05.11.2020
Glamour Shopping Week 2020 successes from a B2B perspective
The Glamour Shopping Week is considered the largest retail partnership in the German media landscape, and has been driving fashion fans to “shop until they drop” for many years. This October, ECE participated in the event for the first time at a total of 80 shopping centers throughout Germany. In this blog interview, Michael Latz, ECE Project Manager Events, reveals how the strategic partnership came about, how it benefits tenants and investors, and whether ECE will be taking part again next year.
The Glamour Shopping Week is probably the most effective discount and promotional campaign in the German retail sector. It is organized by the fashion and lifestyle magazine Glamour, which is published by the global media company Condé Nast. What makes this event special from a customer’s perspective is that many well-known and popular retailers participate and offer cardholders attractive discounts – for an entire week. Glamour succeeded in bringing the who’s who of both brick-and-mortar and online retail on board with this program.
How does the Glamour Shopping Week work?
Glamour readers receive their personal “Glamour Shopping Card” with the October issue and can use it to receive discounts and gifts from participating retailers. And this year, the card also opened the doors to an exclusive VIP experience in our centers for the first time, with goodies, discounts, and a raffle in the 80 participating ECE shopping centers throughout Germany. The special thing about us as ECE is that we have many of the brands that were offering cardholders special deals grouped together in one place at our centers.
A total of 176 participating brands
This October, a total of 176 brands from a variety of industries participated in the event. Obviously fashion, shoes, and cosmetics were heavily represented. But partners from sectors such as electronics, home accessories, and health also joined in, as well as food and beverages. Even the hotel chain Motel One took part. The Glamour Shopping Week is open to any brand that is related to a modern and cool lifestyle – and our shopping centers bring all of this together in an ideal way.
Online retailers are also on board, because whether they’re brick-and-mortar, online, or both depends on the partner. We want to offer our customers all the benefits of enjoying their Glamour shopping experience at an ECE center. Since this collaboration with Glamour is a partnership that will be with us for the next few years, we are also going to integrate our Digital Mall into the event much more strongly in the future. This year, it already served as a digital display window for the participating centers and stores.
How the strategic B2B partnership came about
In recent years, the Glamour Shopping Week became increasingly important and popular among stores and customers at our centers. Since we always tailor our center marketing activities to our centers, tenants, and customers as much as possible and in the process, always take current events and trends into account, we came up with the idea for the now implemented partnership.
The Munich-based Condé Nast publishing house has enjoyed an excellent reputation for decades – thanks to magazines such as Glamour, Vogue, or GQ, which are extremely well-known and widely circulated. These magazines are widely read by customer groups with an affinity for shopping. These publications also feature advertising by major brands in the upper and medium price segments. This is a good indication of how confident brands are in the appeal of these magazines, but also in the target audience. This makes the event a complete package consisting of an attractive target audience, brand participation, and the reputation of the publishing house.
ECE reached a large audience with an affinity for shopping
We enjoyed a tremendous response throughout Germany – both ECE as a whole and each individual center on its own. Our presence in Glamour meant that the participating centers were marketed throughout Germany. The magazine has a circulation of almost one million. We had eleven pages in the corresponding issue of Glamour and were able to reach a large audience with an affinity for shopping. For the first time, we brought all our centers closer together in our B2C marketing and marketed ourselves collectively, instead of each center individually for itself. We were featured on the website, social media profiles, and in the Glamour Shopping Week app – showcasing our centers, what we offer, and the added value we provide. On top of that, we also conducted local media activities. Each individual center also ran its own social media ads, poster campaigns, print advertising, and radio advertising. We did all of this to say “hey folks, come to our center, our retailers and we are participating in the Glamour Shopping Week!”
Increased footfall despite the coronavirus
The feedback from tenants has also been very positive. We were able to increase footfall by 11.6 percent compared to the previous week. Unfortunately, there’s no point in comparing this figure with the previous year, because the pandemic is obviously having an impact on footfall at the moment. Nevertheless, the fact that we as ECE very consciously decided to advertise this year – despite the coronavirus situation – is paying off within the limits of what’s possible. We are actively using the advertising funds to market our centers and our tenant partners and support them as best we can. The goal is to boost footfall numbers and highlight tenants to make people want to visit them during this challenging time.
Center tenants feel direct positive effect
This is no easy task in the era of the coronavirus. But our centers are perfectly equipped thanks to well-organized hygiene and infection prevention plans. ECE has implemented a comprehensive hygiene and infection prevention plan at all of its centers that was certified by an independent institute in order to keep visitors, customers, and employees safe.
This makes us a trailblazer in the market compared to other shopping center operators and also compared to shopping streets that aren’t managed centrally. Our decision to implement events in compliance with the coronavirus hygiene guidelines has been very well received by our investors and tenants. We want to motivate people to visit our centers again. Events like the Glamour Shopping Week act as real incentives and make people say yes, that’s why I’m going to pay the center a visit and support the businesses there! This means tenants directly see the impact of this event in their cash register.
Benefits for Condé Nast thanks to the partnership with ECE
The Glamour Shopping Week as an event also benefited from the partnership with ECE. On the one hand, there’s the B2B factor. A total of 80 participating shopping centers is, of course, a strong marketing argument for Condé Nast in negotiations with its partners. This obviously has an impact on the brand’s presence. Our centers all over Germany were decorated in pink and in the Glamour look for an entire week. The event was also covered across every channel – social media, radio, and print.
In addition, we advertised the event in cities of different sizes, including in small towns where you might not expect to find that much “glamour” at first. In these locations, a shopping center develops a completely different kind of appeal than, for example, in Berlin, where there are numerous places to shop and where people can participate in activities and events non-stop. In addition, issues of Glamour were available to purchase in every center. This allowed Condé Nast to penetrate completely new sales regions.
First partnership with shopping center operator
Here’s what the future holds for ECE and the Glamour Shopping Week: as a result of this collaboration, we are now a major part of an event that no other shopping center operator has ever done in this form before. This makes us a first mover in the market, and we have a strategy in place to build on this competitive edge going forward. This is a strategic partnership that offers bright prospects, hope, and a shared vision for the future. What’s the next level? That during the Glamour Shopping Week in 2021, we will offer customers an even better experience with more events and activities than was possible during the pandemic. This is how we want to further enhance the Glamour Shopping Week for brick-and-mortar retail.