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.

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)

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:

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

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.

The event was a great success, bringing several hundred people together for a great night that benefited a great cause. The gala featured appetizers and desserts by BRIO Tuscan Grille, a restaurant in the center, a Bloomingdale’s fashion show featuring fall fashions modeled by cancer survivors, a cash bar, a 50/50 raffle, a silent auction, and DJ music. Kids under 12 got in for free and had plenty to keep them busy in the Kid’s Zone, with cupcake decorating, yoga instruction, arts and crafts, food and lemonade.

Tickets to the event were $20, and shoppers who preregistered were entered to win a BRIO dinner for 10. An additional $50 donation put shoppers in the running for a $500 mall gift card, a flat screen TV, or a Tiffany bracelet.

It sounds like a great start to the fundraising season for the Cancer Alliance of Health and Hope, and a fantastic celebration of the finer things in life.

Sounds too good to be true, and it probably is. The bit about millions of views is true: the video was uploaded on August 16th, and now has over 6 million views on its official upload. The shot itself is probably fake, though Gillette claims it was completed in a single take. But isn’t that the most exciting part? Blog posts have gone up dedicated to decrying the video as fake and showing off some of Federer’s top serves. YouTube commentators passionately argue both sides. It’s a low-stakes controversy that stirs the blood and gets sports fans excited.

Real or fake, there are a lot of winners involved. Federer comes off looking like a champ, Gillette gets the views, and even the British Skin Foundation gets a plug. And no one’s going to complain when (or if) the truth comes out.

General Growth Properties plans to help its marketers skip some of the hard stuff. It’s launched a promotional sweepstakes that exists solely to build the online communities of its malls. The Spread the Love Sweepstakes will give away a $10,000 gift card to one lucky winner, and four $100 gift cards for the winner’s friends. It’s also offering daily draws of $20 – $100.

To enter, all GGP shoppers need to do is sign up on the contest microsite and “Like” and follow a GGP mall on Facebook and Twitter respectively. Sharing the promotion with friends earns the entrant more chances to win. It’s a promotion we’ve seen again and again pushing shopping center newsletters. But with Facebook’s aggressive social recommendation system, it could easily pay off exponentially for GGP malls. And taking the work out of finding new social fans means mall marketers can focus on creating the content that will keep those fans hooked.

• Supermarket bag use cut nears 50% target: Reusable bags become increasingly viable. (BBC, UK)
• Debt Forces Oriental Trading Into Chapter 11: A major supplier of mall promotional items for Simon and other centers enters bankruptcy protection. (Multichannel Merchant, US)
• Aussies spending $1bn for Dads’ Day: Australian shoppers go all out for Dad. (Inside Retailing, AU)
• Firms are profiting from group think: Group coupon sites like Groupon are paying off for businesses great and small. (Crain’s New York Business, US)
• Retail’s fresh start: Whether we blame good weather or nervous shoppers, back-to-school hasn’t been great this year. (Market Watch, US)
• Blockbuster appears poised for mid-September bankruptcy filing: There doesn’t seem to be any other way out for the beleaguered video retailer. (Dallas News, US)
• The Brazilians are coming — to a store near you: Brazilian shoppers are fueling retail growth throughout Latin America. (Reuters, US)
• Survey shows consumer resilience as UK retail sales volumes rise again: Retail sales in the UK have hit a three year high. (The Herald, UK)
• How Snooki Got Her Gucci: The Dirt on Purses: Sneaky marketing 101 (The New York Observer, US)
• Simon Property Completes Mall Acquisition: Simon has purchased 21 malls from Prime Outlets Acquisitions. (The Street, US)
• In recession, Goodwill becomes a force on the retail scene: Straddling the line between vintage and thrift, Goodwill expands. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, US)

Image: Christmas @ Eden 2007_S12570, a cc licensed flickr photo shared by Ennor