Centre managers are using major UK brand names in the fight generate much-needed income. But innovation is key if brand promotions are going to work well
Ignoring brand names in everyday life is arguably impossible. Products such as Coca-Cola and Nintendo have become household names, instantly recognisable and comfortingly familiar. Then there are entertainment shows: X-Factor and Big Brother are a constant source of debate, at times even entering the political arena. It’s unsurprising, then, that shopping centre commercialisation is becoming more affiliated with major brands. But just how easy is it to persuade national and international companies to promote in shopping centres, and what are the benefits to the centre itself?
According to Brandspace chief executive Paul Soanes, brand promotion in malls is becoming increasingly popular. Whether companies want to market a new product or simply get the attention of passing shoppers, centre promotions are a direct and cost-effective marketing method. “Throughout 2009, we’ve seen more brands doing this kind of thing,” begins Soanes. “Traditional advertising was down 30 per cent last year but this type of experiential promotion was up by 10 per cent.”
Despite a rise in the number of promotions, the campaigns themselves have been smaller in size and value – no doubt one of the many lasting effects of 2009’s recession. But Soanes is confident that interest in centre promotions will remain high. “Experiential marketing has become more of a trend in the last five to 10 years. It’s a relatively unproven phenomenon, but the logic is that getting close to a consumer is better than advertising on TV, where you have no idea who’s watching,” Soanes insists.
But while this has been the trend for the last decade or so, it’s only recently that brands have started to get more creative. In the past, companies handed out free samples; now they might attract potential customers with interactive games, free trials, and even smells. At Lakeside shopping centre, a home brand recently pumped out the smell of freshly washed laundry: something Soanes describes as ‘aroma media’.
So what does the centre get in return? To start with, a big name brand will drive footfall and dwell time as shoppers are drawn towards promotions featuring their favourite drink or game console. “It becomes a destination event for shoppers,” insists Soanes.
But an all-singing, all-dancing campaign hosted by a well-known brand is not made available to every shopping centre. Out of the 500 centres in Britain, Soanes estimates that major brands only gravitate towards the top 100. This doesn’t mean that the remainder are left with nothing, however. “There are plenty of smaller brands who want to use these centres to promote directly to shoppers,” he adds.
The most important aspect of a commercialisation strategy is, of course, the income generated. Managers have the right to be selective over the type of brand and campaign they let into the centre, stresses Soanes. “The centre remains completely in control of the output. They are opening themselves up to other companies, so they can approve or reject anything they like.”
Mark Hughes-Webb is a business development director at Space-2, which finds short-term income generators to fill under-utilised spaces. Space-2 is in fact a property consultancy, but its directive is an obvious match for the shopping centre industry. Hughes-Webb launched a separate service, BrandHub, in early 2009. BrandHub offers fixed-cost lettings for a month at a time, enabling established brands or start-up companies to open ‘pop-up’ units in shopping centres.
Focussing on short-term leases is unusual for a property consultancy, but Hughes-Webb identified a gap in the market. With the growing prominence of commercialisation and a shift towards experiential brand promotions, the need for appropriate spaces and temporary lets has grown. According to Hughes-Webb, brands want a physical presence in shopping centres in order to appeal directly to their target audience. What they don’t want is a 10- to 15-year lease.
“Brands want to try new things, not be tied into a lease for the next 10 years. But property agents aren’t instructed to do anything short-term. Now, we want to make brands aware that they can approach the property industry for this kind of interactive, short-term promotion,” asserts Hughes-Webb. “It’s not just about temporary lettings: it has become a business model.”
Part of this model is to find the location first, before devising a suitable promotion to fit the space. “Agencies come up with good ideas, but if they can’t provide the physical space then it can’t be done. We want to do things the other way around. Find the location first, then approach the right brands with our ideas,” says Hughes-Webb. And that is exactly how BrandHub managed to get Heat magazine into The Brunswick Centre in London’s Bloomsbury.
Initially, Heat hadn’t even considered holding its promotion in a shopping centre. “They wanted to display photographs and images of celebrities used in back issues of the magazine, which could have been done in a conventional venue like an art gallery,” Hughes-Webb says. “But in a shopping centre, the appeal is that you’re targeting the right people. Heat came to the Brunswick on the basis that it is not a conventional venue, and it was chosen because it suited the brand.”
Possibly one of the most recognised and talked about brands across the country is, of course, The X-Factor. International company Photo-Me has recently come up with a product for shopping centres that involves the X-Factor brand. More impressively, the licensors have willingly signed up.
The product itself is similar to the traditional photographic booths that Photo-Me operates. But rather than taking photos, people go inside the heavily branded booths to sing along to a song of their choice. “It’s a karaoke machine,” explains Francois De Freitas, head of marketing at Photo-Me. “You choose from 500 songs, then sing along inside the booth, and a DVD of your performance is burnt for you to keep.”
At £5 a go, the new X-Factor karaoke booths aren’t the cheapest shopping centre offering. But De Freitas is certain that the brand image and the product itself are targeting the right people. “The most important thing is to create products that are attractive. They need to satisfy the needs of the customers who want to have some fun and do things they can’t do at home,” he says.
And it’s the appeal of a well-known brand that De Freitas is hoping will satisfy shoppers’ needs as they look for extra entertainment. The X-Factor was the obvious choice for this type of product, but convincing licensor FremantleMedia to associate its most prestigious brand with a karaoke booth was no mean feat. “It’s been difficult,” he admits. “Fremantle wanted to protect the brand because it’s so big. This is a very unique concept, so some people don’t know quite what to make of it. But Fremantle saw the opportunity.”
Meeting high market standards and garnering complex technology have added further delays. It has taken over a year since the project was devised to get to this point, and only a handful of shopping centres had booths installed before Christmas. The initial plan had been to roll out the product during The X-Factor’s latest series.
“We would have liked to be in centres earlier, but a lot have now become involved,” insists De Freitas. Over 80 centres including White Rose shopping centre in Leeds and Manchester Arndale, have now installed the karaoke booths, with more to follow: “We’re rolling them out first in the UK, then maybe across other countries.”
So it would seem the X-Factor brand is strong enough to churn up interest all year round, which is ideal in the context of commercialisation. “The booth has been very well-received,” says De Freitas. “Centres have been very keen to take it on because it’s something completely new to the industry.”
