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Action Guide

The mechanics and rules of the incentive campaign must be very carefully prescribed with special attention to detail. For marketers, this is a whole separate event. In recent years, there has been such a trend: during the campaign, the organizer tries to move away from the lottery format and strives for the quiz format, since our fellow citizens have long formed a clear opinion about the honesty of all kinds of drawings.

The carefully developed marketing component of the event helps to optimize the costs of the prize fund from tenants in the event that the prize fund is formed without attracting the own funds of the owners of the shopping center or the management company. Tenants want to see what they are paying the marketing fee for. After all, if there is an understanding that the event increases attendance, it certainly increases the loyalty of tenants to the management company. It happens that there is a situation when the organizer spends a lot of money on an event, but cannot predict its effectiveness in advance. At the same time, it is important to understand that the larger the shopping and entertainment center, the more difficult it is to calculate the effectiveness of the event in advance. With the existing huge competition, shopping malls need to stand out in some way, but it is very difficult to do this at the expense of a pool of tenants now, since everyone has a standard set of brands. Shopping and entertainment centers compete with each other in the condition and concept of the objects themselves. Where navigation is better, the toilet is cleaner, the food court is more spacious, parking is more convenient, incentive promotions are more interesting and events are brighter, a buyer is more likely to come there, even if he has a choice of several shopping malls located at the same distance from him.

The concept of most shopping centers that have been built over the past five years, initially laid a certain zest. There is the second tallest cylindrical aquarium in the world in the "Khodynka Field" aviapark. The aquarium is 23 meters high and 6 meters in diameter and holds 370,000 liters of seawater and about 3,500 fish swim in it. And the Riviera shopping center, in addition to shops, offers to visit a whole socio-cultural cluster: a museum of modern art, a theater, a panda park, a multiplex cinema, many workshops and a children's city where young visitors can try themselves in various professions. Among the tenants of the "Riviera" are the leading players of the Russian entertainment industry. The more original and interesting the image component of a shopping and entertainment center, the more attractive it looks to visitors. At the same time, the image of not so much a specific event is important, as the image of the mall itself, in which the event is being held, and this is the task of the management company to competently adjust the operation of the facility, maintain cleaning and engineering networks at a decent level, draw up and implement a marketing plan for a shopping and entertainment center, form a pool of tenants corresponding to the conceived concept Shopping center. Accordingly, the owners of the center will consider it appropriate to invest in those activities that will allow their shopping center to be allocated for the better among many competing facilities. As soon as the visitors of the shopping center become aware that some interesting event is planned in it, the so-called word of mouth is triggered, and they begin to tell their friends about the upcoming event. The topic of leisure activities in shopping and entertainment centers is becoming all the more relevant. Shopping malls cease to satisfy only one consumer need and become a place where you can have a good time, watch a movie, an exhibition, eat delicious food, take master classes and teach children something new. More and more shopping and entertainment centers are developing a cultural and entertainment component, which means that events and promotions are becoming an important tool for marketing departments of management companies in the fight for the attention of the visitor. Regardless of the brands presented, the shopping center itself becomes a brand, dictates the style of leisure activities to visitors. It is very important to increase the emotional component of everything connected with visiting a particular object, this contributes to its recognition, encourages people to make a choice in favor of visiting this particular center.

It is important to understand what level of shopping center the event is being held in: will it be a huge mall on the outskirts of the capital or a small regional shopping center. The question of the marketing budget often arises: to increase or decrease it in a crisis? On the one hand, low-budget events will attract much fewer visitors, on the other, an increase in such an item of expenditure in economically difficult times may prove controversial for the owners or the company managing the shopping center. To increase the profit of a shopping and entertainment center, promotions that are designed to increase the amount of the average check or customer traffic work well, and the so-called incentive promotions with expensive prizes cause greater interest among visitors to shopping and entertainment centers. Anchor tenants of the shopping center, and mostly these are large stores specializing in the sale of electronics and household appliances, it is advisable to attract as sponsors of the event. Technomarkets are most often willing to join the action and form a prize fund. If we are talking about a promotional campaign in which buyers receive coupons for a prize draw for a certain amount by check, then stores in which the amount of the average check is somehow large are asked not to participate in such an action, and these are just electronics sellers and large grocery retailers for whom it is advisable to arrange individual events.

Author: Olga Shtoda,

Director of Management BlackStone Keeping Company