Beltway Plaza Mall is an older center in Greenbelt, Maryland (suburb of Washington, DC) that started out as a strip center and was enclosed in the early 1960s. The mall had expanded over years and had lost much of its original uniqueness. Other malls and strip centers had moved into the community over the years erroding Beltway Plaza's customer base. The owners had planned further expansion and addition to the center with the mix of stores changing to "Off-Price" and Discount stores and the largest supermarket in the area being added to the mix as a new anchor store. The official regrand opening was planned for mid 1994.

The challenge:

Reintroduce the mall to the community as a place to shop that offered value to customers while reminding the community the mall was part of their everyday life. A secondary challenge was the samll budget available to promote the mall.

The mall needed to overcome an image it did not fit in the community any longer. Residents polled agreed many of their neighbors worked there, but they didn't shop there any longer.

Solution:

A black and white print campaign was designed called, "Valued Names & Friendly Faces". The idea was to promote Beltway Plaza as the place to shop for savings since they now had "Value" stores with reconized names and their neighbors were the friendly faces they see everyday helping them to make selections.

Using the store owners and managers a collage was designed of black and white photos depicting each owner/manager doing their respective business in the mall, ie. selling clothing, jewelry, shoes, cards, etc.

The collage image first appeared on buses traveling within the community, and was backed up with a raido spot featuring several merchants with the dialoge changing periodically.

The new image of the the mall was so successful they continued the idea with a color print campaign for Christmas. The success of "Valued Names & Friendly Faces" was seen in a marked increase in sales throughout the mall.

Collateral Developed:

• Advertising posters
• Radio campaign
• TV campaign - won award
• Newsletter for training associates leading to launch
• Print and direct mail campaign
• Bus sign