More than just showing up: Experiential marketing is a two-way relationship between consumer and brand. Shopping malls know first-hand that engaging customers takes more than just showing up. In today’s competitive retail environment, it is vital that marketers give customers an invaluable experience that surpasses their initial purchase. Building “brand love” is more than creating foot traffic in your center. It necessitates a true commitment to crafting memories that are not only treasured, but ones that will capture the consumers’ attention so they come back for more. For example, lululemon doesn’t want shoppers walking out the door because their size or color choice is not in store. Consistent in any lululemon store, lululemon has stationed iPads throughout the shop so a lululemon sales associate can search for sizes and colors to order directly from the website and have it shipped to the customer’s home or office.

Consumer Choice: Retailers are forcing the consumer to make choices between the convenience of online shopping and truly experiencing the brand in a brick and mortar setting. The main challenges facing shopping centers includes; the potential for information overload, streamlining their messaging and learning how to add another layer of experience. Consumers are becoming more selective in the brands they buy and the shopping environments in which they make those purchases. What marketers are beginning to realize is that malls have an “in” on what will become a sought-after trend – new fall fashions, window displays, hot cuisine trends.  More and more, mall marketing teams are “hacking” their own social pages and using them to capture shopper interest via Instagram or Pinterest. Another area for enticing and keeping the customer’s attention is by creating an environment that makes the shopping experience unique and fun. Trendsetting Urban Outfitters recently acquired The Vetri Family’s Italian restaurants. The retailer offers its customers pizza for snacking on, which has been successful in satiating both the customer’s hunger for food and fashion.

Customer Interface: Customer interaction is key to creating that personalized encounter. More and more, retailers are bringing back “customer service” through vehicles that make consumers feel good about their retail shopping choices. For example, personal stylists curating fashions for customers, such as Trunk Club, which was recently bought by Nordstrom, have generated a luxury-inspired service that feels exclusive, but caters to all consumer budgets. Restoration Hardware offers a membership program, where customers pay a $100 fee to receive “member” discounts, and have access to personal design consultants who can help them decorate an entire home. Shopping Centers have also capitalized on this model as they continue to make shopping a more convenient and pleasurable experience with VIP perks such as parking, charging stations for electronics, free Wi-Fi, shopping bag storage and same-day delivery.

Pay It Forward: Shopping Center marketing teams often struggle with not being in complete control over the customer’s experience. Today, communication has become transparent with social media re-posting, re-gramming and re-tweeting, and marketers know that showing customers that they place a high value on their choice to shop at their center is key to creating brand loyalty. By “paying it forward,” malls can express their appreciation so shoppers feel pampered and rewarded. It pays to be kind, and with that in mind, Shopping Centers can take that meaning literal by thanking their customers through humble gestures, which leave a lasting impression. This can be demonstrated by something as simple as offering to carry shopping bags to their car or an Uber-type car service to drive them to their hotel, office or next destination. Retailers are paying it forward to, for example, if it’s raining, the Dry Bar, known in the beauty industry as the premier blow dry specialists, gives complimentary umbrellas with the retailer’s logo.

When used to its fullest capacity, experiential marketing can produce endless possibilities and successes for shopping malls. By creating meaningful experiences, the marketing strategy goes beyond the shopping center entrance and can influence and inspire customers. Honing in on targeted experiential marketing tactics will ultimately translate to increased foot traffic, “brand love,” and retailer leasing opportunities.

The post Turning Shopping Centers Into Coveted Consumer Brands: How Experiential Marketing Is Transforming The Traditional Mall appeared first on PLACES.

There is a reason that you’ve been hearing about millennials everywhere: They cannot be ignored any longer. Millennials have not only reached critical mass in the consumer marketplace, but they are widely expected to outspend the boomer generation by 2017. Millennials now make up the majority of the coveted 18- to 35-year-old demographic and, in fact, have more 24-year-old consumers in America than any other age. In short, millennials are here to stay, and it’s time for you to do something about it.

But do what?

Below is a deep dive into some of the characteristics of millennials and how you can make your property irresistible to them based on what engages them.

Millennials live to collaborate. The oldest Gen Yers have been collaborating on social media since the MySpace and Xanga days. During their school years, they witnessed the transformation of their classrooms from neatly organized rows of desks facing the teacher to the ultra-collaborative classroom with desks grouped in pods facing each other. Collaboration is ingrained into the millennial mindset, and that’s good news for us.

Millennials desire to collaborate with everyone –even brands. And that includes you. Create marketing campaigns that invite millennials to not only interact with your brand, but to participate in the creation of your brand. Have them tell your brand story through their perspective. Mockingbird Station, a mixed-use development in Dallas, recently held a “digital fashion show” that paired local fashion bloggers with influential photographers to create their own fashion shoots to share via social media. Check out #MockingbirdStyles on Instagram to see an example of how millennials are collaborating with the retail brands at Mockingbird Station.

Even millennials’shopping experiences are collaborative. Millennials usually travel in packs when they do anything. Eating out, shopping, going to the movies, drinking at the bar – Gen Yers share their experiences with each other as well as larger groups of friends and acquaintances on social networks. Since millennials want that sense of community and enjoy large community events, start thinking about your property as a gathering place with a mission focused on building community. Large events like concert series, food festivals, outdoor movies and fashion shows attract millennials and give them a chance to connect with others – and this doesn’t just mean giving them the chance to connect with people their own age. On the contrary, millennials enjoy the company of other generations just as much as their own. Gen Y is the generation that loves to hang out with older people.

Which group of “older people” are their favorites? Their parents. Gen Yers have strong bonds with their parents, and that’s good news since a number of millennials are currently living at home with them as a result of the recession. Because of this “family pack” mentality, millennials are even influencing their parents’ buying decisions. From home purchases to fashion choices, Gen Yers are guiding the conversation often with ample amounts of online research about the products they – and their families – are purchasing.

The key takeaway? Don’t hesitate to include family-friendly events in your local marketing efforts to Gen Yers. Most of the older millennials are in their 30s now with small children; they’re “famillennials.” Therefore, multi-generational events that bring people together work very well at retail or mixed-use properties.

Millennials are often proponents of “social justice” as well. They want to leave their mark, to do good for the world, and gravitate toward brands with a social justice-minded business model. As a result, brands like TOMS, the Arkola Project, and Patagonia are creating loyalists out of millennials, and like-minded, fair-trade companies are becoming the go-to choice when making purchasing decisions.

Seek out social-justice minded retailers, and align your property with “doing good.” Team up with local nonprofits or charities that benefit when people do business with you. Better yet, integrate a charity or nonprofit in every campaign or promotion you run.

Millennials have become a generation that is constantly under scrutiny, and they’re looking to prove themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Aligning your property with their goals and principles will help initiate the conversation with this growing consumer group and give you a chance to take part in their ever-popular lifestyle.

The post Unlocking the Millennial Mind appeared first on PLACES.

Q: What does it mean to activate a property? 

MM: Activating a property is the key mechanism for drawing people into the site. Before we can make a site a shopping destination, it needs to become a known entity. The goal is to make the property a part of the community and a place where people want to go.

With customers more frequently shopping online, visiting a shopping center needs to become more of an experience.  It’s not about just picking up a pair of jeans; you need to offer something more. Ideally, activation of a property will start before any development or leasing, and it should continue throughout the life of the property. When a new property is in development, for example, we engage the community right away and get them accustomed to coming to that space in their neighborhood. We do this by creating a thriving atmosphere with community open houses, pop-up stores in temporary spaces, music series and food events that play off the existing neighboring tenants. 

Q: What are some of the top trends in retail activation? 

MM: One of the biggest trends in retail activation right now is pop-up stores. This is a way for retailers to test a new concept on a much smaller scale, but it can also be used as an incubator to see what resonates with the public.

Because pop-up retailers bring a tremendous amount of authenticity and originality to the projects in which they are featured, shopping center owners use this as a way to create buzz about the property and draw traffic. Ideally, a shopping center would do this with multiple pop-ups – which can range from a week to several months each – throughout the year.

Another trend we’re seeing is online retailers creating variations of traditional brick-and-mortar stores. They’re finding that this is one of the best ways to test products with what is essentially a real-time focus group. One example is Birchbox which opened a successful brick-and-mortar store in SoHo in addition to its online platform. Previously, companies were solely brick and mortar with a minimal online presence; now, businesses are exploring a mainly online footprint with a sampling of brick and mortar. 

Q: To what extent are social media and other technologies used in activating a property? 

MM: In its simplest form, technology can be used to communicate anything out of the ordinary.  These messages can range from featured pop-ups to events and new promotions to the announcement of retailers, restaurateurs and services.  Social media is a great way to communicate key messages to the surrounding community and social influencers in your market.

In addition, technology can play an important role inside the shopping center.   No one shops alone; they always have their phone with them. Therefore, we are exploring ways to use cell phones and other mobile devices to bring people into our shopping centers.  Once they’re there, we want to help them navigate through the center, help them decide which stores fit their personalities, and answer any questions they have either through social media or specific “text for answer” applications on their phones.

Interactive information is also of significant interest. Kate Spade was recently constructing a new store, and on the store’s barricade, they installed touch screens that engaged shoppers to explore which product lines were coming and to promote the brand. The interactivity tracked shoppers’ likes and dislikes, something which played a role in helping Kate Spade merchandise the store and gave the brand strong information about the market’s demographics and tastes prior to opening.

Q: Can you describe an example of an activation success story? 

MM: LaBrea in Los Angeles is a great success story.  Madison Marquette purchased a group of buildings, along La Brea Avenue just before the recession hit. One of the buildings included the former Continental Graphics building, previously a premier print shop and Los Angeles-area icon. The group of buildings had been targeted with graffiti, and the structures were being sold as a teardown. Because the property was closed off from the street, you couldn’t see the potential for retail. However, once inside the buildings, there was amazing existing architecture, beautiful vaulted wood ceilings and fabulous existing flooring. Despite its unrefined state, we saw the potential to create a unique urban shopping street that would offer Los Angeles something it had never seen before.

A big part of what made the property activation so successful was the informal LaBrea district business association Madison Marquette created to collaborate with surrounding tenants. We coordinated the activation and used carefully curated events and programming to bring the block alive. The efforts were timed so events would coincide with other in-market promotions, and we took the lead in communicating district-wide happenings to the public via social media and email blasts.

Madison Marquette also brought in a famous muralist, Shepard Fairey, the same artist who designed the famous Obama “Hope” poster, to paint an 8,800-square-foot mural.  The mural wraps around a corner of the property and really gives it a unique identity.  During the creation of the mural, we hosted a social event to further engage the community, and it continues to be a great story for us today when people ask about the mural’s origin.

After the mural was completed, we hosted a two-week art show on site that also included food trucks and pop-up stores. All of these events took place prior to leasing the spaces.  Even though we were making an investment in the location before even having operating tenants, we knew the type of retailers we wanted to attract and the merchandising vision for the property, and we had already begun communicating that vision to the public.

Q: Does the activation attract tenants as well as customers?

MM: Absolutely, yes. In an existing center, the activation increases current customer sales, but it also attracts new tenants. Ideally, we will have a strong enough vision and activation plan to allow ourselves the opportunity to be selective about which tenants we want, choosing the ones that best fulfill our vision and merchandising strategy.

Q: How is activation different in a mixed-use property? 

MM: Madison Marquette owns a mixed-use property called Bellevue Connection in Bellevue, Wash. The top floors are office space, while the lower floors are retail.  The property had an outdated traditional coffee shop on the ground floor.  We were able to replace that tenant with an attractive new food concept growing in popularity within the Seattle market.  Known for quality sandwiches and great breakfast options, the restaurateur also offers coffee, wine and beer, all of which make it a more desirable destination for on-site office workers and the surrounding community.

The key with activation for mixed-use is to find the synergies between the different groups. The retailers, restaurants and services have a captive audience, and the office workers are searching for destinations that offer them not only convenience, but also an engaging and unique experience.

The post The Value of Activation appeared first on PLACES.

For advertisers, social media offers instant gratification. Consumers’ Twitter feeds make traditional network news coverage archaic before stories ever hit their Google Alerts. For a product or brand, the Internet creates a personalized presence, captivating consumers and delivering a loyal following, which ultimately translates into sales.

Why does this work? Social media influencers are candid and seem to genuinely like or dislike a brand, and they are happy to offera multitude of reasons why they do or don’t. This awareness-building, loyalty-inducing candor is the reason companies are seeking out social media influencer to support their brand or business and make that all-important impact on consumer spending habits.

Why Social Media Influencers Should Be On Your Radar

Anyone in marketing will tell you that your product or service is really only as good as its last recommendation. Whether it is a blogger, a YouTube celebrity or just a consumer who has a significant social media following, buy-in from a social media influencer can have an extremely positive chain reaction that can take a brand from being virtually unknown to being the most popular item in the Kardashians sisters’ handbag.

Brands looking to take their product to the next level of consumer awareness partner with social media influencers whose style, following and philosophy are aligned with a particular market. For example, a beauty brand that wants to increase its own following and sales or perhaps launch a new collection might collaborate with a top beauty blogger with traction among the brand’s targeted demographics to review the product and give tips on how to use it.

In most cases, the beauty company will send the blogger samples to try, offer interviews with spokespeople or even invite the blogger to attend press events. This style of working with social media influencers cultivates a relationship between the blogger and the brand, which advertisers hope will translate into a positive relationship between brand and consumer. At Pacific Place, a premier vertical urban shopping center in Seattle, the Madison Marquette marketing team designed a plan to engage and capture the attention of social media mavens, which was used to cultivate and nurture a relationship between the center and its customers. Pacific Place regularly engages with a well-known blogger, Sarah Butler, and invited her to do an Instagram takeover. Butler is a Seattle-based digital strategist and fashion stylist known for collaborating with a multitude of brands such as InStyle Magazine, Rebecca Minkoff, Sam Edelman, Bluefly, Free People, Piperlime, H&M, Everlane, and SAKS Fifth Avenue. During New York Fashion Week, Butler became the fashion eyes and ears for Pacific Place by taking over the center’s Instagram page. Butler posted images and trends to Pacific Place’s Instagram, so that the center’s customers were also able to experience a front row seat to the runways.

Create Consumer Conversation Via Re-posting 

Courting social media influencers to “like” a brand – and tell all of their followers why they should too – is only a small piece of this marketing strategy. Once a relationship is established between your business and a social media influencer, it is time to “pay it forward.” Social media influencers thrive on companies re-tweeting and re-postingtheir content. This demonstrates support for the influencer, who is also building a brand, and it bridges the gap between the influencer’s followers and your company. In the end, it is all about what the influencer says is “cool,” and if you align your brand with that level of coolness, your brand will become intertwine with content that is currently trending. Earlier this year, a social media influencer at Glen Eagle Square, an outdoor shopping destination in the Philadelphia suburbs, posted a photo of an Alex and Ani necklace she bought at one of the center’s boutiques. By employing a clever use of hashtags, the official Instagram page of Alex and Anire grammed the photo, culminating in over 13,000 likes. 

Uptick in Local, Organic Marketing 

Social media influencers are really the digital version of “word-of-mouth” marketing. Madison Marquette encourages their properties to create innovative social media promotions and partnerships to generate a local, organic presence in the community. Customers want to connect to brands, and by tapping into a local blogger and his or her following, social media can literally bring foot traffic to the property and retailer. For example, Christine Bibbo Herraka nycpretty was hired by SELF Magazine to attend the opening party for Athleta at Marketfair, an enclosed specialty center in Princeton, NJ, managed by Madison Marquette. Christine received an outfit and did an on location photo shoot. She posted to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter during the event, tagging MarketFair in every post, and driving like-minded customers to the center to celebrate the addition of the highly anticipated retailer.

Social media influencers are vital to the viral success of brands and retailers – they have substantial followings and a loud voice amongst consumers. A blogger has the uncanny ability to be an authority on anything she is writing about. Knowing these facts, brands are utilizing social media influencers to create added value for their consumer awareness strategies and sales goals. Incorporating the influencer into marketing campaigns will give you an insider’s view into what shapes the market and what drivesviral conversations.

Posts that strengthen a brand’s integrity aim to establish the product or business as a leader within its marketing sector and throughout the community in which it serves. Two examples where social media marketing garnered significant community attention are Pizza Meet at Main Street Garden in Dallas, Texas and InstaMeet in Austin, Texas.  For Pizza Meet, the number of likes on the #PizzaMeetDFW hashtag was 15,024 and the total number of followers of all participants was 194,690. The Austin InstaMeet recently engaged 132K, while its impressions were at 4.8 million.

The post The Role of Social Media Influencers appeared first on PLACES.

Once relegated to banner ads easily ignored on the side of the screen, advertising has become a seamless part of the social experience, wedging itself directly between Facebook newsfeeds and status updates. Any company with a few dollars to spare can “boost” their content on Facebook to reach targeted users by selecting categories and topics they may be interested in that reflect the brand’s messaging. Brands are blurring the line between organic and paid content, with sponsored posts adopting the characteristics of organic content to great effect —but not without cost.

The new reality

According to a recent study by Social@Ogilvy, the consumer reach of strictly organic brand content has declined to 6 percent. For larger brands, that number falls to 2 percent. It’s expected that brands will soon be facing a negligible reach for organic content, meaning that years of efforts to earn “Likes” and “Followers” won’t mean much without help.

Driving this trend, today’s average consumer is exposed to more than 3,000 marketing messages per day; there is simply too much competition for every message to achieve visibility. Those who want to succeed must adopt strategies that push their content ahead of the pack.

The modern advertisement

Ads masquerading as organic content have been around for years — a practice pioneered by search engines that placed paid-for links right at the top of results.

Today’s advertisers are able to identify target audiences by a number of factors: location, interests, education, age and more. Algorithms then select ads that are likely to appeal to a consumer’s personal taste — a far more effective strategy than the blanket advertising of the past. Social platforms take this concept a step further, integrating ads into feeds previously reserved for organic-only content.

A few highlights

• Twitter’s “Promoted Tweets” fit seamlessly into the organic construct of the social experience and don’t get buried in a fast-moving content stream. Users can also be provided “suggestions” of whom to follow or hashtags to use based on interest.
• Facebook and LinkedIn encourage use of Newsfeed ads, which boosts engagement by using the names of a consumer’s friends as endorsements.
• New ad units at Instagram and Pinterest are designed to blend into the natural landscape of the user’s social feed.

The result is that casual consumers — particularly those on mobile devices — are often unable to distinguish between paid and unpaid content, leading to significantly higher brand engagement.

The cost

Fortunately, a brand doesn’t need to be a Fortune 500 company to purchase social advertising. Advertisers are able to customize their budgets, through monitoring an ad’s performance to see how well it engages consumers. They can then redirect or restructure funds if necessary. Settings also allow advertisers to control daily spend, total spend and length of time, to ensure ads don’t exceed budget.

So, consider this the memo

This trend is only going to grow in 2014.

Facebook has conceded that Page Likes are now more important for driving advertising than organic content, and the company has even gone so far as to suppress organic content to effectively force brands to advertise if they want to be seen. Fortunately, advertising could be a way to save organic content, at least in the short term.

If users engage with a paid post, they will start to see that brand’s organic posts in their newsfeed for approximately two to three months. However, if they don’t engage with those organic posts, then impressions will decline.

It is imperative to continue creating interesting and engaging organic brand content, but it can’t be relied upon to drive your message. Advertising has become an inescapable reality for any business that wants to grow via social media. In the digital era, the right combination of advertising and organic content increases reach and brand engagement. Those willing to pay to play now have a distinct advantage.

The post In 2014 Being “Liked” Isn’t Enough – How Social Media Advertising Killed Organic Content appeared first on PLACES.

Q: What are some of the key strategies for driving traffic in today’s environment?

 LC: Customer experience is always an important factor in driving traffic. Parking should be easy to find (and paid for if required), a dynamic marketing and activities program including events that appeal to the community such as farmer’s markets and children’s programs, and a clean and well-maintained center are all important elements to creating a valued experience. It is also crucial to keep the community aware of new tenants and center enhancements, which can be done through advertising as well as marketing and public relations initiatives. Customers have a lot of options when it comes to making purchases, so owners and property managers must create a warm, inviting environment to attract attention and build and foster loyalty.

KW: In today’s tech-driven age, social media is also a key driver of traffic and in building customer loyalty. Of course having the right merchandising mix is integral as well. As Lori noted, it is always important to create an atmosphere where shoppers want to visit and stay. Creating that special experience for a shopper is the advantage a shopping center will always hold over online shopping. With the ever-changing, fast-paced world we are now living in, we have to be quick to adjust to consumer needs on all levels to continue to provide that “experience” that shoppers crave.

Q: How has the millennial generation impacted the tenant mix, services and amenities offered at centers?

 LC: Customers today are extremely price sensitive and millennials desire information at their fingertips. Centers that offer mobile applications and social media incentives create a stronger brand which can help capture this new generation of consumers.

KW: The millennial generation is extremely tech-savvy and is typically well-educated and ambitious, but they also want everything now. As shopping center managers, we have to take the instant-gratification desires of this generation into consideration when deciding on tenant mix and what retailers, restaurants and entertainment options we are making available at the center. How do we get millennials into the mall and how do we keep them coming back are questions that must be asked when determining center offerings. Amenities such as Wi-Fi, mobile apps, marketing campaigns, and promotions that include social media are an important part of reaching this generation. Engagement is key.

Q: How do you enhance the shopping experience at your centers?

 LC: I manage neighborhood shopping centers and there are a number of things we can do, even in the absence of a marketing budget. We enhance the customer experience by keeping the center clean at all times, providing beautiful landscaping that is constantly maintained, providing common area music, and ensuring tenants adhere to the center’s design and operating standards. The easiest thing a Property Manager can do is to ensure their vendors are performing their duties to the highest standards on a daily basis. Customers will often forgo shopping at a neglected center.

KW: Different kinds of properties require different things to create an appealing experience. Events, merchandise and marketing must be tailored to the demographics and needs of the community. My centers are primarily mixed use, community centers, which are unique in that they have to appeal to residents as well as customers from the surrounding neighborhoods and communities. I find that focusing on grassroots efforts can ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers and residents. This can include paying attention to shopping/visiting habits and monitoring social media for customer feedback. Additionally, property managers must work with their merchants to enhance offerings and possibly create cross-promotional opportunities among various retailers.

Q: What can centers do to stay relevant?

 LC: Today’s shopping centers must embrace technology to stay relevant. At a minimum, shopping centers should offer Wi-Fi services as more and more customers rely upon an internet connection as an integral part of their shopping experience. Leasing plays a big role in merchandising the center. The merchandise mix and entertainment and dining options must appeal to the local needs and therefore having an experienced, effective leasing team, and working together with that team is a vital component of keeping a center relevant.

KW: We must follow the trends and listen to our customers. Whether through the center’s website, Twitter feed or Facebook page, property managers must make sure that we are engaging our customers and capitalizing on the viral nature of these outlets to tap into customers’ networks and appeal to broader audiences. These channels allow centers to promote sales, events, community involvement and foster engagement with the center, keeping it top of mind with consumers.

The post Property Management Best Practices appeared first on PLACES.

Millennial spending power, the “jeans” concept and the grocery evolution

Women’s Wear Daily, in partnership with Berglass + Associates, conducted a retail study determining that millennials’ annual spending power in the United States is $200 billion. They are expected to outspend baby boomers by 2017 and are influenced by online brand advertising more than keeping up with their friends’ consumer habits. When it comes to dealing with money, baby boomers were traditionally known to spend, while Generation X saved. Generation Y combines characteristics of both—they “earn to spend,” as they value time and work-life balance over the workaholic boomer generation, inventors of the 50-hour work week.

We can trace the evolution of shopping, branding and psychology through the ways in which each generation purchases clothing and groceries. Boomers will buy seven pairs of jeans because they value acquisition and quantity, while their children value quality. Generation X saw the onset of boutique brands sprouting up with price tags and exclusivity far beyond the stalwart household names like Gap and Levi’s. They became more attracted to the likes of 7 for All Mankind and Citizens of Humanity as a means to differentiate themselves from their peers. Meanwhile Generation Y relies on style to make a statement — vintage, pre-washed or skinny.

Similarly, grocery stores went from selling the same Kraft and Oscar Mayer packaged goods and frozen dinners during the boomer era, to touting hundreds of small-scale, locally sourced organic lines of pressed juice, kale chips, soy milk and beyond. Generation X and millennials are health-focused and willing to pay a premium for seasonal boutique brands and farmer’s market goods over the convenience foods of their parent’s generation. While baby boomers valued the suburbs and the convenience of a Sam’s Club or big box retailer, Generation X and Y are trending toward urban environs and are more interested in a greener, lighter footprint on the environment and their utility bills.

Over time, the shopper’s environment has shifted from enclosed malls of the boomer generation to the open-air centers with entertainment and lifestyle options of today. According to a survey conducted by the Urban Land Institute, Generation Y spends more time researching products, price comparing and scrolling through online clothing and retail sites as opposed to the impulse shopping of prior generations. At the same time, discount department stores reign supreme for Generation Y, and pop-up shops, limited-edition clothing lines and exciting, young designers control their interest. Problematic centers with traditional anchor stores will have difficulty maintaining applicability for a generation of Amazon.com and online J.Crew shoppers; however, both gen X and Y continue to frequent shopping centers (predominantly those centrally located in neighborhoods or communities) at least once a week.

Economy, Employment and the Digital Age

What does the evolution of the economy and the work environment say about each generation? The career paths of Generation X and Y have evolved from that of boomers, where an employee stayed in one job for forty years, collected a pension, a 401K and retired. The paved road to a lifelong position with one employer has developed into a fragmented career at multiple companies. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average employee today stays at one job for 4.4 years. Generation X is a smaller population than either the boomers or Gen-Y and largely better at saving than its predecessors, valuing smaller homes, cars and fewer consumer goods than their parents. For this reason, many retailers have largely ignored this group and are marketing to the larger, more demographically mixed Generation Y, the future of spending power.

Millennials were the first generation to grow up completely embedded in digital technology and social media. While Generation X was calling their friends in high school and college, millennials were texting, Tweeting and Instagramming their lives for public consumption. They face a society vigorously designed for the individual. No longer a one size fits all, television programming, music, sports, clothing, food and entertainment are all fragmented to gear toward niche, personality-driven consumers with open access. The seven TV stations of the boomer generation have made way for 700+ channels, customized toward individual preference in a way that speaks directly to their audience by mirroring their interests and emotions on the screen. Online advertising, inbound marketing, tiered business development and personalized service have both complicated and leveraged the multitude of opportunities to reach end users in today’s consumer marketplace.

Retailers and marketers are racing against one another to reach a new generation with limitless capabilities and significant spending power. They have more platforms on which to do so than ever before, through Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. It’s never been easier to reach an intended audience, but by nature of these millions of options, it’s also never been more challenging. According to Tumblr’s most recent press report, it hosts over 178.4 million blogs (and growing) with an average of 92.9 million posts per day. Pinterest is adding paid advertising and news agencies, travel companies, clothing brands and bloggers are all competing for market share on the success of such a visual platform to showcase their products and services.

It turns out we raised more questions than we could answer, as each generation has overlap and cultural factors that make it more or less like its predecessor. One thing that remains fixed: Each generation rebels against their parent’s era, endeavoring to make their own lives more fulfilling and balanced. Boomers still want to have cool gadgets and clothes, while segments of Generation Y are buying bulk at Sam’s Club. Retailers and marketers need to tap into the enormous influence each generation has on one another to understand the core impact their environment and age group have on the marketplace. They need to recognize that each generation is distinctive and that successfully selling to a consumer today requires understanding in detail who the target consumer is, what drives them and why.

The post Understanding Generational Trends appeared first on PLACES.

 JT: We all know China’s e-commerce market is big. So big, in fact, that some analysts, including the Boston Consulting Group, believe that it will soon be the world’s largest.

Brick-and-mortar retail are being influenced by e-commerce consumption growth year by year, but they still have their special role in China. When I say influenced, I mean it in a positive light. At Cloud Mall, we believe the Internet is making a smarter consumer — especially in brand awareness, driving consumption both online and in brick-and-mortar retail.

Shopping preferences vary in group age, gender, income, localization and needs. According to iResearch China, a Beijing based research consulting company, “digital goods, books, food, sportswear, apparel and cosmetics are highly purchased online.” Apparel products are very popular in the offline market. Cloud Mall conducted a study in 2013 with men and women age 25-40 from Beijing and Shanghai, and the results showed that most women see offline shopping as entertaining, associating it with  social networking and even physical exercise. In a blind study, traditional shopping will never be 100 percent substituted by e-commerce. However, Chinese men seem to consider traditional shopping boring, time-consuming and tiring. They are more willing to replace physical shopping for a more comfortable way to shop such as online.

Shopping malls are usually located in convenient areas. They offer seasonal discounts, selective brands and additional conveniences to attract people to the mall from hair salons, gyms, and restaurants. To the average Chinese consumer, price sensitivity seems to be most important, unless they find something they really want because of status or need. Then they will purchase on the spot. Typically, the average consumer will take the time and compare online and offline pricing before making a final decision.

It is very popular for Chinese to navigate the web, and pictures have a big influence in online shopping in China. Studies show that many people are compelled toward impulse purchases even though their initial searches were for online leisure activities.

Q: In the United States, different age groups approach shopping differently. Is the same true in China?

 JT: I think the situation is pretty much the same in China. In terms of offline shopping, different age groups seek different shopping experiences. In big cities in China such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, there are a lot of luxury and high-end shopping areas but also other segmented shopping locations for specific age groups and income levels. You can find diverse shopping malls distinctly offering electronics or clothing or home supplies, outlet stores, etc. For online shopping, like in any other society, the older generations are less likely to shop online than young people.

Q: Where does the Chinese shopper get their information on fashion and brands?

 JT: As in most societies around the world, China has many different channels: TV, movies, fashion magazines, billboard advertisements and word of mouth. Cloud Mall has found that Internet and social media applications such as Weibo and Weixin are extremely important. Chinese people are also easily influenced by the opinion of friends or family. Mobile platforms with social networking can spread word of discounts, deals and brands quite quickly.

Q: In the United States, shopping centers are increasingly offering luxury amenities like Wi-Fi access, concierge service and high-end dining and entertainment options. Is this a trend in China as well?

 JT: Modern and high-end shopping centers in China offer great services including free Wi-Fi, large food courts, coffee shops, bars, supermarkets, convenience stores. These additional services are premium, comfortable and convenient.

Q: Do shopping malls in China rely on social media and digital marketing to drive retail traffic, or are they more reliant on conventional advertising?

 JT: Both. People in China spend a considerable amount of time every day surfing the Internet and social media direct from PC and mobile platforms. However, basic TV time is always indispensable in an average person’s daily life.

Q: Are global brands facing tax or tariff hurdles to enter the Chinese market?

 JT: In China, there are 15 free trade zones (FTZ); these special zones provide exceptions to the usual customs procedures and allow for preferential tariff and tax treatment. All forms of trade conducted between companies in FTZs and areas in China outside the zones are subject to the usual rules that would apply to imports into China. Importing to China generally involves three types of taxes:

• Value-added tax
• Consumption tax
• Customs duties

Tax rates vary between different types of goods, country of origin or methodology and type of company that is receiving the importation of goods. Cosmetics and watches require a value-added tax plus consumption tax in addition to custom duties.

Q: What is China doing to curb the counterfeit trade, which impacts brand integrity both inside China and globally?

 JT: Counterfeit trade in China is illegal by law. Passing through Chinese customs with counterfeits, the traveler may face a big fine, the detention. Since 2010, the Chinese government has taken different large-scale actions against the counterfeit trade, both online and offline. Many markets originally at the center of the counterfeit trade are increasingly moving away from counterfeit goods, such as Silk Street in Beijing. With the continuous increase of income of Chinese citizens, the trend to purchase counterfeit products is decreasing, due to the quality issue and the image of the person. Both European and American Embassies have Intellectual Property Right (IPR) call-in lines set up in China, and together with the Chinese government are devoting themselves to stamp out counterfeit issues.

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