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The mall messenger

SALLY HERTZ SAYS EVERY MALL SHOULD MAKE MORE ROOM F0R SPONSORSHIPS

By Steve McLinden

Retailers are not the only ones seeking more-lucrative uses for their spaces these days. Landlords are too. And over the past few years, the sale of sponsorships and ad space in the halls of their malls and lifestyle centers has emerged as a handy way to amplify the commercial potential of a shopping center. It was just such a promotional push, in fact, that helped bring forth the dedicated sponsorship-marketing positions several retail REITS and mall management groups have established. And this is what has put Sally Hertz, formerly an executive at Simon Property Group, in her new sponsorship-generating role at third-party management firm Jones Lang LaSalle Retail. Hertz, who helped engineer Simon’s highly successful “mall as the medium” marketing concept during her tenure there, has joined Jones Lang LaSalle Retail as vice president of sponsorship marketing. “This company recognizes the tremendous value of impacting the consumer at the point of sale,” said Hertz, who assumed the newly created post in December. “And the sky is the limit on what we can do.”

Although Jones Lang LaSalle Retail oversees a handful of high-profile centers, such as Atlanta’s Atlantic Station, its primary focus is on managing and leasing smaller regional malls in such secondary markets as Auburn, N.Y.; Flint, Mich.; and Waterloo, Iowa, where significant wells of untapped sponsor potential exists, says Greg Maloney, president and CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle Retail. “And right now only the premier centers are getting the hard look for sponsorship opportunities, but we believe there is a wide variety of opportunities in the B-market sector,” he said. “A lot of people shop these centers.”

With her combination of shopping center contacts and business seasoning, Hertz was an “exceptional” find, Maloney says. By her own account, Hertz simply fell into marketing and promotions. Fresh out of the University of Vermont, where she studied merchandising and textile design, Hertz landed a job as an assistant manager with specialty clothier Cherry, Webb & Touraine, at University Mall, in Burlington, Vt. On her second day Hertz attended a merchants’ meeting where she proffered several promotional ideas during a marketing brainstorm session. The mall manager was so impressed that he sought her out the next day to tell her the mall needed a marketing director. He hired Hertz, and her marketing career took off.

After Simon acquired University Mall and integrated Hertz into the organization, she spent eight years at Simon in various positions. The mall-as-the-medium program she launched during her stint as Simon’s vice president of mall marketing and business development benefited the bottom line to the tune of $6.4 million, according to Simon. Hertz directed Simon’s marketing and business development at 18 New England retail centers with a combined 15 million square feet of retail space. “I have been where the rubber meets the road and have learned from the very best, and that has given me a great foundation,” she said. “It is exciting to take some of that knowledge and expertise and translate it to this organization.”

Sponsorship marketing, as a rule, is tailored toward a captive mall audience and manifests itself in backlight displays, signage, video screens, product samplings, special events and naming rights, generally in common areas but also on center exteriors. It can also be seen in slightly less conventional places, such as food court tray liners and mall staircases. The products and services it promotes are practically limitless, from cell phones to sodas, from gift cards to credit cards and from hotel deals to hospital stays.

Some promotions can be networked through several properties. In fact, one of Simon’s best-known mall-as-the-medium ventures was OnSpot Digital Network, a broadband media channel that airs promotions on high-definition plasma displays throughout the firm’s higher-tier properties. In some cases, sponsorship marketing can literally be child’s play. “Children’s play areas have become a great point for involvement, especially for hospitals and their pediatric wings,” Hertz said. “It gets the [hospitals’] message out to consumers and provides them an opportunity to position themselves as community leaders.” Programs that address childhood obesity are among the more commonly promoted hospital services at play areas.

Jones Lang LaSalle Retail, part of Chicago-based real estate services and money-management giant Jones Lang LaSalle, is the largest third-party shopping center manager in the U.S., with about 60 regional malls across its 36 million-square-foot portfolio. Because those centers vary greatly in size and scope, sponsorship-marketing initiatives will be designed accordingly, says Hertz. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all business by any means,” she said. “We will still be using some traditional on-mall vehicles, but we’ll also do customized marketing programs tailored to the specific properties.” Customization is crucial, because it helps bring out the centers’ local flavor and texture, says Hertz. “And what a local team can’t build, we will build for them,” said Hertz. “There won’t be 40 different programs out there, but there will be a common thread.”

Jones Lang LaSalle Retail’s centers have more latitude to cater to a wider variety of promotional clients than has the typical REIT, which by nature is more focused on national tenants and on quicker return on investment, says Maloney. “This will help put us ahead of the game in the third-party business,” he said. “These types of opportunities are something our clients have been asking us for.” Though the typical secondary-market mall is smaller, it often functions as a central gathering point for the community, which presents even greater captive-market possibilities than large-market properties, says Hertz. Moreover, as more advertisers and companies seek out promotional opportunities apart from traditional media, “more and more media buys are being made in the shopping environment,” Hertz said. “It’s a perfect place for this activity because [shoppers] are in a perfect position to receive this message, and much of that message can be built into and around the environment.”

Often, consumers strolling through a mall are not consciously aware that messages are being conveyed, but over time, impressions do leave their mark, she says.

Part of Hertz’s job will be to keep a close watch, through research and demographic studies, for that latest hot product or sponsorship venue. Her approach to centers and sponsors will be open-ended: “I am asking them how we can help with what they want to accomplish.” Hertz says she has always loved the fluid nature of retailing. “It is exciting and always moving, always changing,” she said. In fact, retail and marketing seem to run in the Hertz bloodline. Her father was a zone manager for Sears, Roebuck and Co.’s Mexican operations. Her sister is a sales manager at a Vermont JCPenney store. One of her college-age sons is studying communications and marketing while another is leaning toward becoming a marketing major.

So what does Hertz do for fun when the day is done? “In this business, your fun is your work,” she said, “and that is particularly true for me now as I pull together this important piece of business for Jones Lang LaSalle Retail.”