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Centers seek corporate sponsorships

By Melanie Conty

Melanie Conty is a former associate editor for SCT.

Sports stadiums have long plied fans with ads for anything from soft drinks to airlines. Now, shopping centers also have entered the sponsorship arena.

Many of the United States' most beloved pastimes, such as the World Series, the Olympics and Super Bowl, would be financially strapped without such backing. Some have even gone so far as to rename properties after sponsors, such as the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J. (previously named for former New Jersey governor Brendan Byrne).

While shopping center owners might not be ready to rename their properties "Pepsi Mall," a few signs, activities and sponsored events have added thousands, even millions, of dollars to marketing budgets, and have thrust some centers into the spotlight.

Simon DeBartolo Group, Indianapolis, and TrizecHahn Centers, San Diego, are among the nation's top developers who say they've discovered the benefits of bringing sponsored programs to their malls.

Nearly six years ago Simon opened the 4.2 million-square-foot Mall of America, Bloomington, Minn., with 20 corporate sponsors, which included PepsiCo, Northwest Airlines and Sherwin-Williams. Signs, displays and decor have promoted the companies there, and some, like Northwest, have sponsored concerts and charity fund-raisers at the mall. The success of these programs has encouraged Simon to bring sponsors to its other centers as well.

"Mall of America gave us a platform to educate the brand marketing industry, meaning folks that market things like soft drinks and packaged goods," said Karen D. Corsaro, senior vice president of marketing and retail development for Simon DeBartolo, and president of Simon Brand Ventures, a new subsidiary formed in part to focus on mall sponsorships.

"It gave us a platform to educate those folks about the power of the mall to reach out and touch the customer in a face-to-face environment," Ms. Corsaro said.

Many owners are finding that sharing their customers with paying companies adds value to their own marketing efforts and beefs up mall traffic. Entertainment and interactive events work best, they say. While an especially crowded event can temporarily inhibit shopping, attendees might see items they want and return to the mall later to buy them.

"Developers have spent hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars marketing and creating their properties, so it not only doesn't hurt to share it, it's in their best interest to take advantage of what they've invested in the property," said Carol Woelber, SCMD, president of the Denver-based marketing firm CenterSource.

However, she and others warn it is imperative that the sponsorship does not conflict with a mall's image. For example, it might not be prudent to have Playboy sponsor a beauty contest at a mall that is targeting families.

"We're going to be very careful about the types of people that we sponsor with," said Craig A. Pettitt, CSM, who was appointed to the new post of director of corporate sponsorship at TrizecHahn. "Any name that's associated with our company or our centers is a representation of us."

Consequently, sponsors tend to be mainstream, typically including airlines, car companies, credit and phone card providers, and food and beverage manufacturers, according to developers and marketing experts.

Credit card sponsorships are popping up at malls throughout the country. One prominent program is a Visa credit card sponsored by major regional mall developers including: Simon DeBartolo; General Growth Properties, Chicago; The Rouse Co., Columbia, Md.; TrizecHahn; The WellsPark Group, Newton, Mass.; The Richard E. Jacobs Group, Cleveland; and Urban Shopping Centers, Chicago.

More than 450 malls had signed up by late March, with more than 600 expected to be on board by yearend, according to David Tomlinson, senior vice president and general manager of the credit card program at Retail Growth Systems, Newton, Mass. Retail Growth is involved with the program's development.

Customers using the card earn 1% or 2% back for purchases made outside and within participating malls, respectively.

In 1996, Cindy Ciura, SCMD, president of Cierra Creative Marketing Services, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., put together a sponsorship program with the GM MasterCard at a mall in Palm Beach, Fla. and another in Troy, Mich.

A panelist at a sponsorship seminar during last year's ICSC Fall Convention and Trade Exposition in New Orleans, Ms. Ciura conducted market research before approaching General Motors Corp., Detroit, to ensure they would be receptive to exposure in those malls.

"Once I knew that the GM Card really wanted the markets that my shopping centers were in, it made things a lot easier," she said. "Once they saw the malls' traffic counts and demographics were exactly what they sought, GM officials were happy to pay half a million dollars to be there."

Income from sponsorship programs can be substantial. Simon DeBartolo officials estimate total revenue from deals at Mall of America alone have so far been worth about $50 million, including media promotions and in-kind advertising, said Maureen Bausch, associate general manager of the mall.

Of course, with 43 million visitors per year, Mall of America can command many more dollars for these programs than can typical regional or superregional malls. But marketing experts estimate a standard regional or superregional center can still bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ms. Woelber has helped bring to several shopping centers a low-pressure information booth for Plymouth cars, a division of Chrysler Corporation, Auburn Hills, Mich. The booth is called Plymouth Place in the Mall. She has also worked with computer, financial, telecommunications and travel companies, as well as other car dealers.

Sponsors at Pier 39, a 45-acre waterfront retail and entertainment complex in San Francisco, include Coca-Cola, Visa, Kodak and Swatch. Maxwell House Coffee Co. inked a three-year deal with the complex for exclusive rights to market its coffee to the more than 10 million people who visit the center per year.

Such sponsorships often can extend beyond product-specific promotions. In addition to offering customer discounts, Maxwell House will sponsor annual events such as the July 4th Waterfront Festival. In its promotional literature, Pier 39 offers potential sponsors "unsurpassed access" to its visitors through sponsorships of rides, attractions, events and displays.

Such sponsorships work, experts say, because mall customers are prime targets, a captive audience of people inclined to buy.

"We have millions of people going through a shopping center each year, so companies recognize the value of exposure to these consumers," said Gayle Kantro, CMD, account supervisor at Marketing Communications Consortium, Chicago. "And they will pay for that, for the right to be able to show their product or expose their message to our consumers."

In addition to bringing sponsorships to malls owned by developers such as LaSalle Partners, Chicago, Ms. Kantro works with retail in transportation hubs. About 20 million people per year pass through Union Station, Washington, D.C., a train terminal with retail shops that last year hosted German Weeks, an 11-day event featuring exhibits, shows, films and seminars sponsored by German organizations and the German government. The latter provided $700,000 and the services of its ambassador as host.

Ms. Kantro is also working on sponsorships for the retail at Grand Central Station in New York, slated to open in September.

"We can have half a million people going through Grand Central terminal in a day," she said. "If you're looking at 200 million people in a year, that's a pretty valuable exposure for sponsorships."

Some say mall sponsorships have dramatically increased in the last few years because retailers, some of whom have been opening nonmall locations, have become reluctant to contribute to marketing funds, driving owners to find other ways to earn that revenue. And while the money most often goes toward marketing budgets, it may be used for other purposes, depending on the developer and the deal. Revenue occasionally takes the form of tradeouts, such as contest prizes and giveaways. Whatever the case, sponsorships are on the rise.

"In the end, if it's fun for the customers and the sponsor's paying for it, that's where you get the in-kind value because it's something that we did not create," Ms. Bausch of Mall of America said. "It's something someone else created for us."