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Long-time client the GMRENCEN, through its property management company CBRE, tasked Franco with developing a program to 1) engage tenants; 2) utilize the retail space inside General Motors’ world headquarters and 3) highlight the GMRENCEN’s commitment to Detroit. Holiday Headquarters was born in 2015 and Franco has led an integrated marketing campaign around the three-week holiday pop-up shopping event featuring local Detroit vendors at the GMRENCEN ever since.

Franco handled everything from design and advertising, to securing vendors and promoting the event. Franco designed fliers, signage and traditional and digital advertisements as well as developed media materials and secured media coverage. We promoted social media content on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and partnered with local social media influencers to highlight the event. We worked with CBRE to create and maintain a unique Holiday Headquarters webpage on GMRENCEN.com and developed a blog promoting the event on the site. In addition, we secured geofenced ads targeting the GMRENCEN and coordinated with CBRE to include event information in their weekly e-newsletter.

The integrated marketing campaign resulted in a 1,280 percent increase in blog traffic, 307 percent increase in media placements and a 408 percent increase in organic social media impressions year over year. In the most recent campaign, social media influencers posted 53 times and earned engagements from more than 250 social media users, reaching an audience of more than 77,000 people. The geofenced ads and promoted social posts earned more than 650 clicks and the e-newsletter averaged 695 opens per email, a 25 percent open rate.

Under Franco’s leadership, the program has grown from 15 vendors in 2015 to more than 30 in 2017 with double the retail space.