Shoping malls fail to grasp
21st Century marketing

Shopping malls continue to amaze me at their lack of understanding of marketing.



Today most are jumping on the Twitter and Facebook craze - something I was advocating three years ago.

July, 2009, I advocated malls put areas with TVs in them to create a community, a concept malls developed from the plazas of the Southwest or town squares of the East.

At the end of August, I reported how a Phoenix mall chain stole the television idea and got it all wrong.

My newest revelation on 21st Century mall marketing is to utilize streaming video like Flo TV, Justin.TV, Ustream.TV and place live Web feeds throughout your mall.

Make them a point of attraction, with a live monitor screen right near, but not adjacent, to the camera. Make the camera a location to be seen at. Make sure when you have fashion shows or bands at the mall, they are on live stream.

Check what Venice Beach, which really is nothing more than an old concept of new malls - Live, Work and Play - does in promoting itself here.

I'm always amazed at the mind of David Swift, Marketing Director for The Grove in Los Angeles. I became aware of Mr. Swift due to TweenMusic.blogspot.com. He told me Miley Cyrus was going to be performing a Friday appearance with Mitchel Musso.

I didn't believe him because Ms. Cyrus left Los Angeles about 9 p.m. Thursday to pick up a Georgia drivers license, or some trip to the south. Sure enough, she hit the stage that Friday in the early evening, as Mr. Swift promised.

I have never met Mr. Swift, but his footprint is wide. While researching this post, I discovered not only does he have a Web cam at The Grove, L.A., but he has the audacity of having a tie-in with the local Fox television station to use it as a background for weather reports by the station. Brilliant!

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