Tailor-Made
Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Riccardo A. Davis
As retailers struggle and post lackluster sales results, one of the most important things a shopping center owner or manager can do for its tenants is boost foot traffic any way it can. With that in mind, Chattanooga-based CBL & Associates Properties developed a unique marketing campaign. Through its “Treat Yourself” campaign, the company has developed marketing materials and advertisements encouraging shoppers to do something nice for themselves whether that be taking in a movie, having an extra meal out or buying themselves a little present.
Part of the campaign's appeal is that marketing managers at individual properties can adapt the campaign to each center. That way, managers can highlight their center's well-known offerings or boast lesser-known aspects using the overarching theme. CBL rolled out the umbrella campaign in January and is expected to run it until 2010. Its creative and production cost $500,000. The collateral marketing materials selected at the local level by the mall marketing manager encompasses newspaper advertising, direct mail and in-mall signage using various themes including “Big Savings,” “A Little Retail Therapy” and “To Good Eats.”
“The program and various materials allow a marketing director to take an idea and adjust it to fit in a particular market,” says Shannon Gonzalez, regional marketing director for CBL & Associates, who oversees 14 centers in North and South Carolina. The demographic makeup of the regions in Gonzalez's territory vary widely, she says, ranging from suburban residential communities to military training bases. “What the marketing directors in my region have done is tailor the umbrella campaign to what's most effective in their respective markets.”
For example, in the family-oriented resort town of Myrtle Beach, S.C., Gonzalez says, the marketing director at CBL's Coastal Grand chose to spotlight the mall's strong roster of retailers that sell apparel for youths and teens. At the more than one-million-square-foot center, they customized the program with “Treat Yourself to Free Music,” which gives consumers who spend $75 or more at specialty apparel retailers within the mall three free music downloads and the chance to win an iPod.
Ready-to-wear
CBL & Associates devised the campaign after setting for itself a goal of developing a marketing strategy that could better define the more than 150 individual shopping centers in its 85-million-square-foot portfolio.
The idea, according to CBL & Associates' vice president of mall marketing Barb Faucette, was to come up with something that could be tailored to its properties and at the same time have a common theme. The company felt such a campaign would be more effective than a blanket advertising campaign rolled out across all its centers. The challenge, then, was to promote customized campaigns that take into account how CBL & Associates' centers are not only dispersed throughout non-metro markets in the United States but also that the residents and their needs are as diverse as the regions themselves.
As background, CBL engaged in two years of market research to come up with “Treat Yourself.” Among the research analyzed was a 2004 Leo Burnette Worldwide study titled “Miss Understood.” It revealed that 83 percent of women surveyed said they identify with advertising with which they can make an emotional connection.
With that insight, CBL worked with its agency of record, KMT Creative Group, in Chattanooga, to devise a corporate branding campaign that addresses “What Do Women Want?” The resultant “Treat Yourself” campaign includes compatible and interchangeable components and themes designed to enable CBL & Associates and its marketing directors to allocate resources more efficiently. CBL & Associates has produced a creative campaign that is both purposeful for the individual shopping center and at the same time is effective in reaching consumers across the entire portfolio, says Faucette. It identifies for the marketing manager “not only what is the best buy, but what is the most effective means to reach that target audience.”
