How visual anthropology helped build a shopping centre

Brand

Landsec

Innovation & Design

Project Types

ETHNOGRAPHY

The challenge

One of Europe’s largest urban retail developments, Trinity Leeds, was planned for the centre of Leeds - but was Leeds ready? At the time, our client Landsec had a few “personas” – which didn’t remind us of anyone we knew from Leeds. Without this deep understanding of the local community, how could the development really deliver on it's ambition to be a winning destination?

Our approach

To support the positioning in a way that reflected the local community, we felt some personas and focus groups wouldn’t work.

Influencer identification We hired local photographers to photograph the people of Leeds to drive people into a closed group – Styling Leeds.

Community building We built a community of 2,500 tastemakers to a closed Facebook group, and regularly published the professional photographs of locals to grow the network.

Local meet-ups Using the community we organized regular meet-ups at local bars and hotspots to dig deeper into the needs of the community and relay to Landsec.

Co-creation sessions New ideas for retailers, restaurants, experiential concepts and digital applications were then tested with select parts of the community.

This method allowed us to bridge the development's ambitions with the needs of the community in an open and transparent way.

Results

Our insights supported the integration of a concept food area, hosting both permanent tenants and rotating "pop-up" vendors; an Everyman Cinemas – and its own Apple Store. Awarded the best designed shopping centre in the world in at the International Council for Shopping Centres (ICSC) VIVA. It was voted one of the UK's 'Coolest Brands'.

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