Pump Up the PR Volume

Make headline news—without breaking the bank

by Bryony Parkin

Of all the tools available to shopping centre marketers, PR seems to be the most hit and miss. However, done properly, it can turn a mediocre retail scheme into a success. The key is to play to your strengths and remain focussed on your goals. It sounds straightforward, and in most cases it is. Shopping centres have all of the required assets that form the foundations of good PR campaigns:
• They are generally not considered to be commercial entities by local and regional media;
• They have open spaces in which to hold events or promotions;
• Many are at the heart of the community;
• They all have a vital, and underused, commodity—footfall; and
• They are often seen as barometers of the economic health of a community.
With these building blocks in place, all you need are creative solutions in order to maximise the effectiveness of your PR campaigns. The really clever ideas cost little or no money to implement. It is easy to create publicity by importing celebrities or spending a fortune on singing and dancing events, but, at the end of the day, all these programmes really don’t say anything about what your centre has to offer shoppers regularly. And yet, that is exactly what the focus of effective PR should be. Your relationship with your centre’s marketing communications agency is very important in this regard.
Your agency needs to truly understand what it is that you are trying to achieve with your PR efforts, and be able to consistently provide you with high-quality creative concepts. This process can either make or break a campaign. I feel that it is best to let my instructed agency brainstorm a whole host of concepts and encourage it to present all sorts of ideas, no matter how off-the-wall.
In addition to this creative relationship, you have to be able to rely on your agency’s media relations ability. A good agency will be able to judge the tone and style of all the relevant media and adjust a news release or story outline accordingly. Only then will you maximise the resultant publicity.
These points are demonstrated with some of the work undertaken at The Brewery Shopping and Leisure Park in Romford. The scheme is promoted as a fun and lively destination that has an eclectic mix of major high-street retailers and leisure providers.
One of the first projects undertaken by the instructed agency, PMW Communications, was an unusual take on a key trading period: Valentine’s Day. Being based in the centre of Romford, we decided to begin a search for "Romford’s Least Romantic Man". Long-suffering partners and wives were invited to tell us what their man’s worst habit was, followed by an insight into his present-buying faux pas.
The nominations began to flow in and we were soon inundated with responses. The eventual winner stood accused of biting his fingernails and using them to pick his teeth, whilst his worst present was a can of Impulse body spray for Christmas. The winner was then given a new suit, flowers, chocolates, champagne, beauty therapy treatment and a week's worth of sessions with a life coach, prior to being made available to members of the media for a photo shoot. The ‘new’ man was photographed with a life-sized image of how he looked prior to his transformation. His wife then joined him for a champagne reception before enjoying a meal for two and a trip to the cinema.
This campaign was exceptionally successful with pre- and post-activity publicity in local and regional press titles, as well as interviews on two radio stations. Resultant publicity communicated the variety of retail and leisure destinations through the prizes offered whilst maintaining the fun and lively feel of The Brewery.
The initiative also demonstrated the value of ‘creating’ a celebrity from your own community. This is important bearing in mind that most regional and local media have a remit to cover human-interest stories from within their catchment.
The cost of the campaign amounted to very little, encompassing just the consultancy fees, creative design and printing of the campaign leaflet and poster.
Sometimes it can be beneficial to tie in with a particular media owner in order to publicise certain projects. Again, it helps that shopping centres are not considered to be too commercially orientated, although it helps to always think about what the media is going to get out of the deal. For instance, immediately after the ‘Least Romantic’ promotion, we developed an ‘Access All Areas’ concept to create excellent photos of people enjoying themselves at the The Brewery.
Quite simply, we offered the local newspaper group the opportunity to give away a VIP evening for four people. The winners were joined by notorious party animals from the media, including the breakfast presenter from radio station Essex FM. The VIP evening included champagne and nibbles, a private game of 10-pin bowling, a red carpet trip to the cinema with champagne reception, followed by a meal and more drinking at the Australian-themed Outback restaurant before the evening was finished off with cocktails. The winners and media left having had a thoroughly enjoyable evening.
The beauty of this type of promotion is that you can negotiate a guaranteed level of publicity prior to the event taking place. Therefore, if you sometimes experience difficulty in obtaining prizes from your tenants, you have a reasonable carrot to dangle before them.
PR has become an essential marketing tool for The Brewery over the last couple of years, and it has proved to be useful in more than one area. As part of The Brewery’s commitment to the development of Romford as a destination, a portion of the centre’s marketing budget is allocated to the Joint Marketing Committee and Romford Revival groups.
These groups are chaired by Havering Borough Council and attended by the three (yes three!) main shopping schemes, as well as other retail destinations, including the local market. It was important for the marketing team at The Brewery to offer its expertise and experience in PR and publicity to the groups.
Romford Market, for one, is a hive of activity, selling excellent fresh fish, fruit and vegetables. The area was considered to be a great asset to Romford, but the changing attitudes and buying patterns of society meant that fewer and fewer people were making use of the fresh produce.
The Brewery marketing team tabled an idea to host cooking demonstrations within the market to educate shoppers about how to prepare and cook the wide variety of produce available. Fortunately, a member of the team had recently worked with a celebrity chef who was used to performing live cooking demonstrations and who also came with his own portable kitchen.
The initiative was pre-promoted by offering a media owner the opportunity to find two assistants for the chef, and a full itinerary of activity was developed.
The chef arrived and took the media on a tour of the market, explaining how to test various produce for freshness. The kitchen was set up and two cooking demonstrations were completed. The chef was then taken on a tour around Romford which included serving in a local Pie and Mash shop, signing books in WHSmith and preparing deserts in a restaurant at The Brewery. Copies of the recipes were signed and handed out to the public to finish the day off.
Numerous excellent photographic opportunities were created during the day, all of which were consistent with the event’s goals.
Here are other simple ways to create low-cost and publicity driven PR campaigns:
• Speak to your tenants and ask them to donate prizes. It’s an excellent way to communicate your tenant mix.
• Think about how you can create a local celebrity. It’s a great deal cheaper than paying someone to come in.
• Think about what stories are important locally. Read the local press.
• Consider finding a media partner.
• Don’t be frightened of new ideas.
• Develop the story as far as you can and remember that there is often more than one angle.
• Speak to the media. They want stories.
• Think about how you can use the physical layout of the scheme.

Bryony Parkin is a marketing consultant with FPDSavills Commercial Ltd. A graduate of Bristol University, Parkin worked for Ashcroft Estates and Wolfe Properties before joining FPDSavills, where her duties evolved from asset management surveying to setting up the FPDS Marketing & Commercialisation Consultancy department in 2001.

Shopping in their Birthday Suits

Naturists descend on The Plaza on London’s Oxford Street.

This past summer, naturists from across the UK enjoyed shopping in their most favourite outfit: bare skin.
It was all part of a unique event which, under the guidance of marketer Bryony Parkin of FPDSavills, The Plaza on London’s Oxford Street held on the evening of 21 June, a first for a UK shopping centre.
“We enjoy opening our doors to all aspects of society,” said Keith Brushneen, centre manager,  “and if there is a need for naturists to enjoy shopping without their clothes on, then we’re more than happy to provide this for them.”
In keeping with the au naturel theme, author Nick Mayhew was invited to hold a a special signing session for his brand new guidebook, Bare Beaches.
“It’s a great way to swim and sunbathe, but I’m intrigued what it’s like shopping naked,” Mayhew said.
“It never occurred to me to include a central London shopping centre among our destinations, but life is full of surprises.”
Chances are, the event surprised the local press as well, creating an ideal PR opportunity for The Plaza.