"Commercialisation is becoming a bigger and more consequential part of the retail experience for the consumer and for us," says Hammerson's commercialisation manager Stephen Court. "Five or six years ago, commercialisation sneaked into the party through the back door, but these days, we are coming in through the front door, with all parts of the business more a part of the overall visitor experience."

Court points out that in planning a commercialisation strategy, it is important to look at the bigger picture and work closely with retailers when deciding what path to take with a particular brand. He insists that something that looks financially attractive may not necessarily be suitable for a particular mall.

"We think it's a risk if we put something into a retail space, which, in the short-term, may generate income, but in the long-term, may have a negative effect on the overall experience," he explains. "So if something we were doing unduly affected a retail performance we would not want to knowingly do that.

"Hammerson retail destinations on the whole are fashion, leisure and lifestyle-led," he continues, "so if we put in something that wasn't within that repertoire it wouldn't be complementary to the retail brands. It's the same way a poorly-kept house in a row of terraced houses stands out for all the wrong reasons.

"Many commercialisation activities are in the public realm - it's there to be noticed. We are quite keen to use commercialisation that is quite dynamic and we might do things that have an influence on the longer term of the retail centre. We might bring in a retailer or promotion to do something for a day, week or month, and two or three years down the line, maybe that promotion becomes more permanent and might not be categorised commercialisation but a fixed experience that the consumer enjoys."

At Drake Circus, Plymouth, general manager Mike Jones aims to ensure a balance between generating income and maintaining customer experience. He says promotional giveaways are always a customer favourite. "Successful promotions have included Mr Kipling Mince Pies and the launch of Domestos recently. We are very careful with NPower and EDF Energy where people get hassled. They pay a lot of money but we are trying to provide a one-stop-shop for everybody."

Jones aims to treat any brand that rents space on the malls the same as he would his permanent retailers. And he believes this is important to ensure the stands fit the mall environment.

"We see them as a tenant although they are temporary," he says. "We work with them and give them the benefit of our knowledge and it works as we treat them exactly the same whether they are here for two days or a year.

"We try to encourage them to come and talk to us and we give them a pack about Plymouth. The biggest thing for us is branding because a lot of them get it wrong. We send them photographs of what we have done before to help their brand awareness."

Holy grail

Richard Exton, CRM manager at Meadowhall, Sheffield, says the acid test for mall promotions is to ask 'what's in it for the customer?' If this cannot be answered satisfactorily, then, he says, the value of the promotion to the centre is questionable.

"A far more effective way to approach mall income generation is to integrate it with the centre's marketing strategy," says Exton. "By applying joined-up thinking to promotional activity, it will not only add to the enjoyment of customers and work for the retailers, but it will also add value to the promotional package, allowing the centre to maximise its income."

For its 'Ten Weeks of Summer' promotion, for example, Meadowhall had a different theme each week. During 'Family Week', visitors to the centre were given the chance to participate in baby signing, while Tumble Tots and Water Babies advertised their respective baby gym and swim offerings. For families with older children, exhibitions from a number of Yorkshire-based attractions, such as Magna, the National Mining Museum, the Jorvik Viking Centre and The Deep provided the interest.

Jones Lang LaSalles' Bryony Parkin agrees that creating a synergy between commercialisation and customer marketing activities, and applying a multi-channel approach, can strengthen the results from both of them.

"For example, where there is a fashion-based event designed to drive footfall and spend in the centre, dovetailing complementary promotional activity into this over the period of the event will give it a stronger draw as well as giving the centre a premium value to the targeted promoters," she says. "We saw footfall increase by an average of 45 per cent year-on-year over the two days of a recent motoring and motor-sports event at Festival Place in Basingstoke, which was linked into the Father's Day experience."

Spirit Marketing's Enda McShane is in charge of marketing and promotions at the new Victoria Square in Belfast, as well as various other centres, such as Liffey Valley, Mahon Point in Cork and Whitewater.

"The key thing is we are trying to move away from just the turnover promotions on the mall and to look at longer-term partnership deals with key brands working with us for a period of three years," says McShane. "That has always been the holy grail of commercialisation but it is hard to achieve. There is a swing back towards that again. At Victoria Square, we are looking to sell six strategic partnerships in certain sectors. We have already achieved three of those deals and it's not even opened yet. And they are really high-profile brands. It's not just a financial impact, but they can exploit their brand by getting involved in marketing as well."

The brands are given a physical presence in a relevant area, dependent on the nature of the brand. They will then have some form of interactive features and competitions ongoing so they are adding real value to the shopping experience. They will also be featured on core literature and plasma screens, and PR will be driven around it as well. "One of the brands is a car company," says McShane. "And they are putting members of staff in there to drive successful leads for their sales teams."

McShane adds that it is important the brands are not competitive with the retail offer and not selling on the malls - it is all about promotions. "Some centres recycle money from their promotions back into their marketing budget so we are incentivised to do it," says McShane. "Marketing and commercialisation have to be linked because it is about the appearance of the centre and the brand. It should be linked and not a separate function."

Beer on a pedestal

Director of Shoppertainment Clare Andrew also focuses on creating a theatre environment on the mall, such as interactive promotional activities customers can get involved in. "The other thing is where you can hold an event and get national sponsors, which can generate mall income," says Andrew. "Through giveaways, they can test the market themselves. If they have a new product launch, there is nowhere better to do it than in a shopping centre as it's mainly an impulse purchase destination. The shopping centre owner wants to make the most of the mall so it's about a happy medium. You have to make sure you are not only exciting the customer and ensuring they come back but also that you are not getting on their nerves."

Another emerging promotional activity, says Court, is the idea that brands that aren't retailers exist for a period of time within a shop unit. An example he uses is when Hammerson worked with premium beer brand Peroni in the Bullring. The brand put together a two-week presentation but didn't want to be in the mall. Instead, it wanted to create a 'retail piece of art' within an empty shop unit.

"We wanted people to look in this shop unit like they would look in Tiffany and enjoy the moment - but it's a bottle of beer on a pedestal, not a diamond," says Court. "But that's a quirky way to get their point across.

"There are now so many people using mall space, that to do the same thing takes away from what they are saying. The overall results for the brand and for us were positive; and we had some great feedback from the consumers in Birmingham who enjoyed the funny side and interacting with the brand in that way. Maybe in the future we need to look at having more flexible space outside the mall to host brands."

Court points out that in Paris, along the Champs Elysées, they are already doing a similar thing with car brands, such as Peugeot and Renault, which use shop units as museums for their cars. "I think in the future we are going to see other brands that will say 'you are hosting some 40 million visitors a year within our target demographic, when is a good time for us to come in and enjoy exposure to that demographic? Do you have a shop unit?'" says Court, who believes there could be a potential to leave shop units vacant so brands can rent that space instead of the usual mall floor space.

"On the development side, I wonder whether we should build in some flexibility with shop units," he explains. "No one likes an empty unit and if we are going to have ad hoc commercialisation, there will be times when no one will be in it.

"Even though it is a great marketing and commercialisation idea, it is not a genius financial idea. But we are not going to say 'it doesn't work, move on' - we have asset, leasing, marketing and commercialisation people saying we can move this on."

Court is also keen to take a leaf out of the sports industry in the way they generate money through a sponsorship model.

"Brands are doing it to get to an audience focused on sport," says Court. "We can bring that to a shopping centre. A sponsorship model doesn't necessarily mean taking up a physical space in a mall. It may be a temporary event or sponsorship of a retail-led event we do or working in conjunction with our retailers.

"Sponsor and partnership funding makes up a substantial part of sport. I don't see any reason why we can't learn from that and bring brands into our businesses. Like sport, we attract very substantial audiences who are motivated to spend. They come to places we have in our portfolio with the intent to enjoy themselves. It's a very good social environment and brands might want to get involved in that as sponsorship partners."

Exton believes that every promotion should be judged on its own merit and says it is not possible to apply a hard and fast rule to promotions. "For instance," he explains, "a shopping centre with an AB customer profile may well turn down a low-quality conservatory sales promotion. However, would the same centre reject an approach from an organisation that designs and manufactures high-class pool houses that may well be enjoyed by the centre's clientele? At the end of the day, it is a judgement call based on how it would work for the customers, retailers, centre and advertiser."

Stay close

Chief executive of Promotion Space, Steve Hughes, says shopping centre owners are increasingly turning to external agencies. "It is of paramount importance that all parties in the transaction achieve their objectives; from centres who need commercial income to customers who want an enjoyable shopping experience through to the promoter who has paid for the privilege of promoting," he says.

"In a changing and consolidating marketplace where income must be generated but the customer experience protected, the draconian and occasionally confrontational attitude towards promotional companies has become more conciliatory and collaborative. Centre owners now realise that the only way to get the balance right is to ensure they work closely with their outsourced partners for the provision of a seamless solution and service that delivers success for all parties involved.

"Increasingly, we see a move towards commercialisation being more comprehensively outsourced to external agencies as the market becomes more and more complex and the time demands upon centre staff become greater and greater.

"In a declining or even flat retail climate, but with steadily increasing asset value targets, external commercialisation agencies become of even more importance to centre owners as they have the economies of scale and experience to deliver additional revenue and to manage all of the associated complexities independently on behalf of the venue."

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