People love to shop. Shoppertainment is an actual word.
Paco Underhill writes about The Call of the Mall. The cardinal rule of theme park attraction and museum design is to place the gift shop at the exit of the experience.
People buy when they’re excited by an experience. They want to commemorate the memory.
'Store' and 'Story' are only one letter off.
Research shows a direct correlation between time and dollars spent in the mall. Putting entertainment directly into the retail space creates destination attractions, drawing people in, and encouraging them to stay.
I’ve helped to develop this trend in major retail centers across America.
For The Mills Corporation, and with Danny Barnyz, I designed media platforms delivering entertainment and advertising in innovative retail centers in Texas, Arizona, California, and North Carolina. These are part of a network now reaching over 200 million shoppers per year.
With Fashion Show in Las Vegas, I worked with Randy Byrd of The Rouse Company (now part of General Growth Properties) to design and develop a $25M media experience platform. Designing with Richard Orne and Vantage Technology Consulting, we created an elegant and engaging entertainment experience that complements the mall and its stores, resulting in measurably higher per square foot revenues.
Here’s what I’ve learned from my time in malls:
1. Shopping is the primary attraction. The entertainment enhances the experience, but is not the main draw. Starbucks sells an experience for $4 that comes with a cup of coffee. But without the coffee, people don’t buy the experience. People go the store to shop. They choose stores in settings that give them the experience of being entertained and engaged.
2. It’s atmosphere, not television. Media and technology create a part of the shopping experience, but should not upstage the shopping. Programming best creates atmosphere and mood, while providing immediately useful information to the guests. Audibly and visually loud advertising may generate short-term revenues, but, over time, will diminish the quality of the experience, and thus the quantitative value of the media shown. The best programming is sympathethic and complementary to the shopping experience.
3. Question assumptions. At Fashion Show, we assumed we had to compete with pirate shows and exploding volcanoes on the Vegas Strip. We didn't and couldn't. Not being a casino is a valuable distinction on a street full of them.
We assumed that both pedestrian and vehicular guest traffic would come predominantly from the South. It won't continue to. The Wynn is now open directly across the street, and Trump and others are building frenetically to the North. Our overall plaza design plays to an imaginary perspective that no real person ever experiences. We never designed for our visitor's real perspective, and now they can never experience our true vision and intent.
We also assumed there would be executive leadership and desire to continue to develop and operate the experiences (see #'s 4 & 5 below). Without a continuous executive champion, the potential return on investment will never be fully realized.
At the time, I didn't even realize these assumptions were in place. Had we clearly identified them, and questioned them, I believe the result would be more engaging, more compelling, and more profitable.
4. The Winning Horses finish the race. This is a repeat of my Lessons from Vegas. At the highest decision-making and check-writing levels of the organization, there has to be a clear and consistent vision and desire continually grow the experience. There has to be an executive champion.
5. You have to fuel the car. Building a high-performance machine and then failing to fund it’s optimum operation is an all-too-common fatal flaw. Particularly in retail spaces, the guests are repeat visitors. The experiences must be refreshed and updated very regularly to remain compelling. Today’s guests won’t tolerate mediocre, outdated, or repetitive experiences. They just won't come back.
