Trains, planes and automobiles are taking tourists to retail destinations worldwide. Marketers are ready to greet them with open arms—and tills.

Encouraging entrepreneurial spirit among young people ages 6 to 15 was the focus at St. Albert Centre. Kids were invited to get a head-start on their future business careers with a program that helped them to set up shop and sell their products in the mall’s common area.

Games of chance, along with contests and sweepstakes, are making consumers pay attention. Whatever the prize, shoppers want the chance to win and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a high-end payoff.

Galleria at Tyler knows the value of its marketing tools. Its revamped ‘Shopperewards’ gift-with-purchase and customer loyalty program is designed to increase sales and visit frequency, and it certainly does so.

A column on gifts with purchase.

There were four Purple Apple winning programmes selected in 2003, along with 22 Merit winners and two Pip honourable mentions. All of them are testimonies to the prominence that the marketing function is gaining within the UK’s retail sector.

Orchard Park Shopping Centre, nestled in the scenic Okanagan Valley, won two awards for its advertising campaign, “We Love It Here”. Focusing on products that locals could find themselves wishing for, the campaign benefited from radio and newspaper coverage, bench and bus-board signage, and on-site advertising in the form of banners and stickers.

To promote new Sunday shopping hours, Taigum Central developed a campaign called ‘Auction Dollars’, which gave retailers an opportunity to maximize sales while creating consumer awareness of the new trading hours.

In an interesting marketing twist, Lambton Mall mailed out 30,000 pieces of wrapping paper to local homes. One side of the paper had holiday-themed visuals, while the other side featured a full-color calendar of mall events.

Santa’s arrival at The Galleria at South Bay—in a local traffic helicopter—was among the highlights of weeks of festive activities planned.