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Centers strive to build brand identity

By Candace Talmadge

While consumers have always hunted for brand names inside stores, today's shopping center owners and operators are spending big dollars to get them to think of the mall itself as a brand. Not surprisingly, the U.S.'s largest mall owner/manager is making one of the biggest splashes. In March, Simon Property Group, Indianapolis, launched a $22 million national television advertising campaign with the theme, "Simply Simon -- Simply the best shopping there is."

Just in time for the '98 holiday season, Prime Retail launched a branding campaign for its centers.

"I want to become a household name, like Pepsi," said Shari Simon, Simon Property Group's vice president of corporate marketing. "When you think shopping malls, you'll think Simon."

Simon Property Group owns and operates 243 centers containing 166 million square feet in 35 states. The branding campaign was launched in 145 centers. The Simon name will be attached to each mall's existing name as part of the branding effort, she said.

Simon isn't the only, nor is it even the first, shopping center developer to look toward branding. Just prior to the 1998 holiday sales season, outlet center developer Prime Retail, Baltimore, kicked off television commercials in major spot markets featuring actress Faith Ford. The slogan: "This is shopping."

Through 2000, the firm will spend $15 million in signage conversions and capital improvements, changing the name of its 51 outlet centers with 14.4 million square feet in 26 states to Prime Outlets. Horizon Outlet Center -- Oshkosh (Wis.) acquired through Prime's purchase of Horizon Group, is now Prime Outlets at Oshkosh.

"Our research shows consumers need to know the town name in order to find our centers," said David G. Phillips, CLS, executive vice president of operations and marketing for Prime Retail. That's because consumers typically drive an hour to reach a Prime Outlet center instead of about 20 minutes to a regional mall, he said.

Increased recognition of the value of a brand name for shopping centers reflects today's pressures on retail real estate investment trusts, said Ron Donohue, director of research for Hoyt Advisory Services, the North Palm Beach, Fla., investment unit of the Homer Hoyt Institute. The firm tracks the economic performance of 92 equity real estate investment trusts.

With capital now much harder to obtain, bottom-line growth is much more likely to be generated internally than by building new shopping centers or acquiring additional malls, Donohue explained. This means REITs must maximize revenues and profits of existing properties through activities such as more sophisticated marketing.

"Branding is designed to drive sales for our retailers," said Peter J. Lowy, co-president of Westfield America, Los Angeles. The company owns 38 centers comprising 35.5 million square feet in nine states. Westfield's Australia-based parent, Westfield Holdings, has successfully branded its centers in that country for 20 years.

Using the Westfield name to market its centers as Westfield Shoppingtowns gives the REIT a competitive advantage, Lowy maintained.

"We don't pretend to be retailers, but we must understand retail issues. A brand enables us to do the things retailers do to drive sales," such as advertise promotions across all centers. Such cross-promotion is also cost-effective.

Westfield America has begun calling its centers Westfield Shoppingtowns in order to foster brand identity.

One such promotion took place during the 1998 holiday season on a Sunday evening, a time when competitors normally are closed, Lowy pointed out. Westfield advertised the events to shoppers as a fund-raiser. They paid a $5 mall admission fee that was donated to various local charities chosen by each mall. Some 200,000 consumers visited the Westfield Shoppingtowns, spending $17 million in just three hours and raising approximately $1 million for the charities.

"We created more sales for the retailers in Westfield malls than our competitors did," Lowy said. That kind of promotional marketing is impossible without a brand name, he added.

Another advantage to branding is establishing an easily recognizable and portable identity for a mall. Nationwide name awareness translates into visits and sales when consumers are on business trips or vacations, adding incremental sales. And the strategy seems to be working.

"Consumers are already beginning to connect our centers," Phillips said. "People who shopped a Prime Outlets center in Chicago last winter are now coming to centers in Florida."

"Let's say you're traveling on vacation with your family, and the kids forget their socks. You're unfamiliar with the area, but a brand name helps you know what you're getting," Simon said.

Donohue agreed. He pointed out that when he was on a trip to Austin, Texas, during the winter, he had a choice of visiting two different shopping centers not far from his hotel. "I chose a Simon mall because I knew what to expect," he said.

Not everyone has hopped on the branding bandwagon, however. Newton, Mass.-based WellsPark Group, which operates 27 centers with 20 million square feet in seven New England states, has no plans to brand its malls with its name, said Adrienne Davis-Brody, senior vice president and director of marketing.

Instead, WellsPark blends corporate marketing that has established an overall unified graphic appearance for its malls with tailored local advertising. A small town center uses the theme, "the right mall right next door," while an urban center is touted as "making waves in the city."

Davis-Brody noted that there are valid arguments for both a localized as well as a national approach to center marketing, and her firm's decision was based on the geographic concentration of its properties, most of which are located in New England.

She also predicted that shopping centers will steer away from the traditional mass media that establishes brands, such as television, toward one-on-one marketing made possible through programs such as MallRewards, which she said is its own brand.

WellsPark collects information electronically each time a program member customer inserts a MallRewards card at point of sale to obtain credit for each purchase in the center. Based on this data, the firm plans to tailor direct response mailers to its customers.

"We can up-sell and cross-sell based on their mall shopping habits," Davis-Brody said.

The key to success is focusing on the customer's real shopping interests and preferences and not pitching goods that don't interest them.

"We must establish our credibility -- that we know each customer's shopping habits," Davis-Brody said. "This creates loyalty."

Lowy pointed out that branding is a long-term process of investment, not a quick fix or one-shot deal. It must respond and adapt to the influences of the marketplace to survive and be successful, he said.