Kevin and Libby Go Shopping
Sep 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Elaine Misonzhnik
Retail property owners join the social networking craze.
On a Wednesday night this July, the marketing staff for Scottsdale Fashion Square, a two-million-square-foot superregional mall in Scottsdale, Ariz., owned by the Macerich Co., updated the mall's Facebook page with a few reminders to its 638 fans. There was a Nordstrom Anniversary Sale going on and shoppers could save up to 40 percent on their purchases. Customers throughout Macerich malls could also enter a $10,000 sweepstakes by registering at inspireyourstyle.com, a Macerich-run Web site complete with advice about fashion.
Among the news about Scottsdale Fashion Square and Macerich, the most curious post was about a couple named Kevin and Libby, who attended a premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” that evening at the local movie theater. The post included photos of Kevin and Libby in line for movie tickets, at the concession stand and engrossed in the film. It revealed that “Kevin loves movie popcorn!” The catch? Kevin and Libby are plush mannequins.
Dreamed up by Macerich's marketing folks this spring as a way to generate buzz for the opening of a new Barneys at Scottsdale Fashion Square, Kevin and Libby have become an amusing diversion for Scottsdale shoppers, who like to keep an eye out for sightings of the mannequins throughout the city, says Traci Weber, senior vice president of marketing with the Santa Monica, Calif.-based REIT. In recent weeks, Scottsdale Fashion Square's “hottest couple” rode the downtown trolley, had margaritas during happy hour at Z'Tejas' restaurant and attended a Saturday night Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game. In July, Libby even took a trip to New York, renting a suite at the W hotel, getting a tour of Barneys with the help of the store's famed creative director Simon Doonan and experiencing authentic New York City cuisine with a pretzel from a street cart vendor.
The reason Scottsdale locals are aware of all this is because Kevin and Libby, who appear to be in their late 20's or early 30's, are typical of their generation — they love to share their experiences on social networks. And when Libby is seen around town wearing a cute skirt or Kevin finds a particularly cool pair of jeans, Macerich helpfully lets the mall's Facebook fans and 578 Twitter followers know which Scottsdale Fashion Square store carries such items. (There is no word yet on which bookstore sold Libby the Jodi Picoult novel she took with her on the flight to New York.)
“It's a great example of how social media is making an impact and allowing us to have more of a relationship with our shoppers,” says Weber. “We drop clues about where [Kevin and Libby] are going to be and then people talk about seeing them.”
The Kevin and Libby phenomenon is part of an industrywide push to take advantage of social networks to create new interactions between shoppers, retailers and shopping center owners. In the past, retail property owners' online presence amounted to static company and property sites. In fact, the mall industry has historically eschewed doing too much online because the business is so reliant on people coming to properties. Mall owners have largely viewed the Internet as a threat because of the rise of online shopping. Now the sector is learning how to leverage the Internet to enhance the in-mall experience.
One reason for this is the increasing popularity of handheld wireless devices and social networks. Facebook now has 66 million registered users in the U.S. and 250 million registered users worldwide, according to the Nielsen Co., a global marketing and media information firm. About 120 million of those users visit Facebook at least once a day. This spring, micro-blog service Twitter's U.S. membership passed the seven million mark, a 1,382 percent increase from the same period last year. And increasingly, people are accessing these networks via mobile devices. The number of mobile service subscribers in the U.S. is now above 224 million.
For mall operators, that's a lot of potential shoppers and not just in the low-spending teen demographic — the largest group of Twitter users, for instance, is made up of people in the 35- to 49-year-old age range. It also means that shoppers can be reached while they are on site, via promotional texts, e-mails, tweets or Facebook updates that can pop up on Web-enabled mobile devices.
All this technology allows property owners to engage customers in two-way conversations. When a mall posts a notice on an upcoming sale or marketing promotion on its Facebook page, shoppers can post feedback on the event, giving the owner a sense of how successful the promotion has been.
It also doesn't hurt, given today's market environment, the cost-effectiveness of it all. Setting up Facebook pages or Twitter accounts is quick and costs nothing. For Macerich, creating Kevin and Libby's escapades is no more expensive than the price of two mannequins, a camera and maybe a trolley ticket. What social networking does require, however, is time and effort. Being consistent with postings and making sure what you are putting up is interesting is essential to build and sustain a network of engaged followers. If you can do that, you can reach hundreds, if not thousands, of people in a shopping center's trade area regularly.
For example, when Atlanta-based REIT Cousins Properties ran a gift card contest for its Avenue lifestyle centers this summer and advertised the event through its ShopTheAvenue Facebook page, the total costs for collateral, promotions and creative work came to less than $1,000 per property, says Kim Tanalgo-Minshew, marketing manager for the Avenue East Cobb in Peachtree City, Ga. By contrast, a traditional on-site marketing event like an art show would cost three to five times that amount when factoring in the price of equipment rentals, extra staffing, entertainment and supplies.
“Social media is much more cost-effective than doing on-site campaigns and than doing traditional advertising,” Tanalgo-Minshew says. “And we like the fact that shoppers start interacting. It has been a big retailer moral boost.”
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