We all know Altex România, but do we know who built all of their shops? If you guessed Cometex, you have done your homework when it comes to Romanian entrepreneurs. This is how their story started, but what about now? They have developed a national retail park network around Romania that includes at the moment 17 locations where global brands and local businesses contribute to the shopping experience of locals every single day.

Cometex’s promise is that they build sustainable shopping experiences connected with the local community. The goal was simple: to show up online in a way that sticks and make Cometex the place people want to go back to.

HOW CAN B2C CONTENT MARKETING BRING RESULTS

It was only natural that creative content marketing with a lot of storytelling and paid media were the winning tactics for this brief so we got to work. And maybe now you are thinking – okai, but you said they have locations all over the country – exactly :D. We were convinced that in order to connect Cometex with the people from the city we needed to show them we are part of their community and we are actually here for them. This is how „#PrindețiDragDeOrașulVostru” (#FallInLoveWithYourCity) came to life. 

In Romania, we have a passion for being forever dissatisfied and complain about every little thing, especially when talking about the city we live in. Drop the question ‘what do you think about this city?’ at a balkan dinner table and you won’t get out so soon. The majority of the cities Cometex is a part of are cities where the local economy does not always prosper, so we knew that people had many mixed feelings regarding their city. Did we expect them to be 100% satisfied after this? No way! The thing is, when you are 10% happier you are not 100% angry anymore :D. What if the city you live in might actually give you reasons to feel fulfilled?

The project had two main pillars: 1. The city and 2. The retail park. 

Each month, a team of two (the content creator and the project manager) was travelling in a city from Romania and for 3 days in a row it was focused on creating content. All. Day. Long. Because that was our content plan for the following month and it covered Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Linkedin and Blog.

For pillar 1, we walked the streets of the city taking interviews with the locals.The objective was to visit what they recommended to us. So, for example, in Satu Mare people recommended us the local theatre, there we were a couple hours later talking with one of the actors. Or if people from Turnu Margurele told us to visit the beach, we did not even flinch and we were there. That sent a clear message, we are Cometex and we are part of your city.

For pillar 2, we created  content with their retailers. What took this pillar on another level were the challenges that gave people prizes in money if they were participating. The best example is the divorce outfit challenge we created for the brand Sinsay that generated hundreds of thousands of views and lots of interactions on the pages. That sent a clear message, we are Cometex and we create shopping experiences for you to love your city even more. Our favorite line from the clients was ‘Ohh…do I really get the prize? I have never won something in my life!!’

Very important! We had a filming plan for every brand, we had attraction research for every city and a lot of the activities were planned weeks ahead.

WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

In Huși we met Tony and he told us the story of how he opened his local restaurant that became a love mark for the city. A couple of months later, Cometex organised an event in all of their locations for The Union Day where people could enjoy delicious traditional food and dances. Guess who cooked the food in Huși? That is right!! Tony!! 

Engagement and awareness were one of the most important KPIs we were looking for, so you can imagine us screaming in the agency when a video blew up at Cometex. The Facebook page has almost 5 million in video views, the TikTok account will soon reach 100.000 likes and the articles written on the blog about the cities occupy high positions in search engines. 

And because this case study is written by a project manager, I want to close by pointing out that good planning and management can in many cases beat an army of people that say ‘We will see when we get there’. When we got there we saw our planning work for weeks after that. 😀

Kudos!

Digitalee Service(s): Content Marketing, Community Management, SEO, Project & Process Management, Paid Media, Data Analysis & Insights
Client Name: Cometex
Client Industry: Construction in retail