Promotion, America-Style

When I moved to Minnesota this summer, it wasn’t to live in the shadow of the Mall of America – but I’m not complaining that that’s how it turned out. It’s like coming home to Mecca.

This is no mere mall. The 4.2 million-square-foot building draws 42.5 million tourists a year, more than Disney World, Graceland, and the Grand Canyon combined. They come for the Camp Snoopy amusement park, UnderWater World, and Lego Imagination Center as much as the 500-plus stores. The mall’s mission to be the premiere entertainment and retailing entity in the country puts promotion in a different light – and on a different scale – than your usual neighborhood mall.

“We create promotions for entertainment value, to drive traffic, and to give [retailer] tenants an extra push with certain audiences,” says director of marketing Wendy Williams. “We have to keep drawing those 43 million people every year, so we do new things to bring people back year after year.”

The mall hosts 300 events a year, most of them developed by its five-member events staff, many of them sponsored by mall tenants or local businesses. Ongoing promos like Kids Quest Family Fun Days and Golden Stars for seniors drive general traffic. Occasional events, like the quarterly women’s expo sponsored by Filene’s, are designed for key tenants.

Occasionally the mall builds a promotion around a one-of-a-kind event. After 20th Century Fox filmed the 1996 holiday movie Jingle All the Way here, Williams persuaded the studio to hold the film’s premiere at the mall. “They never do premieres outside L.A. or New York,” she says. “We just kept asking until they agreed.” Arnold Schwarzenegger, Phil Hartman, and the film’s other stars were flabbergasted by the crowd of 20,000 that turned out to see them, the screening, and the mall’s annual Holiday Parade, Williams recounts.

Road show no-shows

Tour events like Kraft’s Country Kitchen Tour and NBA Jam are increasingly popular, but few include Mall of America on their itinerary. That’s because it’s expensive – $5,000 a day – and because the calendar’s booked.

Touring events “used to be more prevalent, but now we have so many of our own events it’s tough to find space on the calendar,” Williams says. In October, the China Travel & Folklore Festival takes over the mall for 10 days for Chinese entertainment and decor, including a gigantic dragon that will hang from the ceiling all the way around the mall.

In December, Meredith Corp. will sponsor an exhibit of Christmas trees decorated by different designers; next year it will build a full-size, furnished house in the mall’s rotunda, a holiday tradition for the mall.

Mall of America also broke new ground by signing corporate sponsors, including Northwest Airlines and Pepsi-Cola’s local bottlers group. Williams credits Karen Corsaro, president of Simon Brand Ventures, the marketing arm of the mall’s manager Simon DeBartolo Group. Corsaro signed sponsors before the mall opened in 1992, and Williams continues to match sponsors with events. Pepsi sponsors events at Camp Snoopy and UnderWater World, and runs mall tie-ins on-pack and via tags on TV and radio spots. Mall of America sometimes collaborates with parent Simon DeBartolo to sign sponsors. Each had been pursuing separate deals to sign a credit card sponsor, but the mall joined Simon DeBartolo’s negotiation with Visa once it was assured the mall would get as much revenue as it would have with an independent deal.

I’m debating whether to leave my own Visa at home when I hit the mall for store checks. Mecca could get mighty expensive.

Mr. Pibb Goes for Dinner and a Movie Coca-Cola is tapping its fountain business for a back-to-school promo for Mr. Pibb, its spicy cherry soft drink.

It’s not a blockbuster brand, but Mr. Pibb sells pretty well in the South. So Coke opted for a local campaign with a high-tech halo this fall. Throughout the south, kids who buy a combo meal with Mr. Pibb at participating fast-food restaurants and C-stores get a CD-ROM disc of games. A contest invites kids to design a Mr. Pibb computer game and win $10,000 and two computers. Coke will simulcast the contest live to area movie theaters, so kids can watch before seeing a movie. Marketing Corp. of America, Westport, CT, handles. N

Drive Time Car dealers may be driving away their prime consumers, young adults, by catering to older shoppers. A consumer survey from direct marketer Advo Inc. found that only 68 percent of adults 18 to 34 were very satisfied with the dealership where they last bought a new car, compared to 77 percent of 35- to 54-year-olds and an astounding 94 percent of shoppers 55-plus. Dealers may assume that older shoppers are more affluent, but guess what: 18- to 34-year-olds buy new cars at nearly twice the rate as folks over 35. Fully 35 percent of consumers 18 to 35 buy a new car every three years or less; only 19 percent of consumers 35-plus buy that often. The survey, conducted by NPD Group for Windsor, CT-based Advo, found that half of shoppers 18 to 34 choose a dealer based on price, compared to 37 percent of shoppers 55-plus; 41 percent compare advertised prices to decide where to shop. N

Melon-thumping, on-line Good news, bad news for grocers: Twice as many consumers are shopping online this year. They spent an estimated $150 million on groceries ordered by computer and delivered to their homes. That’s less than 0.1 percent of the nearly $400 billion spent in supermarkets, but online grocery shopping is expected to grow to $60 billion to $85 billion by 2007, predicts Andersen Consulting. (Supermarket spending is expected to hover around $400 billion through 2005.)

The good news is consumers spend more online than they do in the store: Online orders average $123 versus $34 for the average market basket, according to the M/A/R/C Group, Irving, TX. The research and database marketing firm conducted a survey for Peapod Inc., the biggest online grocery shopping service with 72,000 members. Peapod serves supermarkets in seven cities. Peapod aims for 650,000 members and $1 billion in sales by 2001.

In M/A/R/C’s Online vs. In Line survey, Peapod members said they spend 62 percent of their grocery budgets through Peapod. They buy an annual average of $1,750 worth of groceries via Peapod; heavy users buy $4,500 a year, closer to the grocer’s average of $5,000 per household. Heavy users account for only 20 percent of Peapod’s membership, but 50 percent of total sales.

Two-thirds of Peapod members have a personalized shopping list, and place more than half their orders without ever cruising Peapod’s “aisles.” That’s good news for brands on the list, bad news for competitive brands and for new-product introductions.

The good news for brands is the untapped opportunity in meal solutions: Peapod shoppers use “non cooking solutions” (read: prepared foods) for nearly half their meal occasions. N

Campari USA has a bitter pill to swallow: American consumers think the Italian Campari Aperitivo liqueur is too bitter straight-up. So the company tried a new recipe and a dose of fine art this summer, marrying Campari’s long-standing arts heritage with a sophisticated sampling program.

The on-premise campaign, A Brush with Red, brought painters into restaurants and bars in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami to paint for patrons.

Emerging artists, scouted out by marketing agency Entertainment Marketing Inc., Chicago, painted portraits of red models – yes, human models, painted red from head to toe – striking poses from Campari’s transit ads while customers looked on, sipping samples of Campari mixed with orange juice.

“It’s like a magnet – people are taken by the beauty,” says EMI president Mitch Berk.

Each performance lasted 60 to 90 minutes, with stylish tent cards, swizzle sticks, and other collateral reinforcing the brand’s image. The summerlong campaign ran in nearly 50 establishments, with 274 events. Campari sales jumped as much as 300 percent on event nights. Campari plans to auction paintings this fall in each city, with proceeds going to charity. The company may extend to new markets next year.