Taking a new look Metrocentre to new heights
As one of the UK's top shopping and leisure destinations, Metrocentre, Gateshead was taken over by Sovereign Centros in October 2020 and since then, they've been through a period of transformation.
The Problem
Metrocentre underwent a complete rebrand to cement it as a best in class go-to destination for all the family: a place to meet and enjoy engaging and innovative experiences, and ultimately become a place to make new family memories. A new website was needed to accurately reflect their new positioning.
The Solution
The new website had several key UX objectives to meet. Users needed to be able to find relevant information as quickly as possible, and discover other related content whilst on the site, improving time on site and pages per session. The site also needed to allow users to define their experience on the website based on the type of shopper they are - e.g., visiting for a day out or popping in quickly. Finally, the website should surface the breadth of the offer at the centre, and allow users to find the opening and closing times quickly and easily.
All of these objectives meant that our off-the-shelf digital place marketing solution, DestinationCore Pro, was the perfect fit for this shopping centre.
Metrocentre’s target audiences include families (who stay longer in general), local workers (using the centre for convenience), affluent shoppers (due to the designer brands at the centre) and destination visitors (coming for a day trip to use the leisure facilities). The new site had to work incredibly hard to offer the right information to the right audience.
This was achieved by the utilisation of our core modules such as the brand carousel and global categories within the business directory (to serve content grouped into interest types to encourage users to discover and do more) and also the in-centre interactive map to join up the customer experience. Content from the map is now shared onto the website and events, offers and news stories from the new site are being shared onto the “on location” digital wayfinding screens for visitors to experience.
If you're looking to design and develop a new website, contact us today. Let's do something brilliant together.
