King’s Cross, London’s creative neighbourhood, has unveiled its 2022 Christmas brand campaign, Shop Off-Piste This Christmas - the first to launch since King’s Cross appointed ELVIS as its lead creative agency for all consumer marketing and brand activity earlier this year.
The objective of the brief was to present the neighbourhood as London’s must-visit Christmas shopping destination to those from across London and the home counties, while also reaching King’s Cross office workers, residents, Central St Martin’s students and the local community.
The resulting campaign was based around a key insight: that Christmas shopping can be an overwhelming and stressful experience and that people are seeking more meaning and connection at this time of year.
Shop Off-Piste This Christmas aims to position King’s Cross as the antidote to the ordinary, stressful Christmas shopping experience. At King’s Cross people can glide from shop to shop in a traffic-free oasis, away from the hustle and bustle of other London shopping destinations.
A series of executions use the visual device of mountain peaks at sunrise - spliced with the rooftops of Coal Drop Yards - to bring to life the magical feeling of discovering King’s Cross this Christmas.
The campaign activity includes out-of-home, digital-out-of-home, social, digital, a print partnership with Metro and several on-site activations.
Media planning and buying has been managed by The Media People, PR by Four Communications, social and eCRM activity by Garden State and site dressing and event management by Kit & Caboodle. Photography is by Lily Eiger, who attended Central St Martin’s, part of the King’s Cross neighbourhood.
Chrissy Cullen, King’s Cross Place Marketing Director, said: “With traffic-free areas, carefully curated shops and plenty of great opportunities to meet, eat and drink, King’s Cross offers an extraordinary environment where Christmas shoppers can while away the hours. Our first campaign with ELVIS positions King’s Cross as the perfect antidote to stressful, impersonal Christmas shopping, bringing the magic of shopping back to life.”
Neale Horrigan, Executive Creative Director, ELVIS, added: “Christmas shopping has lost its spark, tainted by crowds and queues. It’s no wonder that this time of the year can sometimes be the most stressful. With this campaign, we wanted to create a campaign that encouraged people to explore beyond the well beaten tracks other shopping destinations, making fresh tracks at King’s Cross along the way.
“Drawing on the creativity of the space, we wanted to develop a visually arresting campaign, shot by talent with a connection to the estate.”
King’s Cross comprises 67 acres of businesses, dining and destination retail, including Samsung KX, Tom Dixon, & Other Stories, Cos, Jigsaw, Nike and Space NK; as well as a vibrant cultural scene. Its flagship shopping area, Coal Drops Yard offers 100,000 square feet of shops, bars and restaurants within a pair of reimagined Victorian coal buildings. The estate also has 27 acres of open, public space and is home to leading international and UK companies including Google, Meta, Sony Music, Universal Music and Nike.
