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DECKING THE MALLS

Holiday marketing programs are more elaborate than ever

By Debra Hazel

Once upon a time all a mall had to do at Christmastime was put up a tree, hire a Santa and count the money afterward. But today’s holiday marketing programs are much more elaborate than in the past.

Advising consumers on the hottest gift items; opening at unheard-of hours to kick off the season; hosting Olympic figure skaters; even working with the military to grab the attention of busy shoppers — these are the lengths shopping centers are going to nowadays. “The consumer continues to want something new and different and that makes life easier,” said James W. (Wally) Brewster, SCMD, senior vice president of marketing and communications at General Growth Properties.

Making life easier for both the shoppers and the center staff is the goal at CBL & Associates Properties. “We used to do the full-page ad,” said Barbara Ivankovich, SCMD, vice president of marketing and corporate relations at Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CBL. “But the shopper isn’t going to tear things out of the paper.” Instead, the company created a 125-page holiday guidebook for its centers titled We Know Holiday Shopping. The book gives directions on when and how to put up decorations and contains template press releases covering such topics as the year’s hottest apparel, toys and electronics for gift-giving. “We wanted to create a standard reference manual and developed a brand-new campaign,” said Ivankovich. “We did a lot of research before we developed it.”

The documents are designed to be customizable to the market, she says. A mall in a college town will use materials different from those of a resort-oriented center. “We encourage [our mall staff] to modify, enhance and re-create,” she said. “They get a core package because we can have much greater cost efficiencies. But it’s fun for us to see what they do with it.”

At other centers, making life easier means getting an early start. Seven General Growth Properties malls held what they call Rockin’ Shoppin’ Eve — opening at 1 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving. There were live performances in the parking lot and in the mall, and many tenants unlocked their doors to get an early start on the holiday selling season. The program began in 2004 at Riverchase Galleria, in Hoover, Ala., and though Riverchase didn’t participate this past year, seven other centers did.

The idea is to create an event as well as fulfill a basic shopper need, says Brewster. “Based on our research, the consumer is looking for opportunities to shop early,” Brewster said. Some are so eager to get started or so time-strapped that taking a quick nap after Thanksgiving dinner and then rushing to a mall is about the only way to get a jump on holiday shopping and grab the must-have gifts before they sell out.

The program has become a social event, too. “People have tailgate parties in the parking lot,” said Brewster. “We’ve had a group of recreational vehicles arrive from out of state.” Entertainment, including parades and street performers, begins in the parking lot before the mall opens. Many of the sponsors offer product samples, he says. And though the stores are not required to open, more and more of them are choosing to. “It truly is a party, and the media always comes,” he said.

Sometimes holiday promotions serve two purposes. “Hippest of Holidays,” at General Growth’s Galleria Dallas, not only boosted holiday sales but also helped bolster sales at the mall’s signature skating rink.

As part of a 2005 renovation, the rink was reduced in size by about a third, and the landlord feared rink revenues would drop accordingly. But they didn’t: To encourage skating and draw shoppers, the mall invited such world-class skaters as Olympic medalists Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano to perform 20-minute shows. For Hamill the performance was almost a homecoming: She had appeared at the center’s grand opening in 1982. “The Galleria is all about things that are grand,” said Angie Freed, the mall’s senior marketing manager. The center’s 95-foot-tall Christmas tree is the largest indoor tree in the U.S., she says.

David Kirby, who operates the rink, is himself a former competitive skater and a world-level judge of the sport. His connection to skating was the secret to booking such well-known names for the event. Even Santa Claus skates during some of the shows, and the mall holds a competition in which the winners get to skate with the professionals.

Last year there were shows every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it was not unusual to have nearly 10,000 people watching from the mall’s four levels. “This is already part of people’s holiday planning,” said Freed.

The Citadel mall, in Colorado Springs, Colo., took advantage last year of its proximity to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and of the 50th anniversary of the agency’s program that “tracks Santa’s progress” on Christmas Eve to create a new holiday decor and promotion. Every Christmas Eve NORAD volunteers answer telephone calls from children and update the agency’s Web site as it follows what it says is Santa’s gift-delivery route around the world.

The tradition began in 1955, when the phone number of a Sears, Roebuck hotline to Santa got misprinted and children wound up phoning the military agency instead. The colonel in charge decided to play along and talked to the kids, though. NORAD has been interacting year after year with children calling from around the world ever since.

The area’s heavy military presence means that the center has been especially affected by the war in Iraq, says Diane Loschen, SCMD, the center’s senior marketing manager. “This is a local theme, but also global,” Loschen said. “It really was a goodwill gesture.”

The mall created a North Pole Tracking Station that explains NORAD’s program, with mall decor following the tracking station theme. Children visiting Santa are shown a NORAD Track Santa Program, hear audio messages of peace from children around the world and receive a 24-page coloring book. Santa’s assistants wear NORAD patches.

The mall’s Web site links to the NORAD Tracks Santa site. As part of the promotion, shoppers can send messages to loved ones serving overseas. “When the NORAD folks saw the display, they were blown away,” Loschen said. “It was great for the community.”

Still, last Christmas Eve it was necessary to avoid disillusioning children who might wonder how Santa could be sitting in the mall and flying through the air at the same time. Naturally, this demanded some tact. “We had to be a little careful there,” Loschen conceded.

The results for all of the programs have been spectacular. CBL continues to provide elaborate guidelines and materials to its centers, and General Growth is looking at expanding Rockin’ Shoppin’ Eve to more of its properties. Galleria Dallas will hold its skating events quarterly starting this coming year. The Citadel has generally changed its holiday decor and programs every three years or so, so NORAD will likely continue in 2007, and an expansion to other Macerich malls in Colorado is possible too.