Sweet Dreams

Community Room, Fundraisers

Snuggled Up, Dayton Mall host fundraiser on-site and online to give bedding to children in need during the holiday season. Visual merchandising support includes rubber bin Christmas tree.

Trisha Baxter will never forget the day she found out that several students in her classroom were sleeping on cold floors. That was back in 2010. The Snuggled Up charity that the Ohio (USA) teacher subsequently founded has since provided bedding[...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

Kids Deck The Marlands Halls

Décor Themes, Design Studio

Battle of the Christmas tree trimming pits a dozen schools against each other to earn public votes on Facebook and win art supplies, tickets for Santa’s Woodland Grotto.

The stylists that The Marlands shopping center (Hampton, UK) turned to last year to decorate its holiday trees were somewhat green behind the ears, but they made up for it in enthusiasm. A dozen schools each developed their own visual theme to t[...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

Virtual Holidays

Apps, Technology Lab

No Santa? No problem. Kohl’s shoppers still got their holiday memento by using the virtual Snapshots with Santa service.

Kohl’s department store found a sweet spot in the on-site/online retailing balance last year. Its Snapshots with Santa service had digital-minded shoppers coming into its stores to create virtual greeting cards. After downloading the free K[...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

The Holiday Sweater Battle Is On

Mall Websites, Technology Lab

Coming up with the tackiest design possible was the way to win your very own Coke Zero-backed knitted top for the holidays.

Got a hidden thing for holiday sweaters? Then you would have liked Coke Zero’s America-wide Sweater Generator contest last November. The brand developed a micro-site where people presented their tackiest sweater ideas using the online Sweater [...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

One, Two, Three, Pull!

Apps, Technology Lab

Bluewater gives the traditional Christmas cracker a technology twist.

Crackers are probably as British as Christmas gets. After all, London sweet-maker Tim Smith did invent them in the mid-19th Century. No wonder Bluewater (Kent, UK) managed to convince 46,628 shoppers to pull its virtual cracker last holiday seas[...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

Have Any Picky Gift Pickers?

Customer Service, Services

Robina Town Center’s gift finder goes beyond the basics, and so do we with our own suggestions on how to present your retailers’ top merchandise.

Even with all the talk of personalized marketing, most malls still limit their online gift-finder search terms to the basic “Him”, “Her”, “Kids, “Teens.” Not Robina Town Centre, though. The Australian property hit the magical numbe[...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

Fans for Hire

Social Media Campaigns, Technology Lab

France’s Alma Rennes shopping center helps local residents find work via Facebook. What have you done for your community lately?

Looking for work can be stressful, and entering the queue at a recruitment center darn right depressing. France’s Alma Rennes shopping center, however, has a different idea to connect the unemployed in its community with potential employers: i[...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

Welcome to Planet Santa

Décor Themes, Design Studio

Scarborough Town Centre called on GES to create giant snow globes to contain displays that acted as vignettes of Santa’s journey around the world to entertain visitors and distract them from the long lineups.

A bearded senior who sleds around world in 24 hours, toy-making elves, and a reindeer with a glowing red nose? You might as well be on another planet. So Canada’s Scarborough Town Centre (STC) created one, Planet Santa, to keep visitors waitin[...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

The Ideapolis Turns Christmas on its Head

Décor Themes, Design Studio

Art house SOFTlab of NYC creates INvertical tree made of 1,200-plus LED lights, then hangs it upside down above Siam Center’s atrium.

Familiarity is evidently not what Thailand’s Siam Center: The Ideapolis was going for when it collaborated with award-winning New York-based art house SOFTlab on its INvertical installation. To call the sculpture an upside-down Christmas tree [...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...

The Art of Play

Décor Themes, Design Studio

Who knew that recycled toys and sporting goods could make as good decorations as baubles and lights to trim a Christmas tree?

When you say something out loud, it starts to become real. The marketing team at Downtown Silver Spring in Washington (DC), USA, is just fine with that. “Re-Imagining the Holidays” is the celebration that it sponsors annually in partnership [...] Tactics Subscribers Read More...