Strategic planning and research fill the gap that separates thriving shopping centres from merely operational schemes. Done right, they can offer corporate and on-site marketers critical insight into consumers’ minds, and access to their wallets.

It’s official, you can’t do everything. For a business as vast and complex as a shopping center, communicating with an endless array of interested parties can become a logistical nightmare. Before you make your next advertising or communications outsourcing decision, take a moment to talk to these sources.

Very often, wayfinding and security fall under the operational umbrella. If your mall’s signage isn’t helping drive traffic, and your security lacks perception, then it’s likely affecting your marketing initiatives.

The PMA’s Good Practice Guide aims to support industry-wide standards for shopping center marketing.

Getting big results with a meager budget.

From consumer age and household income to their brand preferences and buying habits, shopper information helps marketers gain a clear understanding of their target audience.

There are other awards your center can win than the coveted ICSC MAXI. Dallas Galleria recently won a Retail Advertising Conference (RAC) Award for its ‘A Beautiful Thing’ campaign.

Specialty retailing is no longer an emerging trend in shopping centers—it’s big business. Shopping centers have found kiosks, carts and other temporary retail leasing programs to be a cost-effective and flexible way to improve the bottom line, and space that once sat empty has now become a viable and reliable source of additional revenue.

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.

Examining the shopping center industry in Australia, and comparing it with North America’s. Ultimately, it’s not so different no matter where you go.