But there are many different ways mall income generation can be coordinated - the owner dealing with commercialisation in-house, the managing agent taking control, or passing it all over to a commercialisation specialist.

Bryony Parkin was previously head of marketing and commercialisation at Jones Lang LaSalle, and has just become director of the newly-established commercialisation company Asset Space, which puts her in the ideal position to recognise the difference between managing commercialisation in-house and partnering with an external consultant. The new business is an arm of Asset Factor, which is itself a 50/50 property outsourcing joint venture between Helical Bar and NB Real Estate.

Parkin says: "Having come from the managing agent corporate background I have a pretty unique view on the industry. Of course managing agents' in-house commercialisation teams are valuable to landlords, as they create a one-point-of-contact service alongside the core management service.

"However, managing agents will readily agree that they now have an increasingly diverse management remit, and with the greatest respect it can be very difficult to provide the depth of expertise in every single one of the areas that they are required to cover. They have to decide how far they wish to specialise in each area, and, because it's still a highly volatile and fast-paced industry, commercialisation is a difficult one to master. We're always delighted to work with managing agents to supplement their expertise where required."

Parkin says owner-manager in-house commercialisation teams can sometimes suffer from not being able to gain the same market overview that comes from working on large, diverse portfolios with differing directives from a range of clients. "Because they are client-side, the supplier chain also tends to view these teams as "them" against "us", which can compromise the extent of their market knowledge," she says. "Again we're really happy to work with owner-managers to build on their strengths in this area."

Meanwhile, Parkin points out that the external specialist company also offers the benefit of one-point-of-contact service but adds that there are several things which make such specialists fundamentally different. "Revenue generation is our primary business and the specialist company offers the highest level of experience across the whole commercial property spectrum, from retail through offices, hotels, universities and leisure to the public sector - from properties that are pre-development through to post-completion and mature assets," she explains.

"Here at Asset Space we also have complete flexibility in the way we're able to structure our deals with both our clients and our specialist supply chain. We're able to work as advisers, as a management team, as joint venture partners or as anything in between. This enables us to offer the best solution for any given situation to achieve the individual goals of all parties involved.

"The external specialist company can be more innovative and entrepreneurial. This flexibility allows us to look beyond offering existing ways of generating income. We can drive development in the industry while also creating exciting new platforms of revenue generation for our clients."

Hammerson, however, works in a very different way by keeping everything in-house. Stephen Court, commercialisation manager, heads up the internal team from the head office with a commercial manager at each of its major retail destinations and a portfolio team which acts as a middle man between the commercial managers and Court.

Annual plans are put into force by the local managers with input from Court, and performance is then measured against each plan on a regular basis.

Court says: "Hammerson looks to have the greatest amount of control over the entire customer journey. People working day-in-day-out in the retail businesses understand their markets and the critical relationships with retailers.

"When we work on a brand promotion, we ensure that this does not adversely affect our retail tenants within that centre. We're currently investigating the benefits of putting BT in the malls, in places where they could benefit the retailers as well. If we were to outsource that operation to a commercialisation specialist, an understanding of the local consumer audience and their relationship with the retailers would be missing. We have much greater knowledge and sensitivity to those factors.

"We are also lucky that we have retained the team of people that are with us today, who have worked with us for several years. If you have an embedded team then you have the opportunity to improve their skill set over time."

Hammerson is also making the venue-finding job easier for the brands. The company has developed an online booking system so that a brand can find out as easily as possible what's available, where, and when in the portfolio.

Hammerson's commercial managers can also refer brands to other centres within the portfolio, to increase their coverage. "Clients may want a relationship at West Quay in Southampton but might not appreciate that Hammerson owns other destinations. So the local team can say, 'Are you interested in producing work of this nature elsewhere?'" says Court. "It's about sharing commercialisation opportunities, and we've seen some brands working with us in one location and saying, 'Can we work in others?'"

Court also appreciates that brands will want to go to shopping centres outside the Hammerson portfolio, so he is also forming friendly alliances with some of the other mall owners to refer business opportunities.

"We're trying to build practical relationships with other owners, so we encourage cross-selling because it's my belief you need to grow the retail commercialisation sector as a whole and that's better achieved by working in a more cohesive way with other property owners." Court will shortly be discussing marketing opportunities with other major property owners, to see if they can work together. "It's an ongoing dialogue," he adds.

"A number of the major owners own outdoor media sites, so if we work together we can improve the overall volume of media opportunities across a larger number of sites. For a brand that wants to launch a new product and bring it to market, and be in more than one location at once, it is likely they will want to be in properties owned by more than one company. We can work with our peer group to make sure that there are brand opportunities everywhere and we all share in the benefits of that.

"We're up against other media, such as TV and the internet. Those are our competitors as much as other retail destinations, so the more we identify market opportunities that are better exploited by working together, and effectively agree to work together in a coalition, the more business retail destinations will benefit."

In addition to its new relationship with The Asset Factor, NB Real Estate operates with an in-house team on some of its sites; while on others it uses a third party operator - very commonly, Space & People or Brandspace - to provide the whole service.

Meanwhile the majority of centre owners, says NB Real Estate director of retail management Michael Smedley, tend to take a step back from commercialisation. "They discuss policies for the centre up front and then we're given the discretion to administer that policy going forward," he says.

"Each centre is different. What we decide to do depends on the space we have available. Quite often we have a lot of contacts anyway that we know are looking for that type of space, or operators we've used before that we can trust and who will enhance the offer. The key thing is to enhance the tenant mix.

"There are some centres that have enough space that they can generate their own interest, as people have been coming for years and years and they have kept records of the people that want to come in. Others perhaps have less space or need a new approach, and so we bring in a third-party operator.

"I think by doing it ourselves there's the flexibility of being able to make a decision there and then and build up much stronger relationships with the operators going in there. The last thing we need is someone that comes in for the weekend, but the product doesn't work and the customer is consequently lost.

Sharon Richey, managing director of live brand experience agency BEcause Experiential Marketing, points out that it prefers to deal directly with a media buyer such as Space & People, Brandspace or Promotion Space when organising experiential events for their brands.

"We find a lot of shopping centres now sell their own media, or have contracts in place with media-buying agencies," says Richey. "If we're looking at 10 sites to work with then a supplier such as Space & People has all the intelligence about the demographics and footfall of their centres and will support us in advance.

"I think it's good to form a relationship with a media buyer as they will help make your promotion a success."

thecentre:mk understands that brands often deal directly with suppliers, so it works alongside Space & People for its commercialisation activities, but the in-house team of five still books the majority of product launches, road shows, mall promotions, product sampling and large-scale events and exhibitions that go on in the malls and within the unique area of Middleton Hall.

Commercial and events manager Jackie Tracey says: "We have done it internally for longer than Space & People have been around, so we brought them on board gradually.

"Undoubtedly they get some clients we are not able to, but we would never rely on them for all of our business. With the best will in the world an agency doesn't know our shopping centre like we do."

Steve Hughes, from specialist commercialisation agency Promotion Space takes a different view. While he realises that the perception of outsourcing to an agency leads to lack of control for the centre, his growing company is looking to work closer, and in partnership, with the centre management to deliver a plan.

"From our point of view we need to understand shopping centre management better and so we've appointed Richard Wright as our chairman," says Hughes.

He points out that there is a prospective spend of £1bn by brands on ambient media and as such he believes it's all about consolidation - providing a one-stop solution within the shopping centre industry in order to tap into that spend. "That's what the sector should be targeting," he says. "Only people like us can do that, working to some degree behind the scenes to promote the sector to these people. Our challenge in the future is to make sure it's front of mind for all media agencies. Unless people like ourselves consolidate things, we will never unlock those spends."

Hughes points out that hundreds of commercialisation managers are out there doing the same thing, leaving the brands confused as to where to go.

"Having three or four hundred commercialisation mangers really complicates the ability of media agencies and brands to spend in the sector," he says. "One difficulty in spending on mall media is the complexity, in all the various relationships, of putting a campaign together. We're working on a one-stop solution. We think that by having that one relationship, the selling of packages will be a great deal easier."

The argument is certainly complex, but no matter which route you feel is right for your centre, one thing is clear: mall income generation is a vital source of revenue for all shopping centres, and therefore choosing the right way to manage your mall space, that suits your environment and your consumer base, is the key to its commercial success.

Contacts

Asset Space: 020 3008 7910

Hammerson: 020 7887 1000

NB Real Estate: 020 7544 2000

BEcause Experiential Marketing: http://www.becauseexperiential.com

thecentre:mk: http://www.thecentremk.com

Promotion Space: 08707 550770

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