Story by Myriam Beaugé

The NEC in Birmingham, UK, was teeming with activity this past September, as more than 350 exhibitors set up camp for three days to promote their properties and services to visitors attending the National Venue Show. Among them was thecentre:mk, whose team made the trip from Milton Keynes to set up a stand at the NEC in the hopes of maximising awareness of the centre’s brand as well as highlight the promotional and commercial opportunities it can offer businesses.
"The purpose of our presence at this show was to raise awareness of thecentre:mk and, more specifically, our 1,800-square-foot exhibition area, Middleton Hall, as a promotional space [and] also to be recognised within the venue hire sector," said Robert Goodman, centre director.
Thecentre:mk is among the growing group of retail destinations that have recognised the potential of sponsorships and commercial partnerships as revenue generators and guarantors of a healthy bottom line, particularly within a retail climate where promotional budgets are shrinking and marketing programmes are under intense scrutiny.
Thecentre:mk is aggressively chasing commercial partnerships, offering up its audience of 30 million annual visitors against a backdrop of retail stores, cafés and restaurants, in exchange for incremental income.
One of the centre’s most compelling arguments is without a doubt Middleton Hall, hailed as the only integrated exhibition hall within a shopping centre in the UK and a space that has gained local notoriety as the setting of large scale events, such as motor shows, wedding fairs and award-winning Christmas shows that attract as many as one million visitors per week each December.
"Given its unique location, size and high traffic area, Middleton Hall is an ideal venue as it offers exhibitors a ready stream of pedestrian traffic within a relaxed, safe and secure indoor setting," the centre tells prospective clients.
"It [is] an ideal venue to reach the average man in the street for product launches, product sampling and road shows. The length of the arcades and the space available make the shopping centre ideal for short and long term mall promotions."
The letting of space within Middleton Hall is only one of many aspects of thecentre:mk’s income generation strategy.
Using "The Place to be Seen" as its tagline, the centre runs several commercialisation schemes, including RMUs for sellers of specialist products, partnerships surrounding events that target young audiences, advertising venues onsite and online, Christmas programmes, products display packages for the automotive industry, and FMCG sampling and experiential opportunities throughout the property.
Each major platform is headed up by a commercialisation specialist who works with the clients to find the best promotional mix to meet their needs.
"We reached a large amount of potential customers, grew our database and generated an increase in sales that moved us from third to first within the sales region," Avon said in its testimonial.
It is precisely this potential, sustained by a loyal shopping clientele, that is pushing an increasing number of shopping centres to spend less time developing elaborate marketing programmes that are high in shopper entertainment value but low in sales productivity to focus more of their attention on commercialisation.
It is a fact of which ICSC is very conscious, and it’s why the organisation has reworked the content of its marketing-focused fall conference to incorporate more leasing and income-generation focused topics.
"The reality is that, at the moment, there is great debate on what the role of a shopping centre marketer should be," noted Gregg McCort, ICSC director of education when he spoke to Tactics Europe about the evolution of the marketing function.
"Some people think it should be primarily temporary leasing, while others say sponsorships and other forms of income-generating activities. Some companies don’t really have a clear answer. One thing is certain, for marketers to move up within a development company’s corporate structure, they’ll need to get more involved in leasing activities. Things are different from a few decades ago, when companies had more money for marketing. The competition is more intense now, so companies are looking to generate revenue."
Not everyone is pleased about this shift, and some marketers feel like they still need to concentrate on honing their more traditional marketing skills because they are still responsible for a centre’s typical marketing endeavours—from special events to sales promotions to advertising campaigns.
For others, however, the new concept of productivity-focused marketing has sunk in.
"These income-generating activities now represent between 50 and 60 percent of my job," said Mark Bachus, SCMD and marketing manager at King of Prussia in Pennsylvania, USA.
"[Commercialisation] was certainly already a focus for the centre when I first started here in May of 2005. However, by the beginning of 2006, it became a main focus for the owners and management. It’s about adding revenue to the bottom line and increasing the value of the centre. These sponsorship and partnership deals can be so lucrative that it’s hard to stay away."
Kind of Prussia has certainly been very successful is striking big commercialisation deals. The mall, like thecentre:mk, has established a roster of commercialisation inventory, or mall scapes as it likes to call them, and which it attempts to book year-round.
It’s easy to see why.
The centre’s 16 overhead banner locations bring in $8,000 (€5,447 or £3,888) monthly per location. That’s a potential of more than $1.5 million (€1.02 milion or £729,000) annually in incremental revenue.
The overhead banner spots are always booked during the usual peak seasons—March/April, May/June and November/December. The centre’s goal now is to have most of the banners and other mall scapes such as bulk head signage, common areas and special event rosters booked 80 percent of the year instead of 50 percent of the year.
In essence, King of Prussia has created a commercialisation blueprint of its property and then tries to sell some of the space to promotional partners.
While footfall alone is very enticing to partners, Bachus still has to put effort into educating potential customers on the merits of the various mall scapes.
"As marketing managers, we walk through the shopping centre and see space like bulk head above the main entrance escalators as being very valuable, and yet at the beginning I couldn’t give it away. Some people just wanted something else," Bachus recalled.
"Our most popular scapes are our overhead banner programme (even for our own retailers), door clings and event space in our various courts. I can generate as much as $8,000 per day on average in additional income, right up to $20,000 (€13,617 or £9,719) on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays."
Bachus has been telling companies for years that they should be in shopping centres to generate revenue, that centres offer a great audience. Well, corporations are beginning to pay attention.
With Internet-based technology being so intimately tied to consumer behaviour and lifestyles, King of Prussia has extended its mall scape concept to its Website, where commercial partners can place banner advertisements or logos with links to their own sites, as support elements for their onsite presence.
Bachus and the rest of the King of Prussia team have researched several sites and tapped other resources to come up with Web pricing structures that are attractive to corporate clients and on par with the going rates within the industry.
One company that was keen on an onsite/online combo package is Jefferson University Hospitals.
The group, whose banner ad can be seen on the King of Prussia homepage, has signed a one-year deal to use eight column wraps to promote its group of surgeons.
"Each column presents a different surgeon, the idea being that if shoppers feel good about the person they see in the mall they like to visit, then they’ll think of Jefferson when the time comes for them to find a surgeon," Bachus explained.
It’s not exactly your typical soft-drink sampling in centre court or small makeover at the temporary cosmetics kiosk. However, it only underscores the true potential of shopping centre-based promotion for products and services of all kinds.
Translink, the brand name that represents integrated public transport operations of Citybus, Northern Ireland Railways and Ulsterbus, launched its "Where Would You Like to Go?" road show this past 7th September at Erneside Shopping Centre in Enneskillen. Translink plans to visit another 15 centres before wrapping things up at Bow Street Mall in Lisburn on 23rd March 2008.
At each road show, Translink posts travel advisors who interact with the public to present the group’s services, timetables and ticket information. To heighten consumer interest, Translink representatives encourage shoppers to stop by the display and complete an entry form for a competition to win prizes with high perceived values, such as iPods, weekend breaks to Dublin or Scotland, and thousands of Translink-branded products, including pens, mini-radios and bags.
Hammerson shopping centres in France even use the corporate mascot, Hammy, to help ensure that commercial partners get their money’s worth in exposure and consumer interaction.
Hammerson provides dedicated promotional spaces where Hammy will stop shoppers passing by, talk about the clients’ brands, hand out promotional material, present special offers and even guide shoppers right to the store front, in the case of onsite clients.
At Glendale Galleria in California, the Glendale Adventis Medical Center sponsored the Healthy Habits for Healthy Living children’s play area, lending its name to a space where little ones can stay active by sliding on celery, flying a plane or crawling through a soccer ball, while their parents look on.
For Tracey Lachaine, marketing manager for Garden City Shopping Centre (Garden City) in Winnipeg, Canada, teaming up with community and commercial partners was about making an impression on shoppers during the Christmas season, the busiest time of the year, despite limited resources.
"The reality was that we had a limited budget and we still needed to strengthen our brand as well as promote our new gift card programme, which was [going to launch] on 26th November, just in time for Christmas," she explained.
In line with its CSR mandate and the desire to give back to its community, Garden City approached the Children’s Wish Foundation. Together, the partners developed a programme that would engage shoppers and also help Elena, a five-year old girl with a complex heart condition, realise her dream of taking a family vacation to Disney World.
Needing to come up with prizes to encourage shoppers to help raise funds for Elena, but no real budget to finance them, Garden City struck a promotional deal with some of its own retailers.
Sears, Canadian Tire and Winners each donated $2,500 (€1,700 or £1,216) in gift cards, and other retailers donated prizes worth up to $1,500 (€1,022 or £729) each.
These contributions, which guaranteed partners valuable exposure through marketing collaterals and onsite advertising, enabled the centre to create a Spin and Win promotion.
In it, shoppers will have an opportunity to donate $2 (€1.35 or £1) to Elena’s cause for a chance to spin the wheel for instant prizes and receive a ballot to enter to win a $2,500 (€1,700 or £1,216) centre gift card. In all, there are $20,000 (€13,500 or £1,000) in prizes to be won.
"By breaking the prizes down into $5, $10 and $25 increments, we are hoping to increase traffic for the centre overall, while also giving our merchants significant exposure and the opportunity for increased sales," the centre explained.
Garden City beefed up its budget further by teaming up with local radio station, Hot 103 FM.
In addition to offering the centre an added-value radio campaign, the sponsor will also host live remotes from Garden City’s Centre Court on 8th, 15th and 22nd December.
On the final day, Elena and her family will talk about the young girl’s wish during the first live remote, and Elena will be back on the 22nd to choose the grand prize winner, with all event proceeds going to The Children’s Wish Foundation.
Lachaine said she hoped to raise $5,000 (€3,400 or £2,500) toward Elena’s trip.
King of Prussia also made the most of its partnership with the NBC 10 broadcasting network to share in the cost of the Holiday 10 programme, which provides funding to 10 non-profit organisations from the Greater Philadelphia area.
Launched in 2006, the programme extends grants of $3,000 (€2,050 or £1,460) to each charity throughout the holiday season.
The Christmas sponsorship at West Edmonton Mall (WEM) in Alberta, Canada, is more focused on entertainment and came out of the centre’s relationship with Travel Alberta—a partnership that was born in May 2006 when the organisation and Edmonton Tourism used their resources and deal-making experience to convince the producers of Christmas in Wonderland to use WEM as a location for the film.
More than a year later, the SantaVille set, renamed Travel Alberta SantaVille, has now become the new home for Santa at WEM.
In fact, Kimberly Evans, the centre’s media and PR coordinator, said the set would be used for the next two to three years.
As an added perk, Sophia Holik and Brandon Yaggey, the stunt doubles for the characters of Mary and Brian from Christmas in Wonderland, were invited to help welcome Santa to the centre.
As for Travel Alberta, it not only gets its name on the grotto, but also space to erect its own display, just outside SantaVille.
That’s where the organisation will have its direct interaction with shoppers and give away its own holiday cards—another little perk that visitors might enjoy without WEM having had to spend any money.
While this kind of promotional tie-in may actually work in WEM’s favour, as it enables the centre to offer an experience that is unique to the property, an intense focus on commercialisation could eventually get some properties in trouble with shoppers, who may soon start to feel like the big marketing machine is chasing them wherever they go, no matter what time of day or night.
"I don’t think we have reached the saturation point yet, and we do have rules that our commercial partners have to abide," Bachus said.
"We are a family centre, so we approve all of the graphics to be displayed on our property to ensure that they won’t offend anyone."
How far the centre will go in adding more locations to its list of commercial mall scapes remains to be seen.
For now King of Prussia, like other centres, is enjoying the health benefits that commercialisation programmes can bring to its bottom line and the prospects of sustained growth in the foreseeable future. It won’t be long before such schemes become the common relief from the budget squeeze.