Considering the current credit crunching state of affairs in Ireland, Dundrum Town Centre is faring surprisingly well. As centre manager Don Nugent puts it: “Centres like Dundrum are beacons of light in turbulent times.” That said, even centres that are prospering must look for ways to bolster customer spend and Dublin-based Dumdrum is no exception.

For four days over the May Day bank holiday weekend, Dundrum Town Centre held an array of activities and events in order to boost footfall in the centre, while simultaneously raising money for its charity partner, the Marie Keating Foundation. The cancer research charity was founded in memory of Irish pop singer Ronan Keating’s mother, who lost her battle with breast cancer in 1998.

Events over the weekend included celebrity appearances and speakers on the inaugural day. Added to which, Dundrum restaurant Frangos lured consumers in with the offer of a coffee and a pink cupcake for €3.95 with 100 per cent of proceeds being donated to the charity. Other events included regular fashion shows over the course of the weekend and a special screening of Sex and the City: The Movie, again with all proceeds going to the Marie Keating Foundation. The ticket price included a glass of pink champagne on arrival, a goody bag and a post-film cocktail in the nearby Harvey Nichols bar.

While such promotions certainly helped drive people into the centre, some of the real value for retailers was found in the beauty pod aspect of the event, which is a tried and tested formula at Dundrum.

“We’ve done two beauty pod events this year already,” says Nugent. The centre had already planned a similar event for one of the May bank holiday weekends forging a relationship with the Marie Keating Foundation after Nugent realised the synergies between the charity’s pink beauty weekends and the centre’s beauty pod events.

“We started off with beauty pods and it just gathered legs – now we’ve got a whole heap of things going on,” he says, speaking on the first day of the four day bonanza.

Unsurprisingly, retailers were desperately keen to get involved. “This time it’s really caught their imagination,” says Nugent. “Over 50 of our tenants are involved this weekend.” Brands including Clarins and Clinique from House of Fraser and Eve Lom and Space NK from Harvey Nichols got involved, offering everything from facials to massages down the length of the mall, in the specially designed pods. The treatments were available in 20 minute slots, with all proceeds going directly to the nominated charity. Customers would then be able to head into the stores and purchase the products.

Holding events such as the Dundrum Town Centre Goes Pink campaign are vital in increasing footfall and customer spend in the centre, says Nugent. “A lot of our marketing activitiy is designed to put money in the tills,” the award-winning centre manager explains. “We don’t tend to do face painting on the mall for the sake of doing face painting; we generally tend to link all of our promotions to tenants in some way.”

The beauty pod event has achieved two key objectives, Nugent says. “One, is that we are helping the charity we are working with, but also, this is an opportunity for tenants to build awareness of their brand to help drive customers into them store. That is the kind of thing we tend to do; it’s about delivering something for the tenants.”

That said, there is also something to be said for engaging consumers with a bit of activity within the mall, explains Nugent. “We also do things like this to create a bit of theatre, to make the experience of being in Dundrum a little more pleasant. But this is underpinned by a basic fundamental objective of driving business for the tenants,” he concludes.