Industry Headlines for April 9
How Your Value Message Can Be Heard Above the Din
Ad Age, US
Consumers don’t have to look far these days for a deal; it seems marketers everywhere are pitching discounts, bargains and value. Walmart allows consumers to save money and live better. Microsoft reminds that PCs are cheaper than Macs and just as good …
NAACP calls for boycott of Highland Mall
Atlanta Business Journal, US
The Austin chapter of a national civil rights organization is calling for a boycott of Highland Mall in response to the mall’s decision to close during last weekend’s Texas Relays. The local arm of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People released a statement on Wednesday saying it will organize a community response on April 11 against the “racist and xenophobic behavior of the management at Highland Mall” …
Child Safe program to be trialled
The Queensland Times, AU
A pilot Child Safe program similar to successful United Kingdom programs will be trialled at Ipswich Central State School in the April school holidays. Arts Community and Cultural Services Committee chairman Charlie Pisasale said the Child Safe brand was becoming increasingly recognisable throughout the United Kingdom and Europe and operators were now keen to see it launched in Australia …
Management briefing: five steps to surviving a retail recession
The Times, UK
An article in the April edition of the Harvard Business Review draws on a study of more than 50 big United States-based retailers to create what the authors Ken Favaro and Tim Romberger, of Marakon, a global consultancy, and David Meer, of Enfatico, a New York-based marketing agency, call their “Five rules for retailing in a recession” …
Mall Developer’s Shares Soar, but Its Troubles Continue
The Washington Post, US
Shares of struggling General Growth Properties, owner of Baltimore’s Harborplace, soared yesterday for the second day in a row, but the company said it didn’t know of any reason for the spike …
Malls Test Experimental Waters to Fill Vacancies
New York Times, US
In these desperate days in American retailing, mall owners are seizing on a new gimmick: wave-making machines. A half-dozen malls across the country are planning to install a huge contraption called the Flowrider in vacant retail space. Where once people shopped for three-packs of underwear or sheet sets, they are now turning up in flip-flops and shorts to surf an artificial patch of ocean …
