holding them over the course of the day.
This proved a popular month-long event, where the Activate team was able to reach a new audience through ads in the Manchester Evening News and social media posting around each event.
St Christopher’s Place celebrates summer
The Summerscapes destination marketing campaign at St Christopher’s Place – organised with the oversight of Activate – marked a six-week celebration of the summer season heralding new dishes, offers and shopping experiences, as well as the opportunity to get creative with lunchtime art classes.
A chic corner of London, just off busy Oxford Street, St Christopher’s Place is filled with artisans and heritage brands. More than 70% of the scheme’s retail and leisure occupiers collaborated with the destination marketing campaign.
Find out more:
Read more about Activate’s Destination Marketing & Placemaking services.
Read more about our approach to Building Community across our managed portfolio.
As part of Activate’s Placemaking programme at Smithson Plaza in the heart of London’s St James’s, the Wimbledon-themed “Summer Is Served” pop-up opened this week, featuring deckchairs, a large screen, a choice of food and its own signature cocktail.
Opening daily throughout the tournament (3-16 July), it’s designed to create a unique atmosphere, set to become a destination to ace the tennis in style, surrounded by tennis-inspired installations at the property, which is managed by Workman’s Welcome Offices team.
The Wimbledon-themed event – part of a calendar of seasonal experiences to be curated by Activate at the scheme – is designed to help to establish distinctive and attractive business destinations, while enhancing occupier experience and that of the wider community.
With the event open to the public, alongside Smithson Plaza occupiers, Activate will look to host community groups from the West London area. Having identified a number of organisations working with disadvantaged groups who support young talented tennis players to achieve their potential, they hope to provide them with a fun day out in London, across the two weeks of the tournament.
Smithson Plaza, a Grade II listed, modernist icon completed in 1964 by celebrated architects Alison and Peter Smithson, regularly plays host to a bespoke rolling arts programme. Having reviewed the current occupier services available, the Activate team will add value by meeting and communicating regularly with occupiers to shape the future placemaking activity, while engaging with wider stakeholders to create partnerships and collaborative networking opportunities.
Meanwhile, the Activate digital marketing team will lead on content creation and engagement to promote the new programme of events, services and activities to occupiers and the public.
Andrew Sparrow, Director of Placemaking at Activate, said: “As specialists in the development of occupier engagement initiatives, Workman’s growing Activate team is excited to bring this experience to Smithson Plaza.
“Our aim is to bring people together across commercial property through stimulating, social environments that support employees’ and customers’ physical and mental wellbeing in environmentally responsible ways.
“Our team knows that a sense of place and togetherness creates community within buildings, supporting key asset management objectives around increasing tenant satisfaction and retention levels.”
Find out more about Activate’s Placemaking and Destination Marketing services here.
The first Summer Social event kicked off last week as part of the Activate team’s placemaking programme at Moretown London, a scheme managed by our Welcome Property Management team.
Occupiers at the site, which is located near to St Katharine Docks, were invited into the courtyard to enjoy giant games, live band, pizza truck, a pop-up bar and a caricaturist to encourage people to socialise.
The event marked the first event as part of this year’s schedule for Moretown, with the next offer being monthly wellness sessions, starting this week.
Find out more about Activate’s Placemaking & Destination Marketing in workplaces and retail spaces here.
Destination marketing for workplaces has never been more crucial for building community than in these post-pandemic years, writes Emma Henson, Place Marketing Manager at Activate.
Now that more and more occupiers are returning, while still flexing their in-office days post-pandemic, it’s vital that time spent in workplaces is as valuable and meaningful as possible.
Activate’s destination marketing programmes not only increase attendance rates; our enlivenment strategies also help create communities that teams want to be a part of, with events they don’t want to miss.
With fluctuations in the working week and unpredictable numbers of people coming to the workplace on any given day, the regular calendar of events and activities organised by an onsite property team now requires a greater cleverness and creativity than ever before, to appeal to staff that may not need to come into the office.
Today, a vital strategy in the destination marketing toolkit is to integrate events online or via an app so that IRL activations perform across both physical and virtual settings; seamlessly combining the home and workplace audiences as they move between locations.
One example of this integrated approach is the recent flower wall activation at Breakspear Park, a Workman-managed business park in Hemel Hempstead set in 16 acres, offering over 300,000 sq. ft of indoor space, with 1,300 employees across multiple international and local companies in a variety of sectors.
The flower wall activation was onsite for four weeks, accompanied by a campaign encouraging occupiers’ employees to take a selfie, upload it to Instagram, and tag #BreakspearPark for a chance to win a four-month subscription to Freddie’s Flowers. In addition, a free Green People organic sunscreen was on offer via QR code to those who downloaded the new Breakspear Park App.
Building workplace community: a feeling of togetherness
The event was designed to drive uptake of the app, encourage engagement with other staff members, to make people smile, capture a moment with colleagues, and bring that feeling of togetherness back again post-pandemic.
Elsewhere, Activate was recently appointed to deliver destination marketing and community engagement at two significant office locations: Spark Foundry, part of the Newcastle Helix tech and science community in Newcastle and the Round Foundry Media Centre including Marshall’s Mill in Leeds.
To get started, the Activate team ran a Spanish Fiesta-themed social at the Marshall’s Mill workplace, which attracted 100 people from the occupier workforce at the Leeds office scheme. Occupiers’ employees were invited to sign up for the event, organised by the Activate destination marketing team. One of the scheme’s restaurants, Bomba, provided tapas and drinks, which were accompanied by themed entertainment and music to add enlivenment. Many attendees stayed for the full three-hour event, saying they loved the community spirit it gave to the scheme.
During the pandemic, people were starved of human interaction, especially in the workplace. Now people are excited to get people back together, so that when they are in the offices, they are learning, developing, and collaborating again, which can have such a positive impact on mental wellbeing.
Activate’s destination marketing programmes form a cornerstone of workplace community-building that extends beyond the professional into the social, and helps people find even more reason to return.
Find out more:
Read more about Activate’s Destination Marketing service.
Read more about our approach to Building Community across our managed portfolio.
Workman has expanded its Activate team with new hires, as demand for Destination Marketing and Placemaking services grows, as reported by Retail Destination.
Specialists in Placemaking and Destination Marketing, the team welcomes Emma Henson in the newly created role of Place Marketing Manager.
Having spent the past 10 years working in marketing within retail property and hospitality, Henson will lead Activate’s Destination Marketing team and develop the service to support Workman’s clients’ destination marketing objectives in the future, across offices and business parks, as well as retail and leisure spaces.
In addition, Tia Gowing joins the Activate team as Marketing Events Administrator, and will support the team’s service and growth, focusing on client reporting and liaison with on-site teams.
Activate celebrates fourth anniversary
Now celebrating its fourth anniversary since launch in 2019, the growing Activate Destination Marketing team manages a client marketing spend in excess of £1.2m.
Producing and publishing more than 3,000 pieces of social content every month, the team generates website traffic of in excess of 1.5m visitors each week. A key focus of the team has been to drive social value benefits to clients through their destination marketing activations on site.
Emma Henson, Place Marketing Manager at Activate, said: “I’m delighted to be leading the Activate Destination Marketing team to the next stage in its evolution, supporting our clients as they look to provide valued places for people, especially as we face the pressures of the continued cost-of-living crisis. In today’s market, where office and retail destinations must not only compete against one another, but also against homes and the screen in everyone’s pocket, I believe that places have a crucial role to play in building community – and uniting people in a common vison.”
Andrew Sparrow, Director of Placemaking at Activate, said: “We are aiming to support asset management objectives by increasing occupier satisfaction and retention levels. There is a competitive market in terms of where businesses now take space, so occupiers often question the added value of each site, and what they and their employees stand to gain from it in terms of community, sustainability, and wellbeing.”
Summerscapes: more than 70% of retail and leisure occupiers at St Christopher’s Place sign up to 6-week destination marketing push.
With glorious weather and a steel band for good measure, the Summerscapes destination marketing campaign – in partnership with Activate – marks a six-week celebration of the summer season welcoming new dishes, offers and shopping experiences, as well as the opportunity to get creative with lunchtime art classes. A chic little corner of London, just off of busy Oxford Street, St Christopher’s Place is filled with artisans and heritage brands. More than 70% of the scheme’s retail and leisure occupiers have collaborated with the campaign this year. Visitors can toast the blue skies with Cote Brasserie’s summery new floral cocktail, the Fleur Spritz, complete with St Germain elderflower liqueur. Or they could shop ‘til they drop to complete their perfect holiday wardrobe at Platform and Whistles.
Activate’s Spanish Fiesta-themed social at the Marshall Mills and Round Foundry Estate in Holbeck Urban Village attracted 100 people from the occupier workforce at the Leeds office scheme.
Occupiers’ employees were invited to sign up for the event, organised by the Activate destination marketing team.
One of the scheme’s restaurants, Bomba, provided tapas and drinks, which were accompanied by themed entertainment and music to add enlivenment.
Many attendees stayed for the full three-hour event, saying they loved the community spirit it gave to the scheme, and that the event brightened up an otherwise dreary Tuesday lunchtime.
Find out more on Activate’s destination marketing at workplaces.
In a hybrid-working world, occupiers risk workforces becoming disjointed and isolated, which means building workplace community is even more vital. So how can destination marketing be used to bring people together?
Before the pandemic, destination marketing in the workplace could be aimed at a captive audience – people who were coming to the workplace regardless of the occupier experience. Today, it’s a very different challenge, with fluctuations in the working week and unpredictable numbers of people coming to the workplace on any given day. While there are peaks and troughs – witness the Wednesday uplift and the Friday desert – the regular calendar of events and activities organised by an onsite property team now requires a greater cleverness and creativity than ever before, to appeal to staff that may not have to come to the office.
“We’ve taken a different tack,” says Dina Mistry, Marketing, Communications and Events Manager at Breakspear Park, a Workman-managed business park in Hemel Hempstead set in 16 acres, offering over 300,000 sq. ft of indoor space, with 1,300 employees across multiple international and local companies in a variety of sectors.
“We are no longer planning single-day events because we see a spike for a few hours of uplift in employee engagement, and then the event is over. Our focus is now on growing our community back over a sustained period, with events and activities running over longer phases, and culminating in the download of our new app,” explains Dina.
Pre-pandemic, the site had a very strong following in terms of the base of people that were engaged with its busy #ParkLife enlivenment agenda where the plethora of #ParkLife events have included an Ice Bar, Halloween Pumpkin Picking, and a Silent Cinema, all communicated via subscription to email newsletters and a closed Facebook group. The pumpkin event generated positive regional PR and increased the site’s closed Facebook group sign-up rating.
However, the post-pandemic number of employees engaged via email or the Facebook group have reduced to 60% of the usual figure due to factors such as a turnover of occupier staff, and new companies arriving at the park. The aim of the new app, explains Dina, is to highlight key awareness dates, recycling initiatives, book swaps, and plastic-free ideas, with the key message that “you don’t have to be physically in the office to still feel a part of the Park Life Community at Breakspear Park.”
“The challenge now is to get out there with our #ParkLife campaign and regularly communicate with people so that they can see what we’re doing for them. We’re giving occupiers’ employees things to do that their direct employer cannot offer, including freebies, central places to be engaged onsite, and encouraging their own wellbeing,” Dina says.
One example is a flower wall activation, onsite for four weeks of July, accompanied by a campaign encouraging occupiers’ employees to take a selfie, upload it to Instagram, and tag #BreakspearPark for a chance to win a four-month subscription to Freddie’s Flowers. In addition, a free Green People organic sunscreen is on offer via QR code to those who download the new Breakspear Park App. The event is designed to encourage engagement with other staff members, to make people smile, capture a moment with colleagues, and bring that feeling of togetherness back again post-pandemic.
And during August, the onsite team organised an internationally themed event featuring live music from a Caribbean-style steel band, American Country music, and Indian music, along with outdoor food pop-ups. The event made use of the site’s 16-acre gardens and ran for three days – a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday staggered over three weeks to enable people who may be away during August to take part.
“Our goal is that people coming to work here feel that they are part of the community, which is #Park Life, so this summer campaign is an opportunity to network and meet people. The #ParkLife agenda means that Breakspear Park is not just a workplace; it’s a place where the community is formed, and everyone plays a part in its success,” Dina says.
While business parks are not often in the most convenient city centre locations, the culture of wellbeing, lifestyle opportunities, leisure provision and collaboration opportunities with other occupiers speaks of an increasing awareness from properties owners as to the kind of strategies their onsite property management teams should be offering. The best onsite property management teams create inclusive, supportive work environments, unifying the commercial goals of the landlord with the realisation of a better work-life balance for individuals through the range of activities on offer for those onsite.
As Andrew Sparrow, Director of Placemaking in Workman’s Activate team explains: “We are aiming to achieve asset management objectives by increasing occupier satisfaction and retention levels. There is a competitive market in terms of where businesses now take space, so occupiers will question the added value of each site, and what they and their employees stand to gain from it in terms of community and wellbeing.”
The #ParkLife concept at Breakspear Park, launched by Dina and the team in 2018, has grown from infancy into a value-adding proposition that helps the site stand out from competitor workspace solutions for its heightened employee benefits and wellbeing solutions.
Entertainment is combined with the realisation of a better work-life balance for individuals through a range of regular activities, such as a health screening programme and fitness studio classes, creating inclusive, supportive working communities, in unison with the commercial goals of the property. For example, the #ParkLife programme has included events around National Relaxation Week, offering up to 800 30-minute massages to employees on-site, as well as a Health Screenings Programme, including free Diabetes Screening, that serves as an effective employee benefit and wellbeing option.
There is also a desire for business parks to reach out to the communities around them; to work with schools, charities, community groups and the local council to generate routes into employment at the site. “It’s about connecting people and building pathways within the community,” says Andrew. “We call it destination marketing, but what we are doing is unifying the goals of the asset with the goals of the occupiers and their employees.”
Read more about our approach to Building Community across our managed portfolio.
Across the Workman-managed portfolio, comprising more than 4,000 properties, our property management teams deliver great occupier experience through strategic engagement programmes and regular communication.
Here we meet some of the experts who lead our work to create a sense of place and community, particularly vital within multi-occupier buildings.
Richard Hart, Head of Property Management, UK and Europe
Having joined the firm through its renowned Graduate Scheme in 2007, Richard became a Partner in 2014. Today he’s responsible for the delivery of the property management service on behalf of both UK and European property funds, private clients, and investors including: LGIM Real Assets, CBRE Investment Management, CapitaLand and Segro. Richard works closely with clients to help maximise asset performance and value through a robust management strategy, with both ESG and customer experience at its core.
In recognising the importance of occupier experience in today’s commercial property spaces, Richard says: “We strive to meet the needs of modern occupiers, by ensuring that all properties in the Workman-managed portfolio offer stimulating, healthy environments that support occupiers’ physical, mental, and social wellbeing in an environmentally responsible way, while creating a sense of place and togetherness within the local community.”
Eleanor Newton, Senior Associate
A highly experienced property manager, Eleanor works closely with several prime office and campus sites within the Workman portfolio, including Westside in Hemel Hempstead and Republic in London. She uses her experience to build partnerships between landlords and occupiers through enhanced property management, focusing on operational excellence, wellbeing, and occupier experience to create environments which support personal and professional demands. Eleanor is also well-versed in the use of smart-tech and occupier-engagement apps to achieve building efficiencies and environmental targets.
Eleanor says: “Occupier engagement holds the key to successful and sustainable property management. Building strong connections with occupiers to drive change in how buildings are occupied is critical in the journey to Net Zero. To manage buildings safely and efficiently, it is more important than ever to understand occupancy patterns. Today, occupiers are looking to their landlords to meet their changing expectations, which landlords and property managers can only be aware of by working closely with them.”
Richard Price, Welcome Community Manager
Community manager Richard works to devise occupier experience and engagement and experience strategies for Workman’s Welcome portfolio. Working closely with the Welcome team and all front-of-house personnel, Richard leads communication and feedback programmes for individual assets and their occupiers, while delivering services tailored to their needs.
Richard says: “Our role is all about human connection; understanding exactly what occupiers want. In some buildings, this may be the delivery of a jam-packed programme of lunchtime events or bespoke wellbeing initiatives. In other buildings it may mean collaborating with occupiers to implement social initiatives with the local community, or we may be delivering any combination of these. Our ultimate goal is that occupiers get exactly what they want from their space and service, delivered seamlessly.”
Monika Newton, Partner
Passionate about customer service, Monika began her career in hotel management, a grounding which formed the bedrock of her drive to provide exceptional service for occupiers through Welcome, the Workman Offices service. Specifically designed to enhance the quality of the working environment and experience required by the modern office occupier, the Welcome team provides the highest level of customer service.
Monika says: “There is an interesting dynamic today in the landlord and occupier relationship; and with heightening competition between office landlords, the occupier experience in workspaces often becomes a deciding factor. Exceeding the expectations of occupiers directly contributes to our clients’ investment performance through improved occupier retention. We continually strive to evolve the customer experience, bridging the gap between traditional offices, flexible workspaces, and the home experience. The true point of difference now lies in collaborating with customers to co-create attractive workplace communities, which sit somewhere between a hotel and home.”
Andrew Sparrow, Director of Activate, Workman’s Placemaking team
Having previously managed the master planning and delivery of retail, office and mixed-use schemes across the country, including the Spitalfields Market Estate, Andrew has delivered a plethora of placemaking projects for a wide range of investors, developers, and local authorities. He advises clients on commercially viable solutions for transforming spaces into destinations that deliver dynamic occupier experiences. As Director of Activate, Workman’s Placemaking, Destination Marketing and Customer Experience team, Andrew is a specialist in enlivenment and placemaking strategy.
Andrew says: “Creating quality places where people want to live, work, and play is at the heart of the Activate service. The ongoing satisfaction and enjoyment of people utilising spaces is our top priority, so we are constantly working to generate spaces that promote people’s health, happiness, and wellbeing.”
Read more about our approach to Building Community across our managed portfolio.