Hildreds Shopping Centre is known for its creative displays and the effort it puts into its holiday decor. So it should come as no surprise that when shopping center staff put their minds to participating in a community parade, they’d give it their all.

The 2010 Skegness Carnival had a Mardi Gras theme, and Hildreds embraced it whole-heartedly. They dressed up as clowns, trapeze artists, and strong men, and created a float that included a a polystyrene eight foot elephant, a big top tent, lions and a clown car filled with bubbles and smoke.

The shopping center took first place in the float competition. The carnival, which Hildreds Shopping Centre sponsors each year, raises money for community charities. Pete Roffe, shopping centre manager, said: “We are pleased to take part in such a community driven occasion. The carnival is always a crowd puller for the town and gives everyone the chance to work together to make it a success. Every member of the Hildreds team had a great time, and coming first in the trade category is the icing on the cake to a tremendous day had by all.

On Monday, shopping centers across New Zealand shared a tasty treat with shoppers, for a great cause.

August 30th was the second annual Cupcake Day, a nation-wide fundraiser for the SPCA. Cupcake cooks across the country registered to bake the tasty treats to sell in stalls, with all proceeds going to the SPCA.

As if the prospect of a delicious, decadent snack weren’t enough, many locations held competitions to make things even more fun. There were winners amongst cooks and consumers, for the most creative cupcake, the most extreme location for cupcake consumption, the most cupcakes baked, and the most money raised. Seperate winners were chosen among the 12-and-under set and amongst those over 13.

Art Nouveau Series 1, a cc licensed flickr photo shared by Sugarbloom Bev ;o)

For parents, back-to-school shopping is a part of life. It has to be done somewhere; the only question is where to do it. So how do you make sure that your shopping center is on the top of parents’ minds for back-to-school?

Burlington Mall recently found a way. Rather than limit itself to the more passive forms of traditional marketing, the Canadian shopping center took matters into its own hands with a guerrilla marketing campaign sure to draw shoppers’ attention. Sneaking out early one morning, representatives of the shopping center decorated trees in surrounding neighborhoods with 2000 free t-shirts. Shoppers woke up to a great reminder to get out and shop, and some free swag for back-to-school.

The shirts were plain white tees with tags suggesting that shoppers head to Burlington Mall for their BTS shopping, so the lucky recipients weren’t burdened with marketing slogan shirts. The t-shirts also tied in to the center’s Back 2 Cool Tee-Torial contest, which has youngsters visiting the mall in their favorites tees to talk on video about their styles for fall.

Here’s a video from Burlington Mall showing off their stunt and some great reactions:

CBL & Associates Properties has picked its partner for mobile applications in its shopping centers: mallMerlin.

The app isn’t available until later this year, so we can’t give you a hands-on review yet. But it’s got a few interesting features that might whet your mobile appetite. Of course, mallMerlin will have all the usual suspects on board: in-mall navigation, customized deal delivery, and contact information. You’d be hard-pressed to find a retail app that lacks those basics these days, so we hope you’re keeping them in mind when shopping for your own mobile solution.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. mallMerlin will also give retailers the opportunity to display images of their storefront (vital when trying to navigate a new mall, especially when dealing with spotty GPS), to feature products with high-def images, descriptions and pricing, and to offer high-def video. It also lets retailers enhance and customize their discounts and offers before the customers reach the point of sale if they don’t want to be locked in to a one-size-fits-all discount. And it offers co-promotions, so retailers in a shopping center can work together to support each other’s marketing efforts, or to work with the mall’s marketing plans. Finally, it gives retailers a content management system and analytic so promotions can be updated and tracked with ease.

This could raise the bar for retail apps, if it turns out as good as it sounds.

Past in the Future, a cc licensed flickr photo shared by motionblur

A couple pieces of great environmental news out of Australian malls this week:

Ocean Village Shopping Centre has gone solar. The shopping center has installed a photovalic solar array that generates enough power to keep the lights going in the center’s parking lot and common areas. Here’s more on that story from Byron Shire News:

The photovoltaic solar ‘array’ is the work of Moruya-based company Solar Energy Options – the only ones willing to take on the challenge of constructing what is believed to be the largest solar panel structure of its kind at any shopping centre in NSW, according to Ms O’Dwyer.
…
Set to generate around 15,000 kilowatts of electricity per year, Ms O’Dwyer said the unique design of the massive solar roof also provided shade and weather protection for shoppers.”

And from Australian Food News, information about Westfield Australia’s brand new beverage recycling initiative:

Westfield Shopping Centre today launched a recycling initiative which, once rolled out nationally, is expected to divert 675 tonnes of beverage containers from landfill each year – enough containers to fill nine Olympic sized swimming pools with recyclable material each year.

Parliamentary Secretary to the NSW Minister for Climate Change and the Environment Angela D’Amore MP launched the campaign at Westfield in Burwood, NSW yesterday. She described Westfield’s coordinated recycling service as an Australian first, which would increase opportunities for people to recycle away from home.