How TRO used experiential to help Unite Students reach staggering sales

The challenge:

To evolve Unite Students’ overarching campaign to create an experiential concept that would help boost sales for the 2023/2024 academic year, drive UGC and position them as the obvious choice for student accommodation.

The solution:

Using the data, behaviours and learnings from 2021, we delivered a customer-tailored experience never attempted by Unite before called Donut Drop.

Our bespoke events that utilised modular event kits, included a ‘donut train’ (sushi style delivery mechanic) as the hero centrepiece, DJ’s spinning the tunes, branded pinball machines, donut trampolines, social mechanics and a strong team of TRO brand ambassadors to help keep the queuing masses entertained.

Our smart activation plan – with a hub and spoke approach designed to launch the 23/24 sales campaign nationally with a blast and drive sales momentum – saw us visit 18 cities across the UK, from Aberdeen to Cardiff. 7 core locations were identified where we would deliver the headline-grabbing larger-scale activations to support priority markets, with a further 48 hub locations receiving a ‘lighter’ version of the experience, enabling scalability.

In just 8 days, we delivered 55 events across the UK, distributing just under 38,000 sugary rings of goodness to the students. Even more impressively, our Donut Drop campaign resulted in staggering sales.