Bagging holiday shoppers

Wall Street Journal, US

In a few weeks, Steven Swain will make his annual pilgrimage to New York from Rocky Mount, Va., to visit the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and see the holiday window displays at Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys New York. He’s also planning to bring back some prized souvenirs: the 2008 crop of holiday shopping bags …

Shopping malls are running on empty

Los Angeles Times, US

Life Plaza Center in San Gabriel used to teem with diners heading to Green Village, a Chinese restaurant in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped mall on Valley Boulevard. But after the eatery closed five months ago, the 7,500- square-foot space remained vacant. With no tenants stepping forward and fewer customers clogging the parking lot, the plaza is quiet, with a curiously dark core …

Wal-Mart commits to powering 360 Texas sites with wind

Washington Post, US

Wal-Mart has signed a contract to help power hundreds of its stores using wind energy, one of the largest investments in the field by a U.S. retailer …

Shopping Centre chain plans aid for retailers

The Australian, AU

The Christmas retail market will not be as dire as some predict, but retailers will need support after the January sales. AMP Capital Shopping Centres marketing director Stuart Langeveldt, who joined the large shopping centre operator four weeks ago, said the company would remake its marketing strategy in the new year in a bid to keep the flow of shoppers into its malls in February, March and April …

What Web 3.0 can do for marketers

Advertising Age

t’s been nearly 10 years since Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the worldwide web, expressed his vision of a “semantic web,” in which all web data — and the meaning of that data — could be read by machines. Since then, much of the slow-moving progress toward this smarter and more powerful web has been courtesy of academics and data librarians …

Pop-up store for teens doesn’t sell a thing

Springwise

Yes, we know you know the pop-up retail trend has been around for years now, but Teen Vogue magazine is bringing its own twist to the concept, with a space that doesn’t sell a thing. Instead, visitors will be able to try on items from the racks of clothes on display, receive advice from stylists and sample products from the perfume bar or make-up station. Free snacks and gift-wrapping will also be offered, along with access to charging stations for cell phones and iPods …

Tim Walker bids a bittersweet farewell to Woolworths

The Independent, UK

On a lonely shelf at the back of an understocked store in a south-east London shopping centre, a big, blonde, half-price teddy bear sits staring glumly at his paws. “Is this what it’s come to?,” he seems to be asking himself. Just shy of its centenary year, in the last month before Christmas – when business ought to be booming –Woolworths, the poor bear’s employer, is going out of business altogether …

Nutgrove Shopping Centre in Ireland has prepared a fun Christmas promotion this year.

Each week leading up to Christmas, Santa will debut a new helper – one of five Christmas Gnomes to accompany him in his workshop. That week, shoppers can enter a contest to name the Gnome. The winning namer gets one of a great selection of family gifts, including electronics and trips.

Nutgrove is also putting care into its holiday charity initiatives. For the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the shopping center will give out gift tags to generous shoppers. The tags tell the shopper who to donate a gift for – a girl between age 4 and  7, perhaps, or an adult male. Hopefully that will help make sure no one’s stocking goes empty.

According to a Reuters article, Australia’s Macquarie Group Ltd may consider purchasing American REITs as early as next year. With Westfield’s recent confidence in the Australian market, this adds to evidence that  Australian business is weathering this economic downturn better than most.

From the article:

“I think in different segments of the markets, we’ll become active probably in the listed markets sooner than we do in the physical markets again,” he said. “We will see that 2009 will be a time to start dipping our toe into the water.”

Macquarie’s U.S. investments may take the form of takeovers of publicly traded company.

“We would only buy shares where we saw there was a strategic opportunity to privatize…to take it private and then restructure it such that we felt the value that we could get from restructuring it would be greater than the value we paid for it in the public market.”

ABC Family is set to work some holiday magic on TV and at the mall.
Read about it in the next edition of Tactics Magazine.

Find out how one Canadian mall broke through the mailbox clutter.
That’s coming up in the December edition of Marketing Trendz.

Cause Marketing: Cause Marketing is the art of combining your commercial brand with a non-profit issue. Cause marketing campaigns have years of history and range from relatively superficial tactical partnerships, to long-term, strategic alliances that penetrate deeply into business and nonprofit organizations.

Don’t forget to provide some backup for your holiday charity initiatives this year. The news is filled with reports of charities that are unable to meet demand, because people just aren’t as interested in giving when they’re worried about the future.

Bridge Street Centre in Alabama, US, is doing a great job of pushing its charity this year. This Saturday, it’s kicking off its “Be a Santa to a Senior” initiative. The shopping center has pulled in a little star power to back it up: when shoppers drop off a donation that will help seniors meet their basic needs this holiday, they get an autograph from a member of the Rockettes, as well as a picture with her. There will also be snacks and drinks on hand to make the drive more festive.

How is your mall pushing its charity initiatives this holiday season?