The power of play: marketers up their game to reach ever-busier parents and their children.

AuthorLogan, Rebecca
PositionNC TREND: Makeovers for malls

Shopping-center owner CBL is teaming with Fisher-Price for play areas in 18 MALLS across the U.S. Asheville was among the first three to get one.

In the ever-so sage words of Taylor Swift: players gonna play, play, play, play, play. OK, so Swift might not be talking about small children. But savvy marketers are. They know that wherever kids gather en masse, so do their parents. And they are making sure their messages are there, too, by putting products everywhere from mall play areas to shelves of pretend grocery stores.

Doing so can pay off, says John Meroski, president and CEO of the Fayetteville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, which sponsors a play area at Cross Creek Mall.

"Some ... [people] look at all those parents and kids and noise and see the Chuck E. Cheese of the mall," says Meroski. "But to me, that's a success.... The more people who are there, the more people who can learn something about the community--or at least get a break."

Mall owners also hope it means more people walk through their doors as they continue to battle the allure of online shopping. Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CBL & Associates Properties counts the Fayetteville mall and seven other North Carolina shopping centers among the 147 properties that it owns.

"For a mom with small energetic children, what better experience can we offer than an inviting place for her kids to engage, learn, play and expend a little energy?" CBL spokeswoman Stacey Keating says. "Non-retail amenities such as play areas are a critical part of our overall development of a property."

Miniature mallgoers in Asheville are expending that energy on giant replicas of items their parents or grandparents could actually buy them. CBL's Asheville Mall--which used to have an unbranded, nature-themed play area--unveiled a new one in November designed to look like a giant toy box filled with Fisher-Price products.

Grabbing the attention of today's busy...

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