by EMERSON SLOANE
My friend Lindsay is a young professional. She's a much sought-after unicorn that exists and floats in the goldilocks zone of demographics talked about and debated at length over pastries and coffee in meeting rooms across the country's advertising and marketing agencies: the Millennial woman.
Lindsay lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but I met her here in Duluth. She's always dressed beautifully and she travels, most recently to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. When I asked her recently about her shopping habits and how the mall fits in to her personal shopping, she talked a lot about wanting a mall that had a boutique feel to it, offered local options for shopping, and she wanted to go into a mall and feel special and sophisticated, rather than having it feel like something meant more for her mother's generation or for teenagers.
The American mall, as an institution, is just over 60 years old now. Somewhere along the way, we all seemed to grow up quickly--lightning fast, really. With the advent of mobile phones, wi-fi, tablets, and an app for just about anything you want to buy or see, did we start leaving the mall behind or did the mall leave us?
When I was a teenager, the social network was the mall. It was where people were spotted and talked about the next day at school. It was where, of course, you shopped for the hottest brands everyone just had to be wearing. It was where you saw movies and played video games. It was, in many ways, the physical manifestation of what would later become our digital universe. But, as video arcades fall dark and commerce moves, increasingly, to our phones and computers, are the reports about the death of the mall over the last few years marketing reality or urban myth?
What if we said both are true? But, what if we also said that even though the mall may be dead, it is still quite alive. Confused? Welcome to the 21st century.
Enter Christa Allen. Or, rather, exit Christa Allen, from a taxi snaking and speeding its way through the streets of Manhattan on an early Monday morning to her office at Simon Property Group. Christa is the Assistant Vice President of Brand Partnerships and Events at Simon, and in case you didn't know, wherever you live, Simon Property Group probably owns your mall.
With nearly 200 million square feet of retail space across the US and Asia, the corporation is the largest real estate investment trust in the United States. With so much at stake, you better believe that no mall will be left lingering on life support in the multi-billion dollar industry that clothes you, feeds you, furnishes and decorates your home. It's go time and Simon's mall game today is especially strong.
At this year's SXSW Festival, Christa represented a brand that is being termed a "retail disrupter." What does that mean? And is being disruptive in the retail and fashion industry a reputation worth having? According to Christa, the answer is a resounding yes.
"It's about rebranding. We were invited to SXSW as part of Simon. But, Simon has been known as a retail property name, right? So the new question then becomes, 'How do you take that brand and speak about it as a luxury brand?'"
Consider the concept: Become the luxury brand, itself. Simon's malls carry some of the most luxurious names in the retail business from Kate Spade to Kenneth Cole to Gucci. The idea of branding the company owning the retail space as its own luxury brand is the most key indicator that the "mall" is dead. What I mean by that is not the physical destruction of the mall as legitimate and relevant space, but its intrinsic replenishment in the modern American consumer psyche. Where in the past, the mall was focused on generating money for investors while serving a suburban population growing in the post-war years in affluence, mimicking the Main Street shopping experience, now, the malls are brands themselves, targeting specific demographics with messages that are unmistakably clear: we cater to you, we are where you want to be, we are luxury, and we are the new town square. Long live the mall.
Sometimes the messages are subtle and sometimes not. At the Miller Hill Mall, right here in Duluth, Minnesota, for example--far from the metropolitan powerhouses of mall commerce, Simon installed recharging stations for your mobile devices--the very ones that have seemed to threaten bricks and mortar shopping among the coveted Millennial demographic. As you walk in the main doors, there they stand sentinel waiting to be engaged--a bold reassertion of the mall as the destination point of the shopping community.
The messages are the key and Christa Allen is on the forefront of that message interpretation. The look is sleek and minimal. Madison Avenue has definitely hit the Food Court and beyond. In a word, the whole concept is gloriously...disruptive. But, it's not just slick marketing. It's meaningful engagement.
"Our strategy moving forward is about making people relate to shopping. You look through some of the world’s fashion magazines and have seen over the past year that it’s minimal and modern and cool and disruptive in the case that retail groups don’t usually advertise that way," explains Allen as she discusses the marketing assets of the multi-million dollar corporation.
"When they see an ad for a Simon property in a luxury magazine like Vogue, for example, they ask themselves, 'Isit a fashion brand?'"
The idea is to impart to the shopper that the Simon name is as much an innovator and disrupter of the status quo as any recognized fashion brand on the cover of Women's Wear Daily. And that's where they prove their renaissance relevance to shoppers like my friend Lindsay. The mall becomes the sophistication she's looking for and the message engagement is the attention she and other Millennials are seeking--in everything they do.
Christa's career has brought her from working on Olympus in the Condé Nast building as an assistant to the managing editor of Vogue to the retail powerhouse Westfield, before joining Simon. But, before that, she worked briefly with fashionista Stacy London's start-up, Style for Hire, a concept based on catering to the individual shopper on a one-to-one basis. So how does one go from focusing on one end of the spectrum--the individual--to the world of Simon, where by its sheer size, is focused so much on the shopping experience of the masses? As it turns out, there's not much of a departure for Christa and it's the connecting point where modern technologies are breathing new life into America's malls. As they say, "There's an app for that."
"We have a Simon mobile app," Christa explains, as a means of connecting the dots between her experience with individual shoppers and the mass consumer experience. "It finds that mall, what stores they have, where to find them, what deals are being offered, and real time information beyond digitizing what they can find like a directory." The smart mall caters to the Millennial woman on a mission, wanting convenience and ease while still craving, almost nostalgically, the tactile physical experience of shopping. "Is there valet parking? What is the best place to park?" Christa's message about Simon's strategy is clear: The union between cutting edge technology and the physical shopping experience is strong. Technology doesn't have to drive people away from the mall; rather, it brings the experience full-circle.
That extends to social media as well. The power of the collective experience is only exponentially enhanced by our individual access to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And Simon is actively engaging those applications and the users of those applications. Deploying a #FoundAtSimon campaign, the brand encourages a social community around its shopping malls with consumers sharing images and posts of their finds, alerting like-minded shoppers of what's current, what's hot, and exactly where to get it. The plan is for each retailer to have its own hashtag, Instagram, Twitter, and so on. The individual may be at home on their tablet or phone, swiping through a multitude of social media messages, but they're headed to the mall.
And more than just taking advantage of current social media applications and their far-reaching revenue generating potential, Simon has dedicated itself to actually investing in and supporting tech start ups as they relate and create mutually beneficial relationships for their retail establishments. Both Simon and Simon Venture Group look at, invest in, and solve for consumers what they need to improve their physical shopping experience through digital applications whether its wi-fi access, loyalty rewards, or enhanced mobile apps that aggregate information they need to shop, including rewards, receipts, and their sales histories. That portfolio of partnerships and investments includes ShopKick and Fuhu.
The physical space of the mall changes as well. From digital touch screen directory boards offered through a partnership with eBay called the "Connected Mall" to the industry's first Bluetooth low emission network, Simon allows its individual retailers to communicate with shoppers via their devices and through their store assets while walking around the mall.
But, what about the local angle? From sustainable food production to buying locally, we are coming to value, more than ever in recent memory, the locality of our dollars. Does the mall represent the loss of authentic local retail culture when it stands as a big box monolith in any community? Again, Christa and I referenced by friend, Lindsay.
"I think she's spot on," said Christa. "We partner with Refinery29, you know, and the Millennial minded woman doesn’t necessary end at 34 but has that mindset Lindsay has and that’s how I like to shop as well." Christa went on to talk about the Refinery29 tour happening this summer. "We went to six cities and decided we're bringing independent local retailers to the mall space--very disruptive, right?" The strategy is to actively engage people who don't think the mall is "cool" anymore and prefer indie boutiques--finding that one-off original piece. Rather than turning their backs on that need, Simon has endeavored to bring those independent shops right into the mall space and develop that local commitment. But, that's not where it ends.
"At the end of the day, our job there was...we brought those new people to the mall, but now what? We hope they come away with a new understanding of their local mall...'I didn't realize this mall had this store,' you know? We want to surprise them and offer new selections."
And Simon has taken that strong message from consumers about the value they place on independent boutiques and evolved it into fashion pop up shops with independent retailers and national brands all participating in the same place, sitting beside each other. And locally, in our own city by the largest freshwater lake in the world, Duluth, local retailers and pop ups make their home among national brands in a community where, if you asked people on the street where they got their first job, they're likely to say it was up at the mall.
That covers the demographic where Lindsay lives and shops, but what about the guys? I've long written about the importance of making men feel invested in their clothes and in the shopping experience as well. More than a few male friends of mine have discreetly asked for assistance in developing not only a personal wardrobe, but a professional one as well. We talk about fabrics, color, and fit. In a culture where most men don't like the collective shopping experience that is the mall--from finding parking to enduring the crowds to having too many options to choose from--how do we keep Millennial guys feeling the love of this new mall society?
Christa says it's about "demystifying the mall" for guys. "It's about creating environments that feel easy to navigate. A guy doesn’t want to circle the mall to find the store he wants to go into." That's where the technology boosts the likelihood of guys spending more time at the mall shopping for clothes. In regards to the current trend of men being able to access looks and clothing by having boxes of selected merchandise mailed to them, Simon believes that the physical mall is a better option.
"Men actually like individual interaction and they need help. Sending a box of clothing to the home has value in terms of time spent--you don’t have to navigate the mall--but what they find is a lot of stuff is sent back. Guys care much more about fit and feel than those services consider and the important part of that is trying things on. What we did last year was partner with Glamour and GQ--we had his and her side pop-up closets that traveled around the country."
Style experts from Glamour and GQ talked to consumers, and most importantly, men, about what the trends are and how they apply to your lifestyle and habits. Men responded remarkably well to that and loved talking to someone for 10 minutes about the clothes that were around them.
Under the creative direction of Chidi Achara, formerly of Cole Haan, the Simon brand has become exactly that--a fashion and luxury brand in itself. It has evolved and continues to evolve into a luxury experience, independent of, but also parent to, the best brands on the market today, with the savviest of strategies on the table to make the mall live for yet another day.
Where once the blips and beeps and cheers of the mall arcade illustrated the advance of technology in America's malls--the halcyon days of the 1980s and 1990s--now there reigns supreme the individual digital experience; not of blips and beeps and games, but of a convergence of phones and tablets directing, urging, inviting shoppers inside through the ether of radio waves, from home to car and back. If there's one thing Americans love more than anything else, it's a great comeback story. But, this one is another draft of past meets future, one of not just coming back, but of rewiring the story.
The mall is dead; long live the mall.
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