Success made in Poland

The ceremony for the MAXI Awards – the “retail Oscars” – has taken place in Hollywood. Representatives of Polish shopping centres shone in a city where the dreams of many aspiring film stars have come true, as many of the awards winged their way across the ocean all the way to the land of the Vistula

Zuzanna Wiak

The United States is a nation of shopping centres, and these have been the hub of social life for dozens of years. Some of the biggest and best retail centres operate there. This fact has been regularly confirmed at the annual awards of International Council of Shopping Centers, where US malls have traditionally dominated. The awards are one of the world’s most prestigious distinctions in the field of shopping centre marketing. How has Europe fared in comparison? Not too good, generally speaking. This year’s MAXI Award winners were chosen from 358 centres in 32 countries, out of which 102 centres qualified to take part in the finals. Eleven of the awards went to the old continent, and to countries such as Denmark, Germany, Great Britain and Poland – which with 5 awards collected the most European honours.

The top five

Apsys walked away with two awards for Polish cenres. Łódź Manufaktura, for its Museum of the Factory, received a MAXI Gold award for involvement in local community life. The other winning project was Janki shopping centre, which is administered by Apsys, receiving a MAXI Silver statuette for sales promotion and the ‘Lucky Receipts’ campaign. Warsaw Domoteka, belonging to Inter IKEA Centre Poland, received the next MAXI Silver award in the promotion and event category, for its ‘Domoteka Design Night’ scheme, which was inspired by the designer Karim Rashid’s visit in Poland. “We brought together the most effective communication channels and tools for the ‘Domoteka Design Night’ project – including PR and non-standard activities – which allowed an effective and wide reach to two difficult target groups: the Domoteka customer resistant to standard forms of promotion and the hermetic environment of interior designers and stylists. All this was carried out at a minimal cost,” recalls Elżbieta Ratajczyk, marketing manager of Domoteka and Targówek Retail Park.

Magnolia Park in Wrocław, developed by Redis, received another gold MAXI. The centre was honoured for its opening and ‘The Campaign With A Human Voice’ scheme. And the MAXI Silver award for alternative sources of income went to 
Silesia City Center in Katowice, administered by SCC Management and developed by TriGranit of Hungary and owned by Immoeast. The centre achieved its recognition in the international arena largely thanks to the Terracotta Army exhibition.

The Polish success

Poles have more and more to boast about when it comes to shopping centres despite, their relatively short (ten or so years’) experience of having them. Granted, we are not yet receiving as many awards as the Americans, but our retail space market is still not as developed as the one across the Atlantic. “The jury has noticed what administrators and owners outside the US are doing – especially in terms of their inspired local campaign ideas, which has helped them to make their mark in the face of the competition from their American counterparts. Hence our motto: don’t copy – create. It does work,” claims Marta Drzewiecka, the head of marketing of Silesia City Center.

Those responsible for the marketing of Polish retail centres feel more and more confident about achieving a level of professionalism based on western standards. “While working on the marketing strategy for Janki shopping centre, we were looking for a technique adjusted to the characteristics of a customer who is resistant to traditional advertising and, thus far, unaffected by most promotional activities. The idea we came up with the ‘Lucky Receipts’ sales campaign. It was a lottery based on an idea which had not been used in Poland before, where the symbols of prizes were printed on some of the receipts,’ relates, the shopping centre marketing director of Apsys Polska.

Culture from Poland

The MAXI Awards jury also appreciated Polish inventiveness when it comes to the organization of cultural events in malls. Łódź Manufaktura’s successful entry was the Museum of the Factory – a modern, multimedia exhibition of the history of Izrael Poznański’s textile factory. The Terracotta Army exhibition held in Silesia City Center in 2007, also fell into the category of cultural activities. While the promotion of modern industrial design was the focus of Domoteka’s ‘From 15 Minutes Into The Future’ exhibition, showcasing futuristic designs by Karim Rashid.

The road to success

So how do you prepare a good campaign, which will be well liked by the customers and also put you in contention for a few awards? The first thing to do is to make long-term preparations – the sort that customers are not usually aware of. “The preparation work for the Janki campaign lasted a few months. Ninety-eight per cent of the tenants took part in four lotteries; where we gave away about 60,000 different prizes. Although the 4-month campaign was not one of our most expensive activities, it brought measurable effects in the form of a substantial and higher than expected increase in tenants’ turnover – by over 20 pct on average – and an increase in people traffic in the centre for all four months of the campaign,” adds Ewa Flader from Apsys Polska.

The preparations for the campaign to publicize the opening of Magnolia Park lasted 5 months. The name of the shopping centre, logo and colouring were decided on in the first stage. In the second, the image and logo of the centre was promoted. In the third stage, they went for outdoor advertising. The final work involved the distribution of gadgets, advertising and the opening of Magnolia itself.

Marketing campaign preparation is often carried out in cooperation with local authorities. Thanks to that, it is not just the centre itself that is being promoted but also the region in which it is located. Marta Drzewiecka from Silesia City Centre admits that Katowice municipality encouraged the administrator of the centre to organize the Terracotta Army exhibition. ‘The free space which was to be occupied by the tenant only in a few months’ time was also an opportunity, and the exhibition was our commercial decision to take advantage of it,’ adds Marta Drzewiecka.

Let’s hope that more shopping centre administrators will use the free space in their malls in similar ways as both customers and centres profit from such activities. “Magnolia Park has already been twice awarded for its marketing achievements. The centre received a gold award in both cases. As its administrator, I assure you that we intend to continue our participation in different retail related competitions,” insists Gilbert Boulanger, the managing director of Redis, who is in no mood to rest on his laurels as he takes on the best centres from around the world. ν