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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2002
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TAUBMAN OFFERS SPONSORSHIPS ON MALL-BY-MALL BASIS
By Debra Hazel
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| Pepsi has promotions with more than one developer. |
One of the benefits of a large shopping center portfolio is the mass to attract corporate sponsorships, in which major national companies pay substantial sums to promote their products or services at every mall. This has worked well for such developers as Simon Property Group and General Growth Properties, whose partners include Pepsi-Cola Co. and Visa.
But Taubman Centers, which owns some of the most upscale malls in the United States, doesn’t have a national portfolio large enough to attract such opportunities. So it is taking another tack, decentralizing corporate sponsorships to individual centers.
“We’ve been able to take the traditional categories — soft drinks, automobiles and media — and update the mission by localizing them,” said David Goldberg, vice president of sponsorships at the Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based developer. Even such international companies as Pepsi are dealt with on a local level; the sponsorships are arranged with local bottlers rather than corporate headquarters.
“Since our partners are local, they’re better served at the local level,” Goldberg said.
The idea is that each of the company’s malls, being a strong brand in itself, will attract sponsors. Taubman built valet porte cocheres at its upscale International Plaza in Tampa, Fla., that featured British luxury car maker Jaguar, and at the Shops at Willow Bend, Plano, Texas. Jaguar attributes 130 sales to the International Plaza promotion.
A big advantage to decentralizing is that Taubman can make deals with competing companies at different projects in its portfolio. Pepsi, for instance, has sponsorships at 15 centers, and Coca-Cola Co. at two others.
But a major factor behind Taubman’s decentralization is its relatively small portfolio; with only 31 regional malls around the country, it isn’t suited for large national campaigns. Simon, on the other hand, has more than 270 centers, and General Growth has more than 140.
Ford Motor Co. has a sponsorship program (with ABC) at 130 Simon malls.
“As great a portfolio as Taubman has, how important could they be to [Ford]?” Goldberg asked. “But how important is Twelve Oaks Mall [Novi, Mich.] to Chevy?” The car company is now a sponsor at that property.
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| Jaguar attributes 130 car sales to its promotion at International Plaza (above) and another Taubman mall. |
In some instances, however, the larger developers will offer individual mall sponsorship programs. Ford was able to customize its presentations at the Simon malls through the participation of local and regional dealerships; General Growth follows much the same pattern, combining both national and local programs.
“Look at the opportunities,” said Wally Brewster, CMD, senior vice president of marketing for Chicago-based General Growth. “The centers are autonomous in what they have available. … We want the community to know the centers are an inherent part of the community.”
Indianapolis-based Simon is similarly flexible with its programs.
“In some ways, it probably is better to decentralize,” said Drew Sheinman, president of Simon Brand Ventures, Simon’s partnership division. “But for national Fortune 500 companies, it wouldn’t make sense. We centralize where appropriate, decentralize where appropriate.”
Quite simply, national programs bring in larger dollars, Sheinman said.
The companies did not reveal what companies pay for sponsorships, although Taubman has signed some seven-figure deals, Goldberg said. A sponsorship deal at a single center can range from $1,500 per month to $10,000 a day, depending on its scope, said one shopping center marketing professional who requested anonymity. Naming rights cost a whole lot more, though — the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last year that naming rights for the tony Lenox Square mall in Atlanta could run as much as $30 million for 10 years.
But the developers won’t take money from just anyone. Some would-be sponsors remain off-limits, including tobacco companies, hard liquor producers and political parties. Taubman also said it would avoid sponsors that require an inordinate amount of space or want what the company considers to be unreasonable access to its customers: addresses, e-mails or phone numbers for resale purposes.
Early in the process, Goldberg sits with the staff of each center and makes a wish list of potential corporate partners. The local staff then feels out the companies and begins negotiations, after which the deals are passed on to headquarters for final approval.
By the end of this year, Taubman aims to have more than 100 partners. At press time it had 35 long-term sponsors and some short-term ones.
Whether programs are national or local, all the developers agree that the idea of mall as medium is still in its early stages.
Said Goldberg, “We’re embryonic.”
 | Current Issue February 2012 |