Maybe this is why shopping centre management needs to view its public proposition differently, as a destination, so that consumer reluctance to visit can be overcome.

In doing so, owners and managers could well adopt the successful approach of the travel industry - and of enlightened marketing chiefs like those at thecentre:mk and the Grosvenor Shopping Centre Fund whose challenges and solutions I will describe later.

What's the difference between marketing a 'destination' and all other types of marketing? The answer lies in its unique challenge to move people in large numbers. Other forms of marketing boil down to influencing the purchasing choice between competing brands.

The challenge for destination marketing is defined by the need to surmount the barriers to consumer spending created by the fact of people having to travel somewhere in order to fulfill a purchasing desire, whether that involves going to a shopping centre or, to reiterate the travel industry analogy, an airport (with all the issues that they now have) and beyond.

Only when these barriers have been breached does the need to influence between competing brands come into play. So how does destination marketing get to this point?

The barriers to travelling are overcome by use of intelligence in order to understand the reasons why people will or will not travel: research/knowledge/insights/trends/strategy. This scientific approach amounts to pursuing business objectives as opposed to, for example, advertising goals.

Thus, in this analysis, serious shopping centre marketers must not only consider factors like the size of the consumer purchase, but also the catchments' lifestyles and political/sociological considerations (like terrorism or the environment), as well as consumer perceptions about the scale of any barrier.

Without this essential strategic preparation, all subsequent communications tactics will inevitably be hit-and-miss.

In Milton Keynes, thecentre:mk used to suffer from the 'new-town-with-extra-roundabouts' image of its location. Overcoming the barrier, not just of distance, but the lack of identity, demanded an event-creation approach that appealed in the long-term to a wide range of consumer groups. This gave the centre a personality and has now brought it to the point where thecentre: mk has become a focal point of business inward investment through the desire to be part of its growing success.

The approach taken by the Grosvenor Shopping Centre Fund for four city-centre sites (in Poole, Grimsby, Burton-upon-Trent and Inverness) is, of course, concerned with core and secondary catchment footfall, but far more challenging is increased dwell time and spend.

The need is to ensure that, with no obvious competition, consumers really do see these centres as part of their community by promoting the marketing proposition 'It's got to be... Freshney Place', for example, underpinned by knowledgeable local PR.

And, in online marketing for these centres, the creation of more excitement around the centre's image, that same feeling of 'something going on for you' can be exploited on their web sites, generating repeated visits online and physically, with greater frequency, to the centres themselves.

In these instances, then, successful destination marketing has been based on understanding the issues that inhibit a shopping centre's ability to maximise footfall/dwell time/spend - and devising the creative solution that demolishes the barriers to doing business with the destination.

Stephen Fox, managing partner, Fox Kalomaski

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